Black Voices Poem by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Out of the depths of the souls of churches
Rattled by the third ear, the basement of America
Flourishes.
Sounds are measured in the decibels of history.
Whiffs of melody, dulcet with the voices, hum
Patterned canticles from winter's greying shadows.
Black voices echo through corridors of incense -
Corridors dappled with streaks of ancestral hegemony.
What balances the equation of melody?
Ascents yield honey for the viscous ceremony of
Watered drums, which ages with the soot of
Hanging chimneys.
O' Black voices of velvet tones,
Echoes are never laden with sore throats
Or melancholic snores neither do eyes
See the musical scent clouding trembling aisles....
From there, divas rose with black, full lips
From there, maestros with voices of salutations, guttural, emerged,
Lending love immensely to renascent, voluble art.
The monotone from metallic notes scores the lines
Of the piano - that bi-coloured, toothed table of Cristofori's -
Soft and humble.
Drums pound to the rhythmic galore
When nearby woods purloin lutes from
Kneeling branches.
I could have testified to the greed of bravura.
I could have laid siege to the improvement of
Art-way triptych, only when on the pillars of the
House of God, voices, Black and humorous,
Are frescoed like the last yelling voice of Samson.