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 is not 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.