The Slave's Tale: Revenge
Exracted from Gerald Nforche's Epic, The Slave's Tale
-Across the Atlantic, 1793-
And as days tumbled away, we staggered
Along, knock-kneed, dead beat and haggard.
Our bodies singing to the tune of the whip
Whizzing on morsels of flesh, so the flip.
Fed like dogs, fed from pity, we kept alive
Trudging along the valleys and the wild
Birds singing down at us, our elegies:-
Those birds who shared our land and memories.
My kinsman, he shackled infront of me
Turned and stared a second at me:
Before whips fell on flesh, devouring
Harvesting the very blood, that came dripping.
I recalled those eyes staring at me, metal-
Vacant save with shame. And I recalled, decal
Ago, he was the warrior, Zoko he was!
Be not ashamed brother! We’d had no lethal force.
Muscular he was, tall and menacing
Muscles gaping with fury, howling
In contempt and shame, regret well spelled
As each morsel of muscle throbbed in its cell.
The winds sighed into our sweat tinged faces
Sympathising with our souls and races
Giving us their farewells and all vigour
Via gulps of freshening air with all rigour.
And shortly the winds come again, madder
Battering the trees, scaffolding our line, harder
Dazing mokala and his men who faltered
Giving us the golden moment we desired.
And everything detonated-
What I saw in a wink of an eye, astounded,
Was the warrior getting at mokala’s neck
And a snap came so suddenly: sweet peck.
The thing that flabbergasted me gaunt
Was that his hands were strapped in front
But still he had reached and cracked a neck
And was now reaching for another’s leg.
This had been so fast that comrades never saw
Or head a muffled sound from fear’s core-
And soon each slave was bent on the kill
The wind sent, I presumed, had brought the skill.
What had happened was that as the wild wind
Scuffled with trees and man, mokala eased his whim
And turned to the wind like set to trap it
And we had snatched the luck and beat towards it.
Seconds soon, six mokala, closest to the flock
Rested inert like decal old rocks.
I killed mokala with a strike to his genitals
He clutching it to his doom near petals.
Before I realised , we were screaming
Battering at the nearest mokala, tearing,
Reaching for sizable chunks of flesh.
We were now monsters, fresh ones. Very fresh!
Shots rang in the air, bullets whistled by
But we, nonchalant grope with every cry
And volleys of bullets whistled off the lane,
Brothers dropping with gasps, shrieks and pain.
Copyright © NGT NGT | Year Posted 2013
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