The McVouty Bible.

Baraka, Amiri

THE MCVOUTY BIBLE

   After they killed
   Nigger Jesus
   Put holes in
   His foots
   & hands

   A spear through
   His Hip
   I wait till the people leave
   Then go cross there
   To check him out

   Pulse, heartbeat, bre'f
   & He was dead, on the Real
   Side

   Then here come this ol' Negro
   Smell like Fish
   Look Crazy
   Face Hanging
   Like a frozed up
   Waterfall
   (Ice baked since he forsaked)

   He check too,
   Then hide, start to cry

   Soldiers come
   To carry Jesus
   To the Tomb

   Me & The ol' Nigger
   Stay hid
   But he ain't hip
   To me checking him

   When the soldiers leave
   We both
   Followin' them

   The soldiers went up in the tomb
   Left Jesus in there
   Death cover white over Black under gloom

   Soldiers leave
   Here come the old Nigger

   He go in
   Try to drag Jesus' body
   Out,

   But before he could
   Here come a buncha bloods
   Like they come from the Hood,

   Stumblin' up there,
   They mouth exploding

   They screamin' and cryin', killing mad
   Roman gorillas kill Jesus like that.

   Old Fisherman duck
   Hide in the trees

   He close by,
   But he don't
   See me.

   We watch in a minute here the crowd come
   Wailing out the tomb & I see
   At the front of the crowd
   Is Jesus' Old black mama

   She hollering, "I cdda killed these crackers
   If his Father had left me
   His gun!"

   (& I was almost grinning
   'cause ain't no gun been
   invented)

   "Come on Y'all!"
   She say to the rest,
   "We gone hide my son
   where he can rest!"

   Then they broke down the hill
   High up in the Get Up
   Holler
   "Oh, Woe, don't lay there,
   Boy, the Sun done rose!
   Get up, Child
   Put on your clothes
   The Roaming Barbarians
   Done killed you
   And seized The Holy Funk
   (that's why they called Caesars)
   Got that fishy old Nigger
   To say it was cool for them to cop
   Our church

   So they seized the rhythm
   Left us the Blues!

   OHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAH!!!"

   And when time was tied to vision
   And vision tied
   Like cocks to come

   And understanding tied to the frightful
   Earth and the YesMan our past has become to connect us with it
   Yet betrays us by claiming it does not know who we are
   And has changed its name, as if a penis could be a detective
   A word, a poem, a tyrant

   And when old, and soft, had played its role
   Wd be hanged upside down, head to the ground
   And be called the Father
   Of Rock and Roll

   'Cause they never could find Jesus,
   So they hiked him
   Called his mama
   "God's Ho!"
   And Jesus never went
   To Europe!

   Jesus here, where we am
   Where the ghetto
   go and be
   That Jesus under
   The hood

   And like we
   He crying
   The Sun of Man
   What we cry
   Is the Crossing

   The Changes
   The turn around
   Of everything
   Transformation
   Of everything
   Under the sky

   Christ is BEING
   Never
   Been

   Not to Rise
   Have AM
   Blind

   Not to See

   Subtract the Father
   Hide
   The
   Mother

   Make The Sun
   The Dark
   The question
   Without
   The answer

   (So they tell us eat the holy symbol.
   Oh, Wailer, turned to Man, they already et
   The flesh. And what body left of Jesus we eats once a month
   With the Grape Juice of the Real World
   For the Drunk vision of the Prophets' Wine.

   Why
   When he
   Killed

   They say
   He rise
   But I seen he dead, and stay dead,
   Myself,
   Forget the fishy lies

   Fix it Killing the truth
   The only Beauty

   The Lesses
   We know
   The more we loved

   And that
   The meaning
   Of everything
   Was nothing

   at the center
   of everything
   was
   Emptiness
   which surrounds and shapes the world
   to form the Money Maniac

   So beneath us
   Will not rise
   We leave the truth
   Underground

   The stillness
   Of here
   Less
   Sound

   Ugliness replace
   What be
   Left dead Am

   Who murder make Spam

   & let us come
   in
   what
   cannot be

   & worship
   Un is
   & never Am is
   R see

   The Is
   Of Was
   Punctured

   By
   Madness

   Love is
   Seized return
   As Steel
   (to Steal)

   Where Whole
   & Allness

   A
   Missing
   One

   "Fuck The Mother!"
   The Missing
   Part
   of
   DIS appeared
   & Never
   been

   "Ho of God"
   Marry
   Black Joe
   The Carpenter
   I am
   Moor
   Gone too far

   Father somewhere
   Beyond the sky

   Funkee aroma
   Love become armor
   From way up high

   When I gone
   Elvis
   Will Cover
   Me & Jackie Wilson!

   Took John Head
   Put on Broadway
   When he come back
   They make him
   Stay
   On Long Island

   Hypnotized by
   Beasts
   Performing in Night Clubs
   Of Air
   (Meaning he was coming
   to America
   Cross the Water
   High on Horse
   Number Three)
   We was already There
   Like the Jews
   Was in Europe

   Who dug the
   Father
   Was no longer
   Here but gone Farther
   Creating new images
   For the blind
   Un sound
   For the deaf
   Conned the Dumb
   Used Greece
   to slide
   Up through the bottom
   of Greyness
   Open
   By pr(a)yers
   &
   Apes of
   God
   White People
   Who had met
   Thelonius

   AFTER DAVID
   Used Law
   For the Scribes

   So the Father is here
   on the Record Cover

   & my Arms
   are Yours

   STAND ON
   Earth

   A Legend
   Of the
   Real

   I am hid by what lives
   In cities
   Of my People

   Who now call themselves?
   Gypsies
   don't remember
   No Moor
   Like their eyes
   Had been stole

   & their names
   Split
   With the Seasons

   Two eyes
   Now
   Two lies

   Not

   Elizabeth Taylor
   &
   Richard Burton!

   But
   WHO YOU AM
   Tricked
   By
   WHO YOU BE
   &
   WHAT YOU SEE

   == In the North
   Where we look
   Upside
   Down
   To them

   & Laughter
   our biography

   We is where we can say
   The word

   Who Are You?
   Where Are You?
   Why Are You Crying?

   Old Fishy Negro
   Aimless Words

   Dirt Brown
   So the Water
   Muddy.