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The Slave's Tale: Across the Atlantic, 1793

Exracted from Gerald Nforche's Epic, The Slave's Tale


-Across the Atlantic, 1793-


We cry out cursing to our very gods
Whilst mokala and plotters lead us in lots.
And slaves we have become, slaves we are groomed
And setting in the milken sky, is the moon.
                              		
This is the hell that befalls one’s prism
If he doesn’t open himself to pragmatism.
The ways of mokala are not our ways
And their days are never like our days. 

Hope you fall in line with my tune’s knell
As it would guide souls to wisely dwell:
Now permit me continue with my sad tale
Before we are rapidly placed on sale.

For here I stand under an alien sun
Faraway from my own sweet land’s rung
Battered, chained to the queue’s label 
As humans are placed on the auction table.

Here I proceed with my tale feeding you
With my pain, pains of brothers on cue
As they are sold off like fresh tobacco
Whips meeting flesh if anyone plays the hero.

                            ***

 Rocks! ebesse rocking, shaking like old
The chains cutting into arms, legs to mold
Croaks and groans climaxing to a sadistic rhythm
Beating us to yield forth into realism.

Light strained in through rat nibbled openings
Else we would have left the hold like blind goblins 
Vicious to the point of abandonment
Scuffling for blood, mokala’s disbursement.

Aided by the scurrying light, my head worked
East, west, south and north, on shoulders, rocked-
Acquainting itself with the crampy hold
Taking in every detail for any bolt.

In long prodigious rows we humans lay
Meditating, some wide-eyed not to say
Tear tracks dry on their black paling cheeks.
They now submissive despite the reeks. 

A cough here, a huff there. A groan here
A croak there. A curse far afield, a stifle near.
A prayer whimpered here, a shiver rippling
There. A horrid sight it was, a grappling. 

That pungent stench, from decaying beings:
Men awake whilst parts decayed in rings.
I was nauseated, my eyes reeling, pained
My stomach flaring to throw up content.

And there they ran, hiking on heaving bodies
Playing hide-and seek- on chained enemies.
Tossing about, screeching on their suppers-
Causing a kick here, shrieks there, left-overs.

And my groans joined the choir, a dirge
Loud to fissure walls, and seditious to merge
Vocal forces to kill, kill! Kill! No shy- 
And we’d die sober, die! Die! Die!

Copyright © NGT NGT | Year Posted 2013

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