I shook and dissolved

into beams

of pride

and pain

as Neiel Israel spoke the line into existence;

 

“Every day a black man walks

He is like Jesus,

Terrified of crucifixion.”

 

He strides down Newbury Street

responding to the peripheral glances

of His fellow human beings with

a million dollar smile.

Fellow human beings who relate to Him

in no other aspect.

 

Marching to the melody

of sirens

signaling His inevitable

doom

as the mythical creatures

once did to heroes.

 

But He

is neither

Odysseus of Ithaca

nor Achilles the warrior.

It isn’t the war

of Troy

we are fighting.

 

He fears no Cyclops.

His heel is secure.

 

Yet He quakes

and shivers

at the sirens

that dissolve His Compton

and release His Princeton

as He struggles

to bury the twang

beneath His extensive vernacular.

 

The monsters,

too real for mythology,

that shackle

His flame

with cuffs.

but cannot remove

the rhythm

from his walk.

 

They steal his pride

and colonize his kind

leaving him with

nothing but

rhythm

and Holy

and God.

 

And they leave us with

broken

And they leave us with

power

because He is

still flawless.

 

Jesus--

 

hanging,

nailed to a burden

that he had built

and carried on his own bloody back,

rolled his head toward the Heavens

and begged his Father;

 

To forgive them,

for they know

not what

they

do.