!DOCTYPE html> html> head lang=”en-US”> title>Once Was a Singer for God (Remembering Nekia) by Aberjhani/title> /div> h1 class=”pageTitle”>Once Was a Singer for God (Remembering Nekia)/h1> div class=”entry-content clearfix”> h2 itemprop=”author” class=”author”>by Aberjhani/h2> div itemprop=”genre” id=”content”> p>1.br /> Once you were a singer for God–br /> yes, you, who within your mother’s wombbr /> dodged the hooks and poison sentbr /> to eclipse your light before it shined;br /> who, abandoned in a field of serpentsbr /> clapped hands to the hissing of fanged omens./p> p>Born in a year of misbegotten moons,br /> Louie the good mad angel found you too late.br /> Already blackened by the high noon sun,br /> already diseased by rejection,br /> one hand reaching for the world you’d left,br /> one grabbing for a stranger’s lonely tit./p> p>On the island of Daufuskie you mistookbr /> the smell of dead crabs for that of roses.br /> How you stuffed your mouth with the psalmsbr /> steamed and served by a grandmother’s tears––br /> ignoring the whip that broke your back,br /> and the ridicule that gutted your heart./p> p>2.br /> An outrageous instinct to love and be lovedbr /> blinded your arms to lines of propriety––br /> Women and Men, Christians and Jews,br /> Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown.br /> An outrageous instinct to love and be lovedbr /> executed your brain every hour on the hour./p> p>3.br /> No one knew how you transformedbr /> scars on your back into scented songsbr /> pleasing to a church’s nostrils. Or howbr /> the imprisonment of your sonbr /> and the murder of your daughterbr /> coated your tongue with heaven’s favor./p> p>Brother was that you screaming like a wheelbr /> burning inside a wheel, watching the starsbr /> of your fate reconfigure a chosen destinybr /> into crimson midnights of tragedy?br /> Was that your mind running naked through the Westbr /> while your soul warbled haikus in the East?/p> p>Once you were a singer for God––br /> who baritoned superbly life’s incongruitiesbr /> until 72 years old you sat on concrete stepsbr /> humming, “what the world needs now”––Is what?/p> p>The gun in your mouth was nothing like a song,br /> your exploded skull one jacked up finale./p> br> /body> /html>
