Preview #8, Journal of Pan African Studies, Poetry Issue

Preview #8, Journal of Pan African Studies, Poetry Issue

Guest Editor, Marvin X

Anthony Mays, South Korea

OBAMA

Articulate, dreamy, foreign child

The classic mulatto, infectious smile

Malcolm and Martin rolled into one

Mandingo’s scrapping bastard son!

Obama!

Styled his Gullah wife in a corporate blouse

Did a buck dance for bankers to the White House

Bailed out greedy bankers with a juicy treat

Did a Negro’s tap dance for Wall Street.

Obama!

Denounced his father, forsook with his preacher,

Praises robber barons and his Harvard teacher*

A tragic mulatto with blemished past

Wasn’t the first and won’t be the last!

Obama!

“Change” he preached - for “Change” people wait

More bailouts, tax and police state!

More of the same but in black face,

Just another national disgrace!

Obama!

Rescued the gangsters in private planes

While the jobless and homeless felt the pains

Silly voters he never meant to serve!

He’s the house Negro for the Federal Reserve.

Obama!

Ward Connally would say “amen!”

Stepin Fechet would call his act a sin!

A perfect puppet to deceive and pretend!

Obama!

Begs a bailout with tin cup in hand

Around his neck, a golden band

Dislikes elephants, but claims the donkey,

Begging like the organ grinder’s monkey!

Obama!

-------------

l Barack Obama’s instructor in university was none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, globalist, Trilateral Commisssion, Council of Foreign Relations, etc.

--Anthony Mays

I'm presently living in Korea for the past twelve years, my "soul on ice," as Cleaver wrote. I've read your poetry and was inspired by it, along with the writings of previous masters like Aime Ceasaire, Damas, Claude McKay, Baraka, Frances W. Harper, etc., etc.... God willing, I hope to shake your hand, Marvin X, before I surrender the ghost.

Felix Orisewike Sylvanus, Lagos, Nigeria

Farewell… to Lagos

Mother,

Leaving assumes the hope

This night is too long

I do not know when the sun will rise

But the sea breeze, the sea breeze being so

Friendly came to tell me always to stay a few day

I have to rush to the top hill

Do not mind the heavy night

I have torchlight I can trace my dream

If moon too refuses to come

The drum is rolling already, the drum

That dance tomorrow around is rolling already

I have to rush there and pick my part

Do not say I should stay till dawn; dawn

Cannot come rain has covered the heaven

O’ home, give me no pet; not this time

I will be happy without you

Father,

I’m glad I would never part a tear

No time for tear either

My feet is out there waiting for the journey

O’ brother – sister, friend of my green day

None knew you but to love you

--Felix Orisewike Sylvanus

I am Felix Orisewike Sylvanus by name. I live in Lagos, Nigeria where I’m currently running a degree programme in English language. I was born in Akure, Ondo State of Nigeria in 1982 I have written two anthology of poetry awaiting publication. I also write in other genres of literature.

Kamaria Muntu , United Kingdom

Life Expectancy
for Abdul

Daryl Grigsby's question: is 55 old age for a Black man?

Start with this
there are no fritters on the burner
there will never be smells
ripe and holy as Sunday morning
corn muffins, kidney stew, tomato slices
on a Mingus morning

there will never be you on the porch
a fly brush of early red sun against your locs
the rustle of crisp newspapers
quicksilver like an Eagle’s span of wings
as you pause to peer through an October sky
just a grinnin

you should not have come back
you said it yourself
there was still the itch of soda lake
beneath the thin cloth of your shirt
in your sweat
you missed the coffee trees and waterfalls
the wetlands and the women

you were no romantic though
said you often heard the booming blue wail
days, nights, years of a people’s torture
riding the Pangani coast
ghost children in the salt pans
blood curdling on cliffs
fringing palms and waterbirds
still you missed Tanzania
you had found a place there
some peace

there will never be a memory
like a snapped cord
that says I could have been with you then
me with my small babies
and younger than you
my own impossible struggles and plans

could have been the cigarettes you smoked
or some dream flamed to ashes
black man you were trying so hard
only wanting a little kindness in your life
a house of certain meal and brick
cashmere horns in the midnight hour

at 45 your legs wobbled
and yellow diamonds shattered to dust
underneath black and white keys
that ushered in your last call
again the heart not outdistancing the heart
the medicine beyond the grasp
the elder women gathering to bury another son

and I don’t know if I could have turned your pain
into something we could have lived with
because there was one more call
and then no more
and when I heard
some part of life slipped dark and heavy from my soul

start with this
there is comfort in the way of things
hiccups of breath then quiet then breath again
Abdul, you are in the marketplace
you are wind and color
dancing with the women of Mulala

Women of Mulala: Tanzanian market women

Kamaria Muntu is an African-American Mother, Poet and Writer with extensive experience as a political organizer throughout the Southern United States. Her writing experience includes plays, essays, press releases, research reports and grants. Her activist experience focuses Black liberation and human rights. She recently founded her own production company; Rightimb films. Muntu currently resides in the United Kingdom.

L. E. Scott, Aotearoa/New Zealand

GOING TO THE VILLAGE

My brother

Nobody speaks of you

You sleep now in earth dust

A mound covering you

With no earthly name

You left the city

To hide your death in the forest

Even the witch-doctor

Will not harvest your bones

Village women wailing of your death

From across the road

Fearing what could escape from your death hole

Songs of sorrow hide in fear

Of your return from the city

My brother

Nobody speaks of you

Your death has turned love upside down

No animals will be sacrificed

For your journey home

Your father’s door has been marked

With signs of witchcraft

There is talk of burning fire with fire

Even in death

Fear makes you unsafe

The villagers are gathering stones

Not to mark your grave

It is not safe here for you

They say your death

Is as a thief at night

Coming among them in their beds

My brother

Nobody bathed you in death

They feared the wetness of you

Those who gathered

Came only to bury you

Their silence like your death

We have been shameful

And even now

We cannot speak your name

My brother

Forgive us for our fear and ignorance

In time

Your name will be spoken

My brother

On AIDS Day

The world will hear your name

--L. E. Scott

L. E. Scott is an African American jazz poet, currently based in
Aotearoa/New Zealand. He is on the staff of "Tu Mai", a magazine for the
indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Scott has had a number of
books published, the latest being a collection of poems entitled "Bones",
published by Five Islands Press of Melbourne University, Australia. He
has also had work published in two recent anthologies, "Fingernails Across
The Chalkboard" and "Gwendolyn Brooks and Working Writers", both published
by Third World Press.

Chinwe Enemchukwu, Florida USA

Diasporans

Sizzling like whistling kettles

Running out of steam,

Despite the heightened heat

from the stoked fire beneath.

Fire stoked daily by bad winds

Hurling from the homeland.

Deadly winds, brutal as the harmattan

Fanning the fire and scorching the skin

of diasporans already double stretched thin.

The whistle, now a mournful whine

Emitting from once courageous souls

Weary from encompassing hopelessness,

Warding off hardship in the host land,

Terrified by surrounding wickedness.

Saddened by frequent untimely passing.

Plain finding it ever harder to stand

The whirlwind life of foreign lands.

Still they struggle to increase the pace,

Trying much harder to transform the race,

Straining daily to get it in stride,

And by so doing, surely control the tide,

And with that success, make it to shore,

From all indications, having tried for sure.

They beat themselves to messy pulp

Taking more than possible in a gulp.

They whistle and sizzle wildly, blowing

Twirling steam in an urgent puff,

Scorching white puff, nothing more.

Like whistling kettles working ever so hard

To give more steam, scorching steam, words

Useless for the problem on hand

But ever so harmful nonetheless.

--Chinwe Enemchukwu

Chinwe Enemchukwu is a pharmacist by profession, and a mother of six adult children. I am a Nigerian immigrant and have lived in the United States, by way of Florida, for over thirty years. I count myself as part of the Nigerian and Igbo Diaspora and participate in numerous activities involving these groups. My poems reflect on the current socio-economic and political situation in Nigeria.

Mabel Mnensa, South Africa

Mamlambo’s Helping Hand

Deep down

at the bottom of the motherland

it rolls out its hand

and says devil I be

rolls out the woman I should be,

canned and proud.

Rips out my heart that dare protest

the arms, legs that dare contest

what remains of me

is little grains so close to the sea

build into female perfect humility.

A big vast emptiness

where my heart once was

I try to find the answer to my sores

but the great Mamlambo roars over my calls

and sings

“hush little one now gone are your flaws

now we can find you a man

to feel up all your holes”.

--Mabel Mnensa

I am interested in the inherent power that poetry, especially performance poetry, has. My Masters dissertation, Speaking Out: African Orality and Post-Colonial Preoccupations in Selected Examples of Contemporary Performance Poetry examines the common preoccupations that emerge in South African and American poetry. Sarah Jones and Gil Scott-Heron were among the American poets whose work I explored in the paper that I completed last year.

Submissions accepted until October 15. Send to: jmarvinx@yahoo.com, include brief bio and pic. MS Word attachment