APPARUIT NIGRUM
(Blaqness made Manifest)
As I grow older, well meaning women
wonder why I deny them the company
of our wiser years together
But Golden Years are not meant for me
I will be a father til I die
There is no rocking chair for me
no retirement party in my future
no sunset days where it will be
only you and me
there is too much to say
that is not being said
too much to do
that fewer and fewer are doing
before we totally lose who we are
through the ignorance of our youth
I am a warrior of thought and words
a soldier on a quest of many truths
This battlefield is where I will die
not for glory, money, or fame
but in the name of all those
whose lives were stolen, beaten,
raped, brainwashed, and reshaped
whose children know not their true name
but bear only the ones of those
who did the deed
I am Neo Blaqness because
I proudly wear a name of my existence
Like Laquisha, Lakesha, Shaquetta
I will not adopt another man’s religion
to justify who I am or what I am called
for the Lord of my salvation is in
the knowledge not only of what we lost
but who we have gloriously become
separate and apart as a new creation
a new blackness in a skin containing
the essence of wisdom learned through
tribulations few have known
as many generations as we
To embrace the enigmatic Kwanzaatic audacity
in the presence of those who claim
superior history and laugh in the face
of our efforts to create our own legacies
This is the line on which I stand
for which my life was commissioned to hold
Not by bearing arms of malice
but to ensure that the blood of who we are
also fills the chalice of truth