Poem of the Week: It Was a Funky Deal

IT WAS A FUNKY DEAL 

Etheridge Knight

It was a funky deal.
The only thing real was red,
Red blood around his red, red beard.

It was a funky deal.

In the beginning was the word,
And in the end the deed.
Judas did it to Jesus
For the same Herd. Same reason.
You made them mad, Malcolm. Same reason.

It was a funky deal.

You rocked too many boats, man.
Pulled too many coats, man.
Saw through the jive.
You reached the wild guys
Like me. You and Bird. (And that
Lil LeRoi cat.)

It was a funky deal.

1965

[This is the second PotW about Malcolm X this month, and there are two more slotted for the last two weeks of February. The late Etheridge Knight, acclaimed today as a great poet, wrote this in the days he discovered his poetic vocation, while doing a 10-25 year bid in the Indiana State Prison for a mugging. (He wound up serving eight.)]

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PotW: Pome for Dionne Warwick aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise

POME FOR DIONNE WARWICK ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

Askia Muhammed Touré

"ENTERTAINING TROOPS"

Damn! . . . Baby, when I saw all that warmth,
that joy, that life
sucked in by the savage eyes of Beasts
raining "democratic' death upon the yellow world
of Vietnam, I almost cried.
YOU!--decked out in gaudy mod colors
mini-skirt riding high above regal honey thighs,
raped by the Dollar Juggernaut--"ENTERTAINING TROOPS!"
Soulsister,
Black Princess chained upon the Modern Auction Block,
listen while the Auctioneer shouts above my rage:
          "BID
                   "EM
                           IN! ! !"

from Natural Process, An Anthology of New Black Poetry, 1970

[This week's poem was chosen to honor Stevie Wonder for coming correct last week after a storm of protest greeted the announcement he would be performing at a benefit for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. Askia Muhammed Touré, activist and leading figure in the Black Arts Movement of the '60s, wrote his Pome toward the end of that decade, during the U.S. war on Vietnam. This latest victory for the nternational BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign targeting the apartheid state of Israel shows again that not all the lessons of the '60s have been lost.]

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