“[i]’m testing positive for the funk.
[i]’d gladly pee in anybody’s cup.
And if your cup overflows,
[i]’m testing positive and pee somemo’.”
from “We Can Funk” by Prince and George Clinton
“Black Man” from The Black Book of Linguistic Liberation
by C. Liegh McInnis
[i] apologize for marching my muddy waters feet
on your pale pat boone carpet, but my steps have been
made dusty from dancing in the dirt of the Delta.
So, allow me to straighten your crooked records.
[i] am history. My name is Black,
but you can call me “Daddy Pop”
‘cause [i]’m father to the rainbow.
[i] got more child-nations than Skittles got colors
all birthed from the rich womb of Alkebu-lan.
Even my outhouse produces flowering countries.
My loins are the kaleidoscope of life.
[i] am the prism that creates the spectrum of humanity.
My black body is as fertile as the Nile reservoir,
and my soul shines like the son’s Aton.
[i] was a Muslim before you submitted,
Christ-like before the crucifixion, and a mason before the codes.
[i] created remedial education for Socrates.
[i] was the one who suggested the elephant to Hannibal,
the donkey to Jesus, and the Cadillac to Reverend Ike.
[i] was the one who taught Merlin
that damn sleight of hand trick;
still you call me witch doctor and call him magician;
as the government works its hoo doo,
hell, [i] need some voo doo jus’ to stay sane.
If you don’t think that [i]’m a magician
jus’ check me out on bill day.
How does fourteen percent of the population
give a whole nation so much soul?
If the one drop rule applies,
then the complete commonwealth is colored.
[i] was the one who did the driving
and parallel parking for Columbus.
[i] tried to warn my carmine brothers
‘bout smoking that pipe with Captain Smith.
[i]’m Nat Turner on my best day and Clarence Thomas
on my worst, but even my worst makes me supreme.
[i]’m B. B. King on Saturday night
and Martin Luther King on Sunday morning.
[i]’m the beautiful fiery Truth of Richard Pryor
and the communal Wisdom of Baba Cosby.
[i] am Frederick Douglass with a Kangol slightly tilted
to the side, still refusing to give up my plantation house.
[i]’m Booker T. Washington in a red, pinstriped
double-breasted suit with red silk socks
and a pair of shiny Stacey Adams.
[i]’m gon’ pull myself up by my wingtips
and look good doing it.
[i]’m the double talking, double consciousness of Du Bois
and the glorious, steadfast rock of Garvey.
[i]’m the “New Negro”—of every ten years.
[i] made the peanut give birth to things that
you wouldn’t believe, and [i] coordinated red, yellow, and green
to keep white folks from running into each other.
By the way—how you gon’ invent a cotton gin
when you ain’t picked no cotton?
If necessity is the mother of invention,
then every patent in America should be mine.
[i] tried to tell Custard not to go in betwixt them rocks.
[i] took on wings at Tuskegee
and taught America how to fly.
[i] pumped electrifying, orgasmic life
into your comatose language.
[i]’m the same man who cut Malcolm’s conk
and gives Reverend Sharpton his touch-up.
[i] was the one who said, “Run, Jesse, run.”
[i]’m Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, Thelonious Monk,
Miles Davis, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, James Brown,
Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder,
Marvin Gaye, and Tina Turner all rolled into one.
That’s right. [i]’m !
But above all else, [i] am forever here
like a stain on the silk shirt of white supremacy.
[i] have survived more wars and famines than McDonald’s
has sold over priced and over processed scamburgers.
[i] have survived more conspiracies than an
Oliver Stone movie and more cliffhangers than
Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Dallas and General Hospital.
That’s why my Young are so damn Restless.
[i] am the bulging, pounding phallic anxiety of a nation.
You don’t know whether to
emasculate me, incarcerate me, infect me, or ejaculate me.
That’s alright ‘cause [i] can’t help but
touch myself when [i] walk.
The music in my rhythm gives me more bounce to my beat.
[i] am JSU and Tougaloo, the public and private HBCU.
And one day [i]’m gon’ use my education
to engineer my sovereignty.
Until then [i]’ll keep funking my blues on the one.
Poverty and oppression are
jus’ more opportunities to be great.
[i]’m too bad to die, too proud not to live
and too funky not to enjoy it all.
The only time that [i] give up my wooly existence
is so that others may have everlasting life.
C. Liegh McInnis is an instructor of English at Jackson State University, the former publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, the author of eight books, including four collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction (Scripts: Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi), one work of literary criticism (The Lyrics of Prince: A Literary Look at a Creative, Musical Poet, Philosopher, and Storyteller), one co-authored work, Brother Hollis: The Sankofa of a Movement Man, which discusses the life of a legendary Mississippi Civil Rights icon, and the former First Runner-Up of the Amiri Baraka/Sonia Sanchez Poetry Award sponsored by North Carolina State A&T. He has presented papers at national conferences, such as College Language Association, the Neo-Griot Conference, and the Black Arts Movement Festival, and his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Southern Quarterly, Konch Magazine, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Down to the Dark River: An Anthology of Poems on the Mississippi River, Black Hollywood Unchained: Essays about Hollywood’s Portrayal of African Americans, The Pierian, Black Gold: An Anthology of Black Poetry, Sable, New Delta Review, The Black World Today, In Motion Magazine, MultiCultural Review, A Deeper Shade, New Laurel Review, ChickenBones, Oxford American, Journal of Ethnic American Literature, B. K. Nation, Red Ochre Lit, and Brick Street Press Anthology. In January of 2009, C. Liegh, along with eight other poets, was invited by the NAACP to read poetry in Washington, DC, for their Inaugural Poetry Reading celebrating the election of President Barack Obama. He has also been invited by colleges and libraries all over the country to read his poetry and fiction and to lecture on various topics, such as creative writing and various aspects of African American literature, music, and history. McInnis can be contacted through Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS 39056, (601) 383-0024, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net. For more information, checkout his website www.psychedelicliterature.com.
