Boat of Horror

I hear the moans and cries of my neighbor next to me Tied down on this boat of death Where are we going? Taken against our will Towards a place of unspeakable cruelty Our families, our homes, our lives Taken away from us Why? Lie in filth and sicknesses Tied in chains in the bottom of a boat Little food, rats, feces, and filth Slaves to these people We sing our hymns Quietly at first Then it passes along to Our brothers down the rows And suddenly we are all one From many different tribes We are all brothers In our singing Until they tell us to “Shut up” The ones who don’t Are punished They take away all that we have Even the one thing we all have in common Our hymns Why? Why do we endure such torture For doing nothing? They call us savages These people with light skin Who are they to bind us Innocent Take the babies away from the mothers And will we ever see our families Again? No, no they say no They say we are their property now We are human too We are human too! And they call us savage Who beat the women and children For not working hard enough In the sweltering heat But who is savage? They say we are stupid and Do not allow us to learn But we do anyway They take our names And give us new names They take our religion and Give us a new one But we still worship Our way We yearn for our home And our children’s children Will do the same But we pray That one day they can Go home again Or at least be Able to stand on both our feet