Two Poems by Kangsen "Yassay" Masango

Black soul

within a resonator of bone
of flesh
the batá drum beats
and breaths whistle in
and out
while water and blood crash through
and I am aware
alive
singing a song of eternal echoes
a whisper today
a chant tomorrow
a rapturous rhapsody through time
always here
within a resonator of bone
of flesh
or without.

Choked gasps of fire

the last gasps of a dying man
begged
cried
called his mama
and fanned embers and kindling
ushering in a storm
and it rained gasoline
as the earth was in conflagration
turning brick to ash
bringing down false gods
and some of us drank the fire
so that we became firebreathers
from his mouth
to our lungs
we inhale his dying fire
exhaling flames of truth
and the world will never be the same
because 2020 is not 1619
but we breathe the fire from that past too.

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Kangsen "Yassay" Masango is a veteran turned writer attending Fitchburg State University. His writings focus on Patriotic criticism, as well as Afrocentrism and the Black experience in America.