i stare death in the face gracefully over mimosas cheese crepes and pastries caressing life in the small of her back smiling she turns to smile back through her foundation of facts my hands on her spine dividing page after page i peak into my past and my future i can read the psalms on the parchment gripped by the sweaty palms of a prophet i can see the chakras and the sutras my life is clothed in a spiritual cloth i dice cloves in my ritual broth i m as wild as the scottish summer isles i m a god in my african garb on the white sand beaches of zanzibar i am a traveling man to lands so expansive official transcripts of my transit don t enhance it i can feel the thread from the loom on the bed i m gonna die in the hospital room i ll re arrive in at the resurrection a little bread a lil wine and its fine at the resurrection picture me naked sacred and sublime at the resurrection ive died several times and now i rise at the resurrection a little bread a little wine and its i am the joy of an innocent boy i am the blessed overtones of those double x chromosomes i m a critical study exceptional math i m theory and praxis the intellectual class i am doubtful i am hopeful i am vocal and i am complex holy city black local in a global context i m the history and the prophecy i m benevolent i am heirs property swallowed up by development i am depression and expression i m water and blood i am the comfort and the company misery loves i am the solemn oath and the broken promises the feelings of desire the higher consciousness i am burdened feeling unworthy though i am alive i am feeling lost on a journey though i have arrived needing moments of my own peace though i am denied every day i cry a little inside hoping to rise at the resurrection a little bread a lil wine and its fine at the resurrection picture me naked sacred and sublime at the resurrection ive died several times and now i rise at the resurrection a little bread a little wine and its i am the fruitful bud of african native folks ushered into bondage for garments i am the revelatory shine of gold and fine diamonds mined from those remote climates i am the work song the blues lick i am the orphan s improvisational jazz i am the drums and the brass i m all of the exploited the boycott and the black dollar the boy children the adolescent the black father a broken chain a vocal refrain i m a james jamerson bass in a berry gordy domain i m a james brown tenor shout screaming out holding notes the pride of my poor southern black working folks i m a rebel on these chords i m a funk brother over routine rice cuisine i am the gullah words of my grandmother oonah chillun bettuh min consequences of decisions when it s time for the resurrection a little bread a lil wine and its fine at the resurrection picture me naked sacred and sublime at the resurrection ive died several times and now i rise at the resurrection a little bread a little wine and its 