Black Jesus Has Nothing But Affection

By Rudolph Lewis

Bloodhounds circle a runaway & bay

hard-times are African—naked black,

Jesus eternally rope-tied to a stake

The guitar plunks a swinging blues lick

& our great plans of liberation evaporate

in French brandy & Cuban cigar smoke

Congo still has its river & Kenya its lakes

Ethiopia ancient pyramids & Ghana kinte

Our lives flow through mountains & deserts

Yet hoodoo merchant magicians sell thousands

of angels on the point of a pen, lounging in a flood

And, fundamentally, we solemnize the unforgivable

Day after day we hit the streets & barter

love like a ceo, hiding from God in fear—

His ark burdened with sugarcane in the wind

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4 November 2003