Song Slavery Poems

I have been encaged all my life for mans pleasure and fun, 
my precious life had sadly ended before it even begun. 

In human terms...

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My calloused black skin got shoved in the soil by a white mans soiled thumb
Trying to make his mortgage off me

Buried
I found friends 
Barely breathing

But...

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Ena neyray na ho dildar vay
Vak hon lagyan takleef hundi ay....

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(From the musical "On Eagles' Wings." This song was written with my sister Faith Alexis.)

No, He cannot think I would deserve
To have His eye upon...

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-From the Passover musical that I wrote, "On Eagles' Wings." My sister Amy Grace helped me with this. This was the song of the Hebrew...

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his is not what we were taught in school
Fights, mayhems, police arrests and brutalities
In the soiled streets. Compatriots, it's never cool
To see so much blood...

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-From the Passover musical that I wrote, "On Eagles' Wings"-

Allow me just to dream this once
Of things of life, of things of love
Allow me just...

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lift every voice and sing, till heaven and earth ring with the harmonies of liberty.

let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies, let it...

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Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch   a rickety chair   
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your...

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Spaghetti

The meat, 
the cheese,
the sauce.

The smiles,
the laughs,
the wine.

The music, 
the song, 
the moment... 

The vow of forever!

Then...

You and I, 
and the garlic bread!



A. Foster, Ann...

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U

It is cool here. 
Is it hot there?
You have not written. 
I have not received...
a letter.

Do you think of me?
I remember you. 
I can not...

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Tuning William Blake's Whistle
by Michael R. Burch

a musical prophecy, after William Blake

I.

Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not...

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Manifest Destiny
by Michael R. Burch

When you were in my house
you were not free—
in chains bound.

Manifest Destiny?

I was wrong;
my plantation burned to the ground.
I was wrong.
This...

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It’s coming can’t you feel it
Something, absolutely wrong
They’re preaching greed and hatred
In the lyrics to their song
The precipice we’re perched upon
Hums! like a ticking bomb
As...

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Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch
 
after William Blake

I.
Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.
 
I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle...

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