The Ark
演唱：Anthony JosephSun Ra was on the ark. Prince Nico Mbarga
He was on the ark
So was Art Taylor and Sonny Simmons and
Bessie Smith and Duke, all on the ark, and Joe Tex, and Geraldine Connor and Giuseppi Logan
Even The Roaring Lion and Aunt Bunny were abdominally on the ark
The Original Defosto was also on the ark
Beat rivers of song upon the omele drum, just a cutlass carpenter, no skill with timber; four-eyed fish were on the ark. Who playing war and fraid blood? Who playing mas and fraid powder?
Who prevaricate and ruse, throwing holi powder as ritual upon the ark, but don't want ink or water to touch their clothes? Who else was on the ark?
Max Roach was on the ark, and Ras Shorty I and Eric Dolphy and Amiri Baraka, Ras Eliebank and Harry Belafonte – them was high up upon the boat
Babatunde! He was on the ark
Olatunji! He was on the bow
Mama drum, you say you coming to come
But you never reach as far as the Leader house, you never hear his sawed-off speaker drum boom dub roots
All around the village/bachelor life, and then you hear he bulling three women in the congregation, and the Shepherd raising crook-stick and
Tapping his foot when the hymn swing, but is suffer he suffering in silence, because he wondering if, while he in church, rocking on his heels, his woman horning him with Leader Jim when night come
And he need a seer man to prophesy, or to tack back and catch them in slackness
But his faith was firm. Every Sunday he in church. He was on the ark, in brogues
Beti was on the ark, Mong, and Vino in pyjamas, the wild moon, fever in his throat
Performance poet and stand-up comic, both were on the boat
And the ark was full, but more was to come and they coming still
Ethel Waters was on the ark, singing 'Creole Gold'
Octavia Butler, hip good, up upon this boat. Eric Eustace Williams
Dead and living same time, was also wrapped in kente
Fats Waller, Courtney Jones and Winifred Atwell, Lennox Raphael
Even Gang Gang Sara, blown from Guinea to Les Coteaux, Tobago
Who had climbed the great Silk Cotton tree, with intention to fly back to Africa
But who fell to stony death because she had eaten salt
Then Darcus Howe and the Mighty Spoiler, The Mighty Terror and
The Mighty Zandolie in proper soft pants
Throwing vitamins down his throat
Zando alive but living among the dead, still cracking wood around stickman head. Then Pharoah Sanders reach with Yusef Lateef; Earl Lovelace laugh
He see Eric Roach reach on the ark
His book of poems still warm under his arm
When the ark had two days to go before it reach Southampton
Here come Brother Resistance, Karl the Voice and Benjamin Zephaniah
Here come John La Rose and Charles Mingus
Here come Lord Kitchener in on his way back from New York in 1957
Here come Paul Robeson and Beryl McBurnie
Even Olive Walke rode upon that boat
This was the year the Great Bandit graduate from bandit school and rob 40,000 men in San Fernando, when the river washed down from the Million Hills and cleansed the city
And who eh drown, badly waterlogged, and who eh dead, badly wounded
And the Great Bandit came down with his escort and chariot to survey the land
And found poor black folk had hidden in holes in the earth and in barrels sealed shut with laglee sap from the breadfruit tree. But the poets were wise and hid in trees and were never found
And the Bandit rode on, and the houses of dukes and spooks and
Prime ministers were burnt to the ground, and all around
The embassy route, those grand facades of colonial times were volcanically cast to ash and plundered
Then the Bandit moved west, searching for that gold
Throated woman who, after making disco love to him one morning
Ventured him up to the hills overlooking the city
Behind the bridge and quarry and show him where his own navel string bury
And he wonder how he never imagine his own island as a map
Its grids and lay lines, the white spume foaming at the lips of the coast
Years hence, the Bandit went knocking at discotheque doors
But the woman was gone; she was upon the ark
Anointed with olive oil and secret colours
Auntie Ursula was on the ark, Peter Lezama, then Dominique Gaumont
As was Milton Cardona and Rosetta/Tharpe and Odetta
C.L.R. James, the poets Gylan Kain and Gboyega Odubanjo
But not Kamau Brathwaite, he was not on the ark
Instead Baba, the great teacher, had long since evaporated into air, into language, into sound
Into the very sex fruit of poetry
And the ark drove up to Bristol, Brixton, Birmingham
Leeds and Manchester too; it swooned into New York, Boston and Chicago
New Orleans see it too
Then it swing down to Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Suriname, Guyana
Remember, this ark respects no boundaries or Archimedes
It moves like a crown on a draughts board, any damn where it choose
Look, it pass through Aruba, Trinidad, Grenada
It move up the Orinoco River, and it never wear necktie yet
St Lucia get it, St Vincent see it too. It come up from the Southern Caribbean
All the way up to Pascagoula Bay, yes, yes, yes, Yusef Ahmed was on the boat
Even Steven Samuel Gordon, the brother Spaceape
Was on the bow blowing the big abeng!
He was on the ark
So was Art Taylor and Sonny Simmons and
Bessie Smith and Duke, all on the ark, and Joe Tex, and Geraldine Connor and Giuseppi Logan
Even The Roaring Lion and Aunt Bunny were abdominally on the ark
The Original Defosto was also on the ark
Beat rivers of song upon the omele drum, just a cutlass carpenter, no skill with timber; four-eyed fish were on the ark. Who playing war and fraid blood? Who playing mas and fraid powder?
Who prevaricate and ruse, throwing holi powder as ritual upon the ark, but don't want ink or water to touch their clothes? Who else was on the ark?
Max Roach was on the ark, and Ras Shorty I and Eric Dolphy and Amiri Baraka, Ras Eliebank and Harry Belafonte – them was high up upon the boat
Babatunde! He was on the ark
Olatunji! He was on the bow
Mama drum, you say you coming to come
But you never reach as far as the Leader house, you never hear his sawed-off speaker drum boom dub roots
All around the village/bachelor life, and then you hear he bulling three women in the congregation, and the Shepherd raising crook-stick and
Tapping his foot when the hymn swing, but is suffer he suffering in silence, because he wondering if, while he in church, rocking on his heels, his woman horning him with Leader Jim when night come
And he need a seer man to prophesy, or to tack back and catch them in slackness
But his faith was firm. Every Sunday he in church. He was on the ark, in brogues
Beti was on the ark, Mong, and Vino in pyjamas, the wild moon, fever in his throat
Performance poet and stand-up comic, both were on the boat
And the ark was full, but more was to come and they coming still
Ethel Waters was on the ark, singing 'Creole Gold'
Octavia Butler, hip good, up upon this boat. Eric Eustace Williams
Dead and living same time, was also wrapped in kente
Fats Waller, Courtney Jones and Winifred Atwell, Lennox Raphael
Even Gang Gang Sara, blown from Guinea to Les Coteaux, Tobago
Who had climbed the great Silk Cotton tree, with intention to fly back to Africa
But who fell to stony death because she had eaten salt
Then Darcus Howe and the Mighty Spoiler, The Mighty Terror and
The Mighty Zandolie in proper soft pants
Throwing vitamins down his throat
Zando alive but living among the dead, still cracking wood around stickman head. Then Pharoah Sanders reach with Yusef Lateef; Earl Lovelace laugh
He see Eric Roach reach on the ark
His book of poems still warm under his arm
When the ark had two days to go before it reach Southampton
Here come Brother Resistance, Karl the Voice and Benjamin Zephaniah
Here come John La Rose and Charles Mingus
Here come Lord Kitchener in on his way back from New York in 1957
Here come Paul Robeson and Beryl McBurnie
Even Olive Walke rode upon that boat
This was the year the Great Bandit graduate from bandit school and rob 40,000 men in San Fernando, when the river washed down from the Million Hills and cleansed the city
And who eh drown, badly waterlogged, and who eh dead, badly wounded
And the Great Bandit came down with his escort and chariot to survey the land
And found poor black folk had hidden in holes in the earth and in barrels sealed shut with laglee sap from the breadfruit tree. But the poets were wise and hid in trees and were never found
And the Bandit rode on, and the houses of dukes and spooks and
Prime ministers were burnt to the ground, and all around
The embassy route, those grand facades of colonial times were volcanically cast to ash and plundered
Then the Bandit moved west, searching for that gold
Throated woman who, after making disco love to him one morning
Ventured him up to the hills overlooking the city
Behind the bridge and quarry and show him where his own navel string bury
And he wonder how he never imagine his own island as a map
Its grids and lay lines, the white spume foaming at the lips of the coast
Years hence, the Bandit went knocking at discotheque doors
But the woman was gone; she was upon the ark
Anointed with olive oil and secret colours
Auntie Ursula was on the ark, Peter Lezama, then Dominique Gaumont
As was Milton Cardona and Rosetta/Tharpe and Odetta
C.L.R. James, the poets Gylan Kain and Gboyega Odubanjo
But not Kamau Brathwaite, he was not on the ark
Instead Baba, the great teacher, had long since evaporated into air, into language, into sound
Into the very sex fruit of poetry
And the ark drove up to Bristol, Brixton, Birmingham
Leeds and Manchester too; it swooned into New York, Boston and Chicago
New Orleans see it too
Then it swing down to Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Suriname, Guyana
Remember, this ark respects no boundaries or Archimedes
It moves like a crown on a draughts board, any damn where it choose
Look, it pass through Aruba, Trinidad, Grenada
It move up the Orinoco River, and it never wear necktie yet
St Lucia get it, St Vincent see it too. It come up from the Southern Caribbean
All the way up to Pascagoula Bay, yes, yes, yes, Yusef Ahmed was on the boat
Even Steven Samuel Gordon, the brother Spaceape
Was on the bow blowing the big abeng!