The LOOKOUT hurriedly exits. A band of Lesser Negroes, wearing nothing but sackcloth, leaves the ship’s hold and gathers at the bow’s lower level. They dance to the griot’s song as he is joined by other percussive elements: bells, djembes, tambourines, &c.
CHORUS. (with various voices, speaks on their own turn)
// We sing of grief, of the tale of grief,
of uncountable souls drowned in the lagoons
we have traveled past,
as our liberator, Agamemnon,
and ten thousand of our best men,
ebony, statuesque, the best of the Best Negroes,
lay claim to a nation that has lost any claim
/ to the sacred, to a nation
that has sentenced itself to death,
/ to a nation with sins as uncountable
as those ancient souls.
/ Twelve years they have fought
to destroy the white nation
now discolored
our hue, the hue that coats their skin,
the skin of our warriors—the best of the Best Negroes
who sweat,
sweat rising in the heat of war
melting their flesh
down to gold, the purest,
the purest of pure gold.
/ The “President”—Happy President—has declared martial law,
but no State can overthrow the might
of blood,
of song,
of the mighty Afrikan people.
Washington was razed with the machete;
Seattle is now the “Blessèd City”;
Detroit, reclaimed for our temple;
and Atlanta, the new beginning:
Atlanta, the Golden City of Atalanta.
/ Do not dismay,
for sacrifice is the natural order.
/ Jesus was His son, the Holy Son,
who redeemed us from sin,
the force of death, the force of unholy destruction.
We are to purge the world,
all of the world,
of death,
of destruction,
of unholy sin.
/ The mighty Afrikan nation must reclaim the city,
the city of Jerusalem, our city,
/ New Orleans, rendered down to the sea,
to the ocean
where hundreds, thousands,
and millions drowned.
/ The heavens are another sea,
a sea of God’s milk,
a series of seas after seas,
the rainfall of God’s blessing
where we receive the gifts of grief.
// O, we sing of grief, of the story of grief.
/ Nevertheless, there—and there—
at the Gate of the Holy City of Jerusalem,
Agamemnon received a wise-word
from his holy prophet Malcolm,
whose wise-word foretold of sacrifice,
of the infinite sacrifice of Abraham,
of God Himself.
/ “You must sacrifice your daughter,” said Malcolm,
at the high-holy seat of Agamemnon, the liberator.
/ “You must sacrifice your daughter,” said Malcolm,
“to save your army from the onslaught
of the National Guard,
of the navy, of the might of the White Nation,
‘these United States.’”
/ Our liberator, arms outstretched,
saw into that dark darkness,
/ his fate, intertwined with the fate of the thousands with him
and the thousands at sea,
awaiting the settlement of New Afrika.
/ Yet he saw Justice too,
the weight of his blood, the guilt of blood,
his daughter crying out for peace and long-suffering.
/ But with the harness of his faith,
and his commitment to God and His Word,
spake through the holy servant Malcolm,
he slayed his daughter,
his daughter’s blood, Black blood spilling out,
onto the hull, into the sea,
into the mouths of sharks who swim in the lagoons.
// We sing of grief, of the story of grief,
of grief that foretells more grief,
of grief with the gift
of “more life,”
of grief that tells us “Lesser Negroes,”
with no might of our own but the might of our liberator,
that New Afrika, the forlorn coast,
is now in our grasp,
that we have won the victory in the holy war for Jerusalem.
