PASSAGE

Beyond the door of No Return
Foot blooded sand clotted
Baptised in bilge and vomit still
Someone's daughter on my shoulder
Broken by soldiers raped by sailors
Her body on mine like irons on wood
Neither on land nor in water
Not alive nor yet dead

how will the gods ever find her

When they threw her from the ship
Her baby swam from her loins
And became me

Her needy ghosts came
Her chains gnawing my ankles daily
Never giving up never give up

oh gods free me from these ghosts

Piled high like ants on dung in sun
But there is no sun nor dry thing
Am I (I Am) Am I (I Am) Am I
Salt wet wings high screeching
Delirious screeching knee deep in sewage

If I was fowl I'd fly away
If I was fish slip free
How can I remember myself
Or a green sea of kola odum and ebonies
When memories are agony

Are these slashed legs lashed limbs mine
Does it matter who owns this flesh
When all flesh perishes
I Am I Am I Am
Let rats have my meat
Or the beasts of the sea

Let demon voices squeak
The gulls squeak and boards
Their beatless drums
Their blade thin grins
Their red eyes red with hatred

For I will find myself
With payment of my blood as fare
For I Am I Am I Am

Fore and aft
Beyond man sea and earth
In bondage
To a passage unhelmed by time

For god-minds designed us in their image
And these demons I mined in mine