And Tomorrow’s Another Day / ishmael andrew smith

•••

Yesterday
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of privation and poverty
Mortality
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on the tracks of
The tears in my skin and
Of my soul

Last night
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The unreality of free
In freedom
Illusions of independence
And the sweat
Tumbles free
Down
My worn body

Today
Still The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Differing rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The arrogance and dismissal
Of political complacence
Dilutions of competence
And the sweat
Tumbles trussed-up
Down
My worn body

Tonight I expect
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The dementia and aimless
Wanderings of a time lost society
And the sweat
It stops
My body worn
Down

Tomorrow
Is another
Day
What will I anticipate?

A return
To the epochs
Of my past
Or
Will we face
A different fate?

•••

Lyrics submitted under the title “And tomorrow is another day”. Performance run on top of Ruff Kutz Kut “Don’t put nothin’ on it”

•••

Ishmael Andrew Smith is a member of Ruff Kutz, a performance collective whose goal is to bring audible life to lettered work. Ishmael is an educator with the Bahamas’ Department of Education. His ambition: to become a Professor of Applied Anthropology at The University of the Bahamas.