Tag Archives: Dub poem

Madness Tight on the Heads of the Rebels

It is a new year, and I must soon get back to shameless self-promotion by reposting my poems… but first I have to begin the year with some Reggae-talk. One of the reasons I finally came around to poetry is because I liked Reggae—and one reason I like Reggae is L.K.J.

Linton Kwesi Johnson does amazing poetry. I don’t care for his leftist politics but his verse is more interesting and intense than that boring, writerly tripe you find in academic journals and the margins of well-known effete liberal publications. The first-class dub musicians backing him up add another dimension to his poetry. I just learned that he came up with the basslines for these dub poems. His work is focused and powerful in a way that Amiri Baraka’s psycho-drivel never was.

 

 

Revelation 3:7

Rootical Tabernacle

REVELATION: three, seven – the Kingdom of Heaven

The key to unlocking both glory and shame.

Philadelphia knows He’s arriving in newness

inscribing on foreheads His city and name.

(Though it could be on tee shirts or baseball caps, true –

unless someone takes time to decipher the text…

is it Greek? Aramaic? Amharic? What next?)

Don’t be mad – it’s not me but old John who’s to blame.

Of names and on numbers of Savior and Beast

I have long been a-pondering, trembling, wondering

mushroom-cloud raptures in mind’s eye a-thundering.

How will we get to that marriage-day feast?

Will my garment be ready or filthy with fall-out?

(The song says His blood will make clean if we call out

in faith for forgiveness, in humble repentance

believing that grace will abolish the sentence.)

You may wish my rhyme to be likewise abolished.

Bear with me. Forgive me, I grant it’s not polished.

I speak what I feel and I write when I’m able;

which brings us to heavenly thoughts gastronomic:

what dishes we’ll meet as we dine at that table-

strict Jewish? Angelic? Or pre-Abrahamic?

Shall they serve us from silver or common ceramic?

Being clay to the potter, an unfinished vessel

I leave all these questions for others to wrestle.

Yet there’s still one more realm I explore in conjecture:

the sounds at that gathering.  Classical?   Rock?

Unending revivalist Christian refrains?

Shall we headbang in heaven with glorified brains?

Psychedelic/Psychotic…? or  Handel and Bach?

(Lighten up. It’s the end of my bible-school lecture.

You’ve seen a few rooms of my castle-in-air,

and we ALL know it’s reggae  they’re playing up there…)

IMAGE CREDIT: melekmediahouse