Each drop of blood seeped back to his veins.

It seemed that the Ethiopians

Rose from the river beds,

Came from the shadows of mountainsides,

With eyes of stone and dread,

And Baratieri’s generals, sensing

The beginning of the end,

Succumbed to the deafening whisper,

Surrender, surrender.

Remember this: it was not one of Ethiopia,

But Ethiopia as one;

It was not part of the sum that won,

But part of everyone.

It was not the heart on its own,

But its veins that pumped on.

It was not just the warriors,

But where they were all from.

Remember this: how the story washed

Across the continent enslaved,

Flooded with the story of Adwa

In a whispered tidal wave,

From Kenya to Senegal,

From Morocco to the Gambia.

The liberation began in Adwa, 1896,

And ended in South Africa.

The Gilt of Cain

The Gilt of Cain

Here is the ask price on the closed position,

History is no inherent acquisition.

For here the technical correction upon the act,

A merger of truth and in actuals fact,

On the spot, on the money – the spread.

The dealer lied when the dealer said,

The bull was charging, the bear was dead,

The market must calculate per capita, not head.

And great traders acting in concert, arms rise,

As the actuals fraught on the sea of franchise

Thrown overboard into the exchange to drown

In distressed brokers’ disconsolate frown.

In accounting liquidity is a mounting morbidity

But raising the arms with such rigid rapidity . . .

Oh, the reaping, the raping rapacious fluidity,

The violence, the vicious and vexed volatility.

The roaring trade floor rises above crashing waves:

The traders buy ships, beneath the slaves.

Sway machete back, sway machete again,

Crick crack cut back the Sugar Rush, Cain.

The whipsaw, it’s all, and the whip saw it all,

The rising market and the cargo fall.

Who’ll enter ‘Jerusalem’, make the margin call for Abel?

Who will kick over the stall and turn the table?

Cain gathers cane as gilt-gift to his land,

But whose sword of truth shall not sleep in hand?

Who shall unlock the stocks and share,

Break the bond, the bind unbound – lay bare

The truth? Cash flow runs deep but spirit deeper,

You ask the question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

I answer the best way I can, through laws.

My name, my brother, Wilberforce.

Applecart Art

Applecart Art

Upset the art, smash the applecart,

Sell it for firewood to warm hearts.

Don’t join the loop, the loop troupe,

Don’t hump through their hoops,

Or get stuck on sticky peaks of double speak.

I’m clocking the click of the clique.

I swim with the shallow.

If they demand I be deep,

Though, I can hold my breath

Deeper than sleep, deeper than death.

Upset the art, crash the snapplecart,

Sell it for cash and a brand new start.

Turn cart wheels on the art wheels,

If that’s how your heart feels.