Griots Poems | Examples

TO THE TASK AHEAD FOR OUR WRITERS

TO THE TASK AHEAD FOR OUR WRITERS

No one can write our story but us;
His story merely footnotes us:-
In the culture of the penned word,
We must personally ink ourstory;
Footnoting history’s keloid pains:-

In doing so, the rules must be ours
As opposed to those of anglophobia:-
In our midst, do we not have
Our own Prophets, Scribes, and Seers?
Do we not have our own worthy Griots?

Let us not write for their critics, but for ourselves,
Demonstrating mastery of the enforced language
Through which we must uniquely cipher flowing lines;
Deciphering coded lies from undeniable living truths:-
Can an indigenous fruit be a “native” of one that’s not?

President

Don’t be like that elephant that caused the infants
to slaughter one another indifferent to its posterity
he lifted the corrupt dropped the ripe and bullied 
the resolute warrior 

don’t be like the idiot hunter who kept his living prey
alive and aside to quench his thirst while being wildly
murdered to go free 

don’t be like that desert warrior who shunned the son
believed to be ambitious with no honor in spite of his
valor approved by all but who turned to close all doors 
to Dad running

don’t rely on griots foolish talks taking the kingdom as
a product of your wisdom when your breaking bones to
resting are begging

will you be wise enough to grasp Camus not walking
in front nor behind but sitting beside to help do with fair
choices of the people?
That will be your absolution here.

PS: read the poem “Those who read for” to complete your reading

Awake, Walking In Faith

Loneliness brings tears...
				Togetherness brings tears too:
				Despair can't bring joy...

With needles of pain
I crocheted emotions
into a web of depression
cocooning myself in defeat

Churning thoughts
shot a stone of memory
from the deepest cavern
of suppression echoing
the echo of an ancestral
Griots’ maxim:  I cried because
I had no shoes; until I met a man
who had no feet.

Aroused and uplifted
from the inner sanctum
of doubt, I awoke, arose
and took a walk into fields 
of gracious realities—walking 
free as I wanted and ought to be:
aware that my cup of grace overflows.

Lineage

Never forsake the lineage in which we
originated from because
the ancestors are watching us
Their eyes are on the sparrow
anticipating us to soar into
our excellence 
Wash ourselves in their royalty
while remembering they were 
kings and queens long before
they became slaves and strange fruit
Society wants to wipe the slate clean of
our heritage by pruning the limbs
of our family trees 
waiting in the shadows for the
opportunity to kill it at the root
We cannot allow someone else's antidote
poison us with amnesia that may
cause us to forget the power 
of our inheritance
We are much stronger
than they care to know
We must use our pens to flex the 
muscle of our minds
Granting permission to build strength 
enabling us to balance the truth
on our shoulders
Lets stand our ground and never fold
claim our titles as griots
and let our stories be told
It's up to us to lose the fear  
Use the ink in our veins to 
to go against the grain of
the lies they expect us to swallow
and washed down with our pride
--LaLa
©4-3-2020

Smiling With the Ancestors

Smile if I could
smile if I would
smile as I should…
I can see 
ancestors smiling
down on you and me…
They’re singing
for us to lean
on them when 
we feel weak
for they are 
with us
like living beings
giving what we seek
in our friend Jesus…
Being truly 
in this together
against the unruly
in the present weather
there’s still something
we hold
even though nature we
don’t control… 
We’re not mere bards
but today’s troubadours 
Griots of village yards…
Keys of faith’s hoping doors
singing tears of thanksgiving
and praising we’re still living…
still living…still living on
since the day we were born
for the ancestors laid the way
and left the footprints to trod
towards the change-coming day
As we continue trek onward
knowing this pitiful potus is not 
the boss…
In hell, his soul shall surely rot
for our Lord Jesus has risen
from the cross!
So smile…sea to sea
with the ancestors smiling
on both you and me
still down here foot-printing:
Hey…God will take care
of us;
And so will our brother…
Jesus.
So peace be still and fear
not…
Holy redemption is here
on the spot.

Poets That We Are

Poets That We Are…

Poets are umbilical cords—
chosen links of the pregnant mind
and its births—amniotic guardians
of the poetic descendent.

As mere servants of the word,
we cannot be more of an apostle
than that of: Humble.
Let us who write, worthily walk
in our own integrity;
man judges—The Most High chooses.

We’ve been blessed with the creativity
of the griots and muses of our own reality.
No longer must we let ourselves be led astray;
rather, let us forever write truth each blessed day.

When the keyboard, cobwebbed in silence,
ceases to ink, let not stillness miscarriage the word;
and may our creativity become like Lazarus.

Who Are We But Who We Are

Who Are WE but Who We Are…

We are the conscience of the heart;
custodians of its emotions—conjuring,
molding and etching its most sacred feelings
upon the canvas of time’s time;

We are devoted lexical midwives—
delivering depolarized doses
of liberated thoughts from wombs
of metrical, pregnant minds;

We are the dream catchers of the soul,
unflinching emissaries of truth’s truth,
unafraid—dispelling lies—exposing 
hypocritical cries;

We are the mourners
and revelers of nations; sages
standing strong, silently screaming,
stimulating sleeping souls:

We are poets—griots of the word.

Dance of Gladiators and Amazons

ah! ’tis blue azure greet’ng the dark maidens
dancers of the ancient drums of my warriors
yea! the ever-ready danc’ng mbari maidens
o, dancers amid the smooth-throat’d hunters –

’tis like an ever-flow’ng rhythmic drumm’ng
of my ageless clan where the rever’d eaglets
made the classic olympia in wing-drumm’ng
amid the love-rov’ng griots, pages and priests!

and your mother – the mother of the amazons
waits, waist-bent, amid the ev’r-wait’ng gray-hairs –
and your hunters naked, ready-pois’d with guns 
and panthers snarled under the scorch’ng sun-rays;

o, the gladiators and amazons came along my banks
ah, bring’ng this eternal dance-step to niger’s banks!

Two - O - One - Six

I heard, foremost; that you were grave,
then heard that you were excellent.

For by some ‘men’ you turned a slave,
who served them everywhere they went.

That you were grave: without remorse.
The foremost griots said loud and trite.
That you were grave and placed a curse,
on every man that tilled and tried - 
to make some bread to soothe his cause,
aft when again, our leaders lied.

That you were grave, ‘two’ ‘oh’ ‘one’ ‘six’
devoid (to them) of all things; sweet

For by some ‘men’ you turned a Lord
who struck their backs with whip and rod.

The New Griots--Pouring Down Raining Words

The New Griots—Pouring Down Raining Words
From the wombs
of our pregnant minds
may our charged words
drop like God’s tears
reaching the depths
of the precincts 
 of your souls
seeping like His raindrops
to swollen  roots
anchoring life anew
birthing thunderstorms
of revelations
missed in oral tradition—now 
staining sheets of thin pulp
with silent echoes—silent echoes
once etched in dry sand—time
unsheathing truth’s truth—unlocking 
opening doors and windows
into new souls—new souls
seeking those creative leaps of mind
of the new Griots—rain dancers
inking rhythmic words
flowing like a speaking river
meandering
   trials
                       tribulations
   traditions
                       peace
   love 
meandering Minerv-like 
between double clef river banks:

Come walk in the mist
of our rain—pitter pattering words
singing salient songs of life
showering selves in truth and glory.

Come, Let Us Beat the Ancestral Drum

COME, LETS BEAT THE ANCESTRAL DRUM

Sitting here flowing
through the meters of time
like a smooth spring stream
meandering through forest greens,
I peruse the many folds
of the caverns of this fluid mind of mine;
searching for words that would rhyme
to tell the stories of illustrious dreams.

Life can sometimes be void,
emotionless and quite stoic; but
such cannot be the condition or position
of the darker hued poet.

We too, have stories of old to be told too;
the eager minded needing to know.
So rise you mighty Griots; and
weave the tales of our great kings and queens.

Let us hail the coming of ages
of our beginnings here; landing
packed like sardines in a can---
we have still survived;

And now here we stand rooted in this land;
no longer shrouded by the veil of fear.
Body and Soul, we‘re still here;
a new day has dawned and we’ve arrived.

Come children, beat the ancestral drum:
Ba Dom! Ba Dom! Ba Dom! Dom! Dum!
Its Jubilee time!  Liberation time!  Beat the drum:
Ba Dom! Dom! Dom! De Dum! Dom Dum!
		
		The freedom bell has rung:
		Ba dom dom dom!

The African Cry

Mama Africa, 
Land of my ancestors' birth;
Source of all mankind, 
the once Shangri la of mother earth.

Stir up the spirit of the Mau-Mau in vibrato on the bongo.
Your ways are far higher than the crags of the Kilimanjaro. 
Let the cry for freedom rides the winds of the Serengeti,
 and the walls of segregation fall like confetti.

With careful utterances, 
ransack the minds of the pig-headed souls.
Uhuru milele! Milele bure!
Adamantly, gluttons deprive her black gold. 
In the villages, griots will invoke a new story.

Follow the way of the lion, 
and watch out for the hyenas.
When the rivers are dry in Tanzania, 
danger resides in the mud. 
Remember; when liberty is threaten in Somalia,
 freedom is written in blood.
Blood stained her crevices with love; 
black sons’ and black daughters’ blood.

For Neda

Neda is dead
Did anyone weep for Neda
Were all poets dumb
Or just blind to disbelief
Are we not griots
Pens of fire
Makers and drinkers of desire
What did we make when Neda expired?

One word from us
One twittered solitary word
Would drag the devils
That kill innocent dreams
That sterilize populations
With the blood of women
And wounded children
And lynch their glory
On the page.

Is Neda to die for nothing
That blood splattered pool
Of disgrace
A country must be a people's will
And swords must be
A poet's quill
I am tired of the law that kills
Neda was tired too
She gave her all to make it true!

The Mission

Let us write from dusk till dawn our grief upon a page
Let us cry for young loves gone like birds from a cage
We who are the social conscience of the world, a wage
Still due must now be paid ... this is the laureate's rage
And not the sorcery of praise. Poets feel keenly truths
That other mortals dare not see, and face living brutes
The sword too frail to kill, O great griots find your roots
The thunder behind us is the marching of deadly boots.

Let us pluck the lie from history's eye, and stand alone
To tell ... how love in one mortal blood for sins atone
When the ground around him shook and swell. No throne
Must miss the scathing scan of mad Medussa's stone,
We are the army of the weak, the people's final voice
Our genius is our gift, our gallant service is our choice,
Let us unfold the scroll of evil strategy laden with vice
Let us as poets pen for penitence and let the heart rejoice.

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