I am the smoke king, I am black.  I am swinging in the sky. ~ Excerpt from The Song of the Smoke by W.E.B. DuBois

We speak
the invocation
of the smoke king.

We seek
your skulking
post-combustive
presence
to present
a message
of the burning
now held
near our heart.

We call down
your soot
soaking black
matter
master of
crushing every
Earthbound
organic element
to a pitch perfect
color carbon.

We prostrate
ourselves
before your
pyrotechnic
technique
because
we require
fire starting.

Our ancestors
reduced
from riches
to wretches
flaming heat
beneath
the hearth of
a nation for
three quarters
a century
in pursuit
of some
semblance
of justice.

How can
Liberty Lady
still cast
her matches
so wreckless?

We invoke
this king of smoke
to clear the air
no longer expecting
law to protect us.

Thus we cast
a careless flare
in your name
near powder kegs
which Malcolm
mentioned
intent upon
a nation knowing
this black veil
of suffocation
we’ve suffered.

Collect only
those possessions
you value
most precious.

Then leave
this house
to be digested
by the choking
inhalation
of its own
infernal creation.

Leave it to be taken
by the smoke king,
burning black.