Clergy Killers

Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

I’ve got Pilgrim

Baptist Church

on the mind.

Clergy killers got me voting

in the worship service

2 ruin a paster

with the slot machines

on tilt

a few Saints

are clowning

on  

J-E-S-U-S

unkind words are fumbled

aloud like

he’s an ogre?

the negative comments

that are assembled

towards the pastor

boy—

the reverend got smart quick

and ran out on the

politics in church

knowing

it’s not suppose to mix

J-E-S-U-S

discussions on finance

a paid minister

for the growing youth ministriy

everybody’s not sold

on praise dance

elders upset—

moaning and groaning like

a pack of wild animals in heat

the comfortable marches

of the Civil Rights and

Black Power Movement

show their discontent for our children

they rather the young go faster to hell

on roller blades

J-E-S-U-S

I hear Moses wilderness

calling folks

to reclaim the promised land

But idolatry, greed and sex

blinds man

40 Years

40 nights

and 400 more years

of wrecklessness

we’re caught wondering

for their worship is not

Authentic JESUS

Click here to listen to Blackman Preach read this poem.

BlackCommentator.com Spoken Word Columnist, Poet Blackman Preach (Cedric T. Bolton), is a poet (spoken word artist) and producer, born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. Cedric received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University and currently resides, with his wife, in Syracuse, New York.  He is the Founder of Poetic Black Fusion, a writers' workshop that provides access and opportunities to poets of African Ancestry living in Central New York.  He is also the co-founder of Voices Merging, a student-run poetry organization (spoken word) at the University of Minnesota that provides a social outlet for undergraduate students to develop as writers, network and express themselves on stage. He has been writing poetry for 14 years and is published in the Ethnic Student Center's Newsletter at Western Washington University, The Spokesman Recorder, and St. Cloud Times. Click here to contact Blackman Preach.

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