James Brown's Posthumous Vote Poem by richard ilnicki

Sometimes change comes
as if by accident; some unexpected
tectonic event, a paradigm shift
that moves the earth beneath our feet.
The shift is sudden,
or so it seems,
anticipated by no one,
and most especially not
by evolutionary men,
fossils who have grown feathers
and have lived as oblivious ostriches.
These men's bigoted heads have been buried
in the sand of denial for centuries.

Living in the caves of the past
these Neanderthals
had never been emancipated from hate
and were still married to status quo,
the offspring of hieroglyphs raised in the killing fields.
When these so-called men
pull their hooded heads
out of the sand and look around
they shall be witnesses against themselves,
and willingly or not, on that day,
they will admit, indeed, that
'Papa's Got A Brand New Bag, '

and, furthermore,
that mournful Old Black Joe song
will have become a new song.
It will be the joyful sound
of the unshackled singing,
'I'm Black and I'm Proud'
'I'm Black and I'm Proud'
Say it loud, 'I'm Black and I'm Proud! '