Marooned

Sometimes I wonder where the time has gone
We been marooned here for so long (so long)
Easy to forget who we are
A violent rupture, what came before's pure conjecture
Combined forces paint a partial picture
The music, the dance, the rhythm in the culture
I look at myself in the mirror Try to focus in clearer, and bypass the translators
Who gave me a next set of scrolls to unfold
While I searched for signs in Anansi tales of old
Detailed in lingo broken from Kenya to Ghana
But my world view's produced by Time Warner
My stars obscured by street lights, and blue heat
That radiate tension, shine fluorescently
Off the clouds, like a halo, or a crown
Of thorns, with the promise of a strange new dawn

Where has the time gone, seemed like jus yesterday
TV news announced rebellion in LA
And fires in Attica, burning up cellmates
Fires in Brixton, as told by Linton Kwesi
And martyrs more plentiful than Roman arenas
Huey Newton stateside, Machel in Angola
Lumumba, and Maurice Bishop in Grenada
Thomas Sankara, Walter Rodney in Guyana
Biko in Azania, and Malik al Shabazz
Seems the dawn comes on blood red sometimes
A dangerous dawn, one that makes you wanna chant
Gotta carry on (carry on, comin for to carry on)
The drums, and drama, and wordplays that retail for $ 21.98, contents profane
A nd under pressure, under assumed names, of drug games and gunplay
T hat got these suburban kids amazed

To the breaka breaka dawn, see, we come from revolts in Virginia
A nd Nat Turner militias
Blue Mountain hideouts, marooned in Nova Scotia
Stand firm, and mash out, back to Liberia
Cats like Cudjoe, and liberated plantations in Suriname
Desaline and Toussant
The legacy of man like Uriah Butler in Trinidad
And understand, Bogle is more than jus a dance
Time to move on, like Dylan say in that song: a hard rain is gonna fall
But the Sun shine on, where has the time gone
As the planet revolves, and the nights grow long
In the light of a strange new dawn, crazy diamonds in foreign soil shine on
Prodigal child, buffalo cowboys that ride on (right on)
Where has the time gone?

And the greatgrandaughters and greatgrandsons
Name themselves after degradation
Names their ancestors had to fight to throw off
Making a mockery out of all the lives lost
Playing the fool for nickels and dimes, tricks of the mind
And fixing a smile on they face for a while
Marooned, lost in time, where has the time gone (where have the minds gone?)


As the sun rise to reveal homelessness, blood pressure stress and joblessness
a ttacks on immunity, and petty rivalries
s nitches and sellouts paid to split community
Untrendy to even speak of unity
Too loudly, for fear of the common enemy
For fear of saying what nobody wants to hear
And give up the cars, the jewelry, the gear

Where has the time gone I thought we were fighting on arrival
Fighting for survival
I thought my blood lines imperial like Hannibal
I thought we finished with images like cannibals
I thought the sun could never set on Brittania
But watch this: it soon sets on America
Far greater, scattered African maroons shine on
From the roots that go down that deeper



copyrightA. Bansfield, 2002