Slavery Poems | Examples

That same, old kind of line blurs

Where does capital end

and mere terrorism begin

Premium Member Absolute Rule

untamed masters, tame
their subjects, until they're tame 
enough to follow.

Villanelle: A Serious Matter

"A Serious Matter" is a free-verse-ish or "loose" villanelle.

A Serious Matter
by Michael R. Burch

Listen, love, it’s a serious matter:
I love you better despite the fetter.
I love you madder than any hatter.

Now even though you’re my chains’ begetter
and keep me your slave with that braless sweater,
I love you better despite the fetter.

You say you’re afraid that you’re getting “fatter,”
but your curves are my lust’s prime aider and abettor. 
Listen, love, it’s a serious matter.

I love you madder than any hatter.

When you come to bed in sheer lace, my thoughts scatter:
first to the firmer, then to the latter. 

I love you better despite the fetter.
I love you madder than any hatter.
Listen, love, it’s a serious matter!

Keywords/Tags: villanelle, love, love hurts, mad, madness, slave, slavery, lust, passion, desire, curves, lace, bed, chain, chains, fetter, fetters, ties that bind, mad hatter, madder than a hatter


Premium Member Did You Cry for Me? Note to a Sharecropper

Did you cry for me
when none but the crows
was both black and free
in them cotton rows?

When you saw me hung
did you cry for me
as my body swung 
'neath the lynchin tree?

Such prosperity
must taste mighty sweet
Did you cry for me
when I didn't eat?

Heard you gone some years,
died in poverty
and I cried no tears... 

did you cry for me?

Human Speech versus Business Prison

Begin at treason acts of non allegiance 
Human Speech 
Business license is created to take from human voluntarily
Or otherwise 
Advertising is not free speech
Use of surplus against legislation 
Fraudulent bypass of poverty laws
Document theft from slaves
Slavery Acts

Calls from the job you needed
Connecting without the shove
Turning down the press
Finishing the letters in the heart shaped box
Quiting going to work
Letting yourself run out of money
Getting yourself back

Strapped

strapped to a chair while wires
pierced my skin, tested my knowledge 
Will this ever end? Come forth not 
My tongue tells all lies, as it splits
down the middle towards your
demise.


My eyes turned black my skin crawling 
With fear,  as my speech comes out
I feel endless fear. strap me down as
The room shakes, come forth as my
Shackles come off I'm going to my
happy place.


An atheist on his deathbed

An atheist living soul was floating above on  deathbed,
because if he touched it, he would leave this world.

He let the pain out and screamed through his dying soul.

A guy who was once drenched in every bit of gold
comes to him and says:
“I want to make a compromise with your soul and body—
I will save you, but for the rest of your life,
you have to serve me.”

But then suddenly the man who created every bit of the universe
comes to him and says:
“I will save you, but for the rest of your life,
you have to believe I am real.”

Then the living soul thought:
It’s no different. Both are slavery,
but in different ways.

But he thought,
since he questioned God in the life he lived before,
he would face judgment for that.
Either way, he was going to hell.

He was thinking of every possible possibility
that would grant him some life.

But he died in his imagination while sleeping.

– THEBLOODYPEN

Premium Member STANCE AT GETTYSBURG

Shenandoah cries
Voice of a Leader
Echoes of a Nation
Tomorrow only the beginning
The change needing a change
Soulful hope
Skies above in realize
Direction from Heaven
White House woes
Freedom, Wisdom and Rise
Bitterness through emotion
Far from the Liberty shores
Darkness plight
Wonder of the day, and the offspring of thought
Turnaround to oppose
No Slave shall be
Rebel no more
Freedom ways
Impact says
Pathway to a better life
No more demands
Freedom by order and command
Honor and Leverage
Proclamation and Freedom is now a privilege.

History doesn't matter if its aesthetic

Hot summers dry up the land 
The dirt crumbles under the heaviness of disrespect
Fresh flowers adorn the land 
Covering the uneven burial grounds 
Overshadowed by privilege 

What better way to claim superiority 
By soiling the plantation they stand on
Ignorance crowds the air 
Cast aside by vows of love 
Tainting history with a wedding
The stories of black labour whitewashed into a picture of a bride in white
Covering the truths in a veil of fragility
Ironic how they use the innocence of a white wedding 
To ink over history 

A picture is worth a thousand words
A simple picture of a now conjoined family
Haunted by secrets of ownership
How the brides grandmother was once a girl
Who stood on this same plantation
Watching her parents become slave owners 
A simple picture
Once innocent becomes a sinister backstory
A history haunted by the darkness of whiteness

Flower petals spread across the venue of black bones
Not to pay respect to those buried
But to honour love consummated on the grounds of black history 
Smiling in pictures with a tainted memory 
Plastered in magazines profiting off of slavery 
But hey at least they gained popularity

The fear of nothing changing

The rush of emotion stilled
The air once consumed by an undiluted energy
Now eerily quiet 
Something lingers in the air 
Justice? 
No something louder but hidden
A violence so silent 
It could go unnoticed by those who don't care to see
Those who choose wilful ignorance 

The streets once crowded by protest
Now sits empty 
Brought down from the high of purpose
Now left with an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness 

The stench of death plagues the streets
Where once voice and life used to meet
Now only emptiness you will greet
Only thing left is failed legacies and echoes of long gone feet

The people who assumed these spaces
Just like the streets now empty
The promises of a better future
Dead like the movement 
Despite having enough strength in their bodies to go on
Mourning takes their time of what's lost
Hoping to gain the strength to march again 
But as the world continues to hate instead of help
Slowly losing their joy, the best parts of themselves 

They are tired though not from the burning screams for justice
Nor the tiring marches
But through a slow realisation that the world they live in may never change

Modern day slavery

The world drowns us in problems 
Then expects us to breathe solutions 
In a society that demands whispers of lullabies rocking them to sleep 
Whilst we deal with the havoc they wreak

Safe in the silence of their homes
Black women have to deal with the chaos outside alone
The white man's mess becomes the black persons job
Our pay - racism
Seems familiar, reminds you of anything
Maybe, a modern day version of slavery 

No rest for the wicked they say
So why are the oppressors still sleeping 
The good are punished 
The evil rewarded 
I guess we just live in a one-sided system 
Where being a victim, makes you a villain 
Our worth determined by how much blood we pour
The more we bleed, the more we are adored
Our pain is entertainment, they'll never get bored
For them it's like a cure for the common cold
Like an answer to all the world's problems 

For them we are a sacrificial lamb
Something to feed off of, then be rid of the scraps
The story of our lives
Used then are blamed for our cries
Then are denied of our rights 
To be humans not slaves

The autopsy of a black body

An autopsy of a black body
One who suffered greatly
The body pushed past its limits
To the point it had enough and quit

A scalpel to their chest
Slowly peeling the layers of flesh
Noticing the rot 
Hit by the stench of trauma

The body dissected 
The organs removed 
Leaving the body an empty shell 
Of a broken person
Beaten by an unjust system
There was no hope for the body to be saved 
It was always going to give away

The person that had owned the body stood no chance
From the trauma to the head 
Consumed by the complexities of PTSD
To the bruises on the legs
From a lifetime full of abuse 
Carrying a body hated by society

It was like a troubled home 
A place that was out of control
Where the quiet screams of abuse
Are trapped within the cracked walls
Bearing the weight of secrets untold

It was damaged beyond repair 
No amount of glue could fix the damage of what was done 
The body could heal 
But the trauma couldn't be undone 
The cause of death: racism
This is what happens when you live a life on the run from discrimination 
Beaten by the harsh reality of hatred 
Isolated by a world full of prejudice 
Living in an abyss of hopelessness

The strength we embody

They told us our skin meant exile
That our joy would be put on trial
Because it brings rain
But how can they hate the rain when it nourishes the ground we walk on
The same ground that grows the food we need to survive

They want us to cower in the face of their Whiteness
To bow down to their egos and stroke it
For us to call them superior
And reprimand our own blackness 
And repent with silence

But we were born strong
Strength flowed through our bloodlines
Coursing through generations 
Our ancestors created a legacy of pride 
That we their children will not allow to be broken
We have endured the stings of their whips 
We have lived through the shackles of slavery 
We have taken abuse from the system 
Yet still remained outspoken 
Refusing to be the beat up victim 
And faced the inhumane conditions of incarceration 

We were made to withstand any storm 
To hold our own 
Whilst being pushed around 
To trust in the power of ourselves 
To embrace the harsh realities of life 
To continue to love 
And balance the rain with our sun 
To smile and not giving them the satisfaction 
Of their racism
And to not be bullied by their discrimination

The Day the Chains Were Broken

No trumpet blew, yet thunder came,
From streets once hushed, now lit with flame.
A tyrant's crown was cast away,
By barefoot hearts who dared to stay.

We Wear The Mask

We Wear The Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar



After poem by Olabosoye Wemimo Olaoluwa 


Love of our land's labour should make us proud;
The efforts, time, and energy put through...
Well enough to place our pride clear as vowed.

But we wear the mask of pain we don't plowed,
When slavery is to labourers in blue...
Love of our land's labour should make us proud.

Showers of rain ain't just of dusty cloud,
But of heavy downpour and not dew;
Well enough to place our pride clear as vowed.

Yet all harvest couldn't feed suppose crowd,
We become weary of need to pursue...
Love of our land's labour should make us proud.


Just an endless space to measure; unbowed 
Hearts and heads under threat, government subdue...
Love of our land's labour should make us proud,
Well enough to place our pride clear as vowed.

Specific Types of Slavery Poems

Definition | What is Slavery in Poetry?

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