PING PONG LIBERATION

And there are days I pine for your clay idols and
Banana leaf trinkets
Dirt brown charms on hips and limbs
That I picture swaying in a manfull wind
a righteous gyration for our lords.

Where did you go to speak to them?
What were the signs you followed?
Did you wait for a full moon?
Did you watch for the blooms of the Masale?
Did Maanki lead a procession up the mountain?
Tell me Mkamasawe.

There are nights I stay up
dreaming of darker, older nights
torches and tongues flickering in the distance
You and I a few hundred feet
behind a few hundred faithful
and a forest darker, older than this sleeplessness

Was your high priest a love sick priestess?
Did she slaughter the sins of the tribe
into a few ox blood drops and a feast of mdafu?
Did you drink the blood?
For protein or purity?
Did you like it?

You cannot recognize me anymore and
Not because I have changed
I have questions you can not answer
Limp on that bed like that
You only speak in groans and whimpers and ululations now
and the odd smile

I wanna know about your youth
But I never may
I wanna know how it felt to be a child
when our glory
was all glory
The gods do not allow us to live long enough to ever savour
the here and now
So we dream of yesterdays
And learn from tomorrows

But where did you meet grandfather?
At a TANU Youth League rally?
At a dance by the Weru Weru?
At the German School where you became Lutheran?
tell me Bibi

I think there is a pang for libations
floating inside all of us black ones
and we drown it with Red bull and Jaggermeister
the things you know you’ll never know will kill you.