thehighlanderspoems

The Start of the End of my Village

One day herding my animals
The other, tending our crop
Strangers out of the distance
To them, we knew not
 
The colour of our skin
Is with these distant men
On arrival at my village
We are herded into a pen
 
Our women and children screaming
Warriors manacled and chained
Treated like this in our homeland
Degraded mistreated, unexplained
 
The next day we witness our nightmare
Our village ransacked and burned
Six hundred marched to the coastline
Our existence overturned
 
The coast we eventually reach
A ship, The Brooke's sits offshore
Ferried out on their longboats
For our future, remains unsure
 
Many weeks at sea
Grown men cower in corners
In the bowels of this infested ship
Families have become mourners
 
Tilbury Docks we berth
As i look around and see
From over 600 villagers
Around 300 left and me 

 

The Start of the End of Me

On Tilbury docks we stand
Separated from my kin
Is the reason we're standing here
The colour of my skin
 
Standing in the column of no future
I hear the white-man say
We are heading to Virginia
To be plantation slaves
 
Another journey awaits me
Without my family
The thought of never seeing them again
Internally horrifies me
 
We find ourselves at sea
With a shout land ahoy
The state of Virginia reached
Where men are turned into toys
 
We are standing in a line
In a market like cattle and sheep
To my left and to my right
Grown men, cower and weep
 
White men are shouting and bidding
With no thought to who we are
Do they know we look just like them
The difference is in our colour
 
Bidding and bartering over
Shaking hands as their deals are done
We head to the plantation
This era for me has begun
 
Years of toil and work
We hear stories from where we came
Slavery has been outlawed
Will America become the same
 
As America enters civil war
The North against the South
We hear of Abraham Lincoln
For these words are from his mouth
 
" I never, in my life,
  felt more certain that i was doing right,
  than i do in signing this paper "
 
The civil war ends
With many killed and maimed
White and black from all walks of life
We are human, and we all have names
 
For on December the 6th
1865
Slavery was abolished
How many of me had died
 
I grew old and free
So far away from my home
My family i never found
For my spirit, will forever roam 

 

Metal Bodies and Shiny Knives

What did they think
When they stood on their shores
This ship of anew
Never seen before

Made of wood
Just like their own
But who are these people
To come to our homes

On our beach they land 
Metal clad
Carrying shining knives
With a look of mad

On our shores we meet
Face to face
Unknown to us then
What our future would grace

They are not here long
As their madness shows
Drinking, incoherent
Striking blows

Weeks pass
As they increase their pain
Our women beaten and raped
For their pleasurable gain

The following morning
We are manacled and chained
Our village burned
Blows down on us rain

To their boat we are taken
Thrown into the dark
Infested with rats
Sodden, stark

The sound of our breakers
Grow quiet and distant
As i fear for my people
We are now nonexistent