Desmond Faada Johnson

24/11/2020

The Hanging Man

Neck tie of nylon rope
Fixed eyes to a frozen scream
Heard and reported as missing
Swinging on that Blue Mahoe fully clothe
With working boots of indentured life
Brown mud, worn and battered
Now lifted off earth
Found guilty by local jurisprudence
So popular since independence

31/08/2020

MY PEOPLE

We are tented rented
Then sold out
Made to fail to become
A dropout

We protested
And are prevented
To express our thoughts
And miseries.

We have exploded
Eroded,
Like a flood in
its strength.

Our tidal waves
Are making graves
Like the movements
Of the wind.

North!
We shall attack you!
We shall attack you!
South, East and West too.

For in this fight
We are right;
The earth was made
For all..

31/08/2020

DEADLY

you waa fe call mi dutty names
den gwaan noh!
you waa fe call mi low down
den gwaan noh!
you waa fe shout shout shout
shout abuses!
you waa fe curse curse curse
curse mi colour!
you waa fe shout shout shout
shout white power!
with you little dutty words
and slogans! with words
on the walls about
the "Immigrants!"
you inhumane little pagans!
gwaan! with your shouting
and cursing for you silly
little words can't move mi
your dirty little words
can't bruise me
or your well
SIGN POSTED HATE RAGE
your POL-
ICE
FORCE
or prison cage
so call you dutty names
but noh touch mi
fa mi a come from a line
of Afrikans born right here
in inglan with the heart
and the strength
to fight the pagans
for if a death a death a death a
we we fight you
for if a death a death a death a
we we slay you
for if a death a death a death a
we we claat you
so gwaan!
gwaan!
with you cave rage
gwaan!
gwaan!
with you hate rage for it seems like
you waa fe taste mi black rage
mi outrage!.

31/08/2020

BLACK MAJORITY

Graveyard Urbanity! Deathtrap Psychology!
enforced and re-enforced on we
Governments strategic weapons
creating Black Ghettos
Inner City Slums and Unemployment
To use the now overused labels on us/on we
"Black Ethnic Minority?"
for the world to see our tragedy
starving begging faces
bawling for help on television screens
in Europe and The Americas
in the land of our past and present oppressors
with hypocrite presidents and prime ministers
abusing power in disguise
"Oh we care for the Blacks" they say
but a wen since we tun minority
sons and daughters of Afrikan descent
a wen a wen since we are not majority
Afrikans uprooted from homeland
that now we are Blacks instead of Afrikans
mi sey a wen since we tun minority
living in concrete shacks in rundown areas
a wen since we become the victims of perpetual sabotage
living a no good life in our urban inner city ghettos
a wen since the Afrikans abroad change race that we can now
be called Black Ethnic Minority in dreadful poverty
inhumanity in Britain
in rundown Britain in America
in money bloated America
in the Caribbean
in the tourist resort Caribbean
a wen since we tun minority dis new phrasing
Black Ethnic Minority a wen! a wen!
it must be a plan well planned
to pump fear in us that if they gang
up on us we must run in hole and bawl
"Outnumbered! Outnumbered!
Surrender! Surrender!"
in hopelessness and despair
in fear fear fear but we are not deceived
not! deceived 'bout dem minority
'bout dem minority
when it's a Black Afrikan Majority
chanting
and fighting
to be free.

31/08/2020

Pucko

Tie me head with a band
Give me a Drum
a Bible
Revelation
And I'll taunt the spirits in your mind
Wound your sore sorrows with my incantations
Tie me head with colours of blood
Black like me and my African ancestry
Watch the spirit in me outside me and around me praise God
Try all spirits and believe all things
The earth is my father's footstool
Watch me twist and brake me hip
and repair it with remedies unseen
Marvel that this trance cannot hurt me my head my body
Hail this calabash with wine of blood everlasting
Partake in our revelations
Iron Sharpeneth Iron
Glory be to Jah!

17/10/2019

https://youtu.be/JDWepZWVu8A

Provided to YouTube by CDBaby Experience [mass Jobe] · Desmond Johnson Pucko Music ℗ 2003 Desmond Johnson Released on: 2003-01-01 Auto-generated by YouTube.

21/12/2009

"Desmond Johnson: "Cuss Poem". While in Jamaica the pe*******on of the class problem is the main objective of radical poetry, in the British context the question of race is the primary topic of political discourse. Inspired for example, by black marxist theorists like C.L.R. James, dub poets regard race as a decisive factor in the class struggle. Race and class are closely interrelated, and wherever racism appears it can also be traced along class lines. Fighting against racism thus nearly always implies resistance to a class society." Christian Habakost