Blinding lights

In the city of blinding lights;
all the black guys with the white girls,
colour blind, love blind....

there too goes my baby,
and also into the leaking roof church,
where they go down to the river to pray,
singing negro spiritual songs,
after their fat bellies are satiate with rice and peas,
or was it peas and rice?

Down to the river to pray,
to lay down their burdens upon invisible Lord,
after burdening visible poor,
with offertory for church fund, prayer fund and rapture fund.

In the city of blinding lights;
all the black people, devoid of the culture of who they are,
all the white people, devoid of the memory of where they are....

there too goes my baby,
and also into the reality television screen,
where they sacrifice the dignity of their childhood,
and onto Jersey's shore,
they gyrate and player hate,
or perhaps did they play upon hate,
while gyrating upon the beautiful stranger?

Into the reality television screen,
where the parents become the children,
and the children the parents,
and we are no longer sure which is which or who begat who.

In the city of blinding(not blinging) lights,
I was a man, walking into the light, crow perched upon shoulder.
We were fully alive and yet fully dead,
we went down to the river to pray;
with our white women(there too goes my baby),
singing negro spiritual songs,
but in the white man's language,
our fat bellies satiate,
from the rapture fund and the prayer fund and the church fund.

Down by the river,
water turned into wine,
sister light gone, brother darkness here,
and we too became devoid;
not only of the memory of who we were
but also of the memory of where we were.

Colour oh colour,
where is your difference now?

Dickson E Wasake
5 March 2011