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I was the embodiment of a Negro art
Falling under the spell of my own curse
I was the slave and defender of the African arts
and every tree every space of ground
seems to be roaring in chorus with a Christian act
Almost every one in Africa agrees that it is important to worship God,
But how best to worship him is the most diverse of arts
All Muslims worship God at a mosque but yet each mode of worship differ
Each belief differ like the Christian religion,
every one call one God but the name and projection differ
Here doors and window were opened gently aside
As I studies the African religion arts
The rhythm were pounding inside of me
In my legs in my head the spirit chanted
Making me want to whistle,
Scream and laugh and cry
At these enraged native blast
From one church to the next, from one cultural background to the other
The hundreds upon hundreds of churches in Africa differ, their arts of worship differ
The law and belief embraces the culture of the worshipers, with different names given onto the God
of our gods
I breathed in the odor of our dead
The sound in the note echoing in my head
the flutes and penny whistle music
Rocks me back and forward within
the past to the present
and swung from side to side
In a whirlwind of sounds,
As I studied the African religion arts
African depends widely on oral tradition, and accepts wholly the arts handed down by our ancestors,
the traditional religion practices centuries older than the birth of Christ, found forms in the
juju-man's arts,
I think about my surname OMOSUN and I think about the arts of the African shrines, and as the name
by it meaning implies I am a son of juju pot
How long has that name lived, how many generations of us are Christians and how many of us are
Muslims who yet feel free to study the arts,
Immersed in the act of ones art
I sensed it time to sing of the past
And carry my text deep in all regions
To recreate the rhythms of our ancient pact-
I trove to seize the inmost form
Searching past what we see and hear
Toward the eternal Zulu dream
How does an African project God, a true native idea of God, most of us believe that God is a white
man, because the shape of the man sculpted in the cross is white, his nose is a white man nose, his
delicate limbs are white, and the pictures standing in the place of worship is white, everything good
seems to be projected in form of white as the missionaries has always wanted
picture of a child of Christmas
or a white mother holding her child
well it may be both.
Weeping a tear drop, here she beckoned to me,
I suppose to Do same
easy though was hers to fathom
assuming I was as one with her Christian fantasy
she didn't notice the turmoil ragging inside me
by playing a foreign role she wanted me to play.
And yet as I kneel against my will
my mind was creating a picture of it own
to inspire the continental dream in me
Africanizing everything in my fantasy
to recreate the nigger bible
and hear the dark blood beat
re celebrating the son of Christmas
in a color same as I
But who is God, to me God is a form hovering over me, the existence the bible told me about, yet
what is the bible to me, the bible reveal a thoughts process, the personality I ought to worship, the
words that asked for my choice, and talk about things that will happen, things happening today,
things prophesied,
THE END OF TIME
Searching for a world
with a penis that yet had no sperm
The diviners brought me a virgin older than I
To make me a man
before the appointed time.
Cut into the fragment of an ancient stone,
I found these the record bears
Upon an old scrap book century older than Christ-
A manuscript I created within
Brought the past to bear
Right into the naked tribe
I found the great rebirth
Do I believe the bible, should we, is it really the word of God, how can we find out, how do I know, so
many question yet a single answer, has the bible ever lied in foretelling the future, are nation not
rising against nation now, what happened in Somalia what is happening in Sudan right this moment
didn't the bible say so, there will be food shortage if not why do people eat grass, will the united state
change of government effect the outcome of the suicide revenge that will be recreated, could
"Abiola" victory had changed the Nigerian situation, WRONG nothing can change god's prophesy
Bidding adieu she gave it to me
a bible to give me light
a touch to hold in a world of doubt
and follow the steps of saints before me.
The picture of her hands on my forehead
the last act of prayer before her demises
the first amen my voice did echo
lasted forever in memory lane
OK I believe in the bible then why do I like carrying my name about, why?
The bible believe in one God so does the Muslim and the traditional worshipers, he is refereed to as
the father of the nation of all gods and forms, the juju man’s arts is not evil it is a belief practice that
embraces the acts handed down orally by our own lineage, the names given to us is a way to remind
us of our roots, a true African ought to be proud of his roots, and I AM
Inspired by legends of the tribe
To the gods of the Klan
I offer blood sacrifice on a shrine
To make the arts my own,
To study the poetry of the tribe
I bruised my feet on the Klan
To make me the act of my heritage
Before I touch the forbidden things of the tribe,
To appease the temper of the gods of the tribe
Least they strike the poet on the tribe
I made the tribal poetry sounds the drum
in a dialect similar to my birth place
READ EXODUS 3:15 the God I knew is the God of my forefathers, he is the God the Muslim called
Allah, he is the God I knew in the bible, but! Don't laugh if I tell you this he is not the God I knew by the
juju man's art
To swim in all one's overall
And find out how it feels
To dive into a world of letters
And fish out the secrets of the deep
To stand in front of a mirror
And see myself a god
I try to make these act your arts
And make the spirit live-
To switch of the air-condition
And feel the heat of the hold
To take off your sanders
And walk bare foot in the wood
I try to make this act like god
And may the spirit live-
Till I do that; words are just words to me
Till I do that my act is just an act
Not art but art like a black America with a Mic
Calling himself a nigger
Urdeen Sylvester 2004
Hiss of a laureate(on Achebe)
Forging the map with bouncy hips
Thumb sized nipples found the track
And the lust for peace urged the women forward
Stampeding through the cloud of shame
A hundred feet through oblivion
Beamed alive across the African dunes
Flabby breasts and behind display
Playing along the solo lines
The president in heat made the killing creep
A nation once loved now has no face
The incident sponsors the rape of a nation
The epic fruits devised by the laureate
Urdeen Sylvester 2004
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