You there, slave, living in the great house
You think you’re better than us in the fields, don’t you?
How can that be when you decorate the house like a polished statue?
Even when you’re working, you have to be as quiet as a mouse.
Did you forget we were chained together on a ship?
That we sat in each other’s faeces, urine and vomit?
Chained like animals down in Hell’s pit?
Maybe your memory has faded as your wounds have healed from the whip.
Did you forget we were both snatched away from the same motherland?
Brothers from the same village
Who fought together against the invaders who came to plunder and pillage
With their cold eyes and skin the colour of sand?
The sun scorches our backs and sweat stings our eyes
But it makes us no darker than you
Never will you lose that midnight black skin, almost blue
Stupid fool, how can you extricate yourself from such ties?
Our bare feet kiss the earth
But yours are trapped in these shoes
Stung by the leather and just like us, shackled in twos
Do you really think these silk shirts and leather jackets give you worth?
It’s true that our skin is soiled with dirt
But if we are so dirty, then why does your master raid our huts in the night
When his clean wife is out of sight
With her scent still clinging onto his shirt?
My friend, I’ll tell you why, so listen
Never before has your master seen such raw, untamed beauty with his eyes
Never before has he seen such buxom women with buttocks that size
Like our skin under the sun’s glare, his cold, steel eyes glisten
Never before has he seen such a resonance of femininity
From women who work harder than he ever could
Toiling in the sun with resilience imbued
Tantalizing his perverse desires yet scoffing at his masculinity
Our slave women, sweeter than your master’s sugarcane
With their voluptuous bodies, firm and tight
Honey sweet lips which sooth us in the night
Encourage us and numb the pain
House slave, you are dead inside
Broken by subjection
Bound by inhibition
Robbed of your pride
But we are very much alive
Your master can’t ever kill our spirit
As unrelenting as the drum’s beat
Urging us to survive and thrive
The drumbeat is the heartbeat of our people
Riding with the wind to other plantations
To other slaves who’ve survived endless branding, whipping and amputations
To those who are hurting and cripple
You’ve forsaken the mother tongue, haven’t you?
Pretending you don’t understand a word we say
Becoming less of yourself day after day
Looking down at us, yet you lick your master’s shoe
We don’t envy you, house slave
Our skins have become immune to the whip
Nor are our minds scarred with the thought of that ship
But you, house slave, live in your grave
Inwardly, you envy us
Peering longingly through the jalousie blinds
With homesick inclinations of all kinds
Jealous of us but calling us overzealous
You are just as foolish as the overseers
Fighting your own kind
As your subservience has corroded your mind
Wasting away your years
We’d gladly stick our fingers in the earth
Toil under the gaze of the sun
Face the overseer’s whip and gun
But unlike you, we haven’t lost our self-worth
You lack insight
Your vision blurred by stupidity
Muddied by your misguided loyalty
Never will you be part of the revolution we will incite
Your master is oblivious of that fateful night
Ignited by that spark of rebellion
Branded in us, deeper than the touch of the hot iron
Oh yes, that flame will shine bright
That fire will be the manifestation of our desire to be free
Our unbridled wrath
Engulfing everything in its path
No one will be allowed to flee
So, don’t look down at us while we cut the sugarcane
As we only bide ourselves time until we revolt
It will come as sudden as a thunder bolt
No longer will we be tethered by your master’s reign
By Marlan J. Leon