Tag Archives: josephine baker

JOSEPHINE AT THE PANTHEON

JOSEPHINE AT THE PANTHEON

she danced funny
               went bananas

sang so sweetly
every
   trill a thrill
(full
     chanson)

danced across
Europe and North Africa
all
    around the Gestapo

and so
   when they needed someone
to put the PAN
back into pantheon
rub
  shoulders with
  dirty old Voltaire

this daughter of
Africa
     queen of diaspora
maiden
of humanity
   was a natural choice

JOSEPHINE

JOSEPHINE

Josephine
I do not ask for your
cheetah
or your
anaconda

just let me
unpeel one two
three all
these dancing bananas

all eyes on you
as you mesmerize
me watching an actress
enact
   your story

the patrons, and yes
even the Gestapo
in the world
of the solidly real

but, alas!, not one
from that dream-factory
fairy-tale land
you managed
to scramble away from

the sky
is the limit

but you are what you are
if you be
            black or
brown (forever down)

Oh to be part of
if not your rainbow tribe
at least
  your menagerie

or have some role
some task
              that might
continue your legacy

touchstone for the power
of our human drive
to surpass ourselves

irrefutable argument
that we are indeed all one