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| Omosun Sylvester Urdeen |
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| Slavery & Haiku |
| The cruel hiss of the bullet
The darkness and the burden of chains Over the field Through the pause of time it carried the sung our fathers sang And the comely word of mother tongue In which I learned to hope; Sound full of toil and drudgery yet rich strong and soaring Untie our knuckles from all the hackles that hold my shackled voices yet captives require of us a song Of the selves beyond our reach For the old has lost it lure among our race in bondage deep rooted like the oak from the hassles of the mind let freedom ring in a song of unity though we have worked this route with our blood for five score years The sound of each nuances and the message they send of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" may we be truly free |
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Swing the axe Hear the forest hum Listen to the tune Across the field of cotton patch You can hear the chink of chains As the timber comes crashing down Clanking out all the wrong Trying to burst my seam Against the snarling drill all that I remembered happened to me here as I browse the net it spring to my line of sight carrying me home again the slave of my own poems |
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Darkie.. you felt as they did they felt as you did they are sure of it they thought they understand the humiliation of a pure=blooded african who lives against his will they thought they understand they real thought they do they understand the whole teetertotter of they color line they believe they understand the restaint you must feel they even insist on indentifying themselves with you they called themselves NIGGER and uses every nigger slang yet with the well known quintessence of white folks talk to embrace the color line |
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Not for me- The summer heat of the day Not for me- The filthy gnat mad field Not for me- The bone cracking labors of wood Not for me- The toil of shelling corn Not for me- Romping deep in decaying slims Not for me- The work of the mill Not for me- The weight of grains Not for me- The sweat and stink of the field Not for me- The cruel hiss of the wipe Not for me- The groan of the dying Not for me- The roar of the sea Not for me- the burden of chains Not for me- The farm of grain Not for me- The stench of the field Not for me- The yelling note of the overseer Not for me- |
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Father mentioned `niggers' And I began to think of them `nigga' Folks once toiling were now we are playing Sold off assigned devised The constant taunt The mercenary sense of the words, Arrest the mind and from its scene i imagined them And I suddenly realise how little I knew about `slaves' Though I too am black What I do knew Not much I presume when I think how much there is to know The bibles says Joseph was sold For some penny worth to the "Ishmaelite" I presume I wonder about them And the companions of overseers and think within me, if I too am a `slave' |
HAIKU 1 To hoe Seems an extension of my arm in the field 2 Couldn't see an inch Till you made a hiss In echoes to my own 3 The contact of flesh The closeness and the stillness In a true nigger fashion 4 A slice of skin With teeth and claw Made the manic real 5 Stop the wagon This is not the right track to go about that route 6 Empty the wagon Of all it 's cargo of slave And let the chain link us to our root 7 A hiss of a kitchen mammy A cry of outward pleasure As I penetrate the fleecy triangles of black hair 8 I hear my momma calling in down from the field Calling in down from the cotton patch 9 Bracelets of chains Pounding in senseless rhymes Watch it knot loosen from the delicate bones 10 The chinking sound of chains Very slow toneless Weird laden monotony like a snatch of song 11 The black heraldic silhouette; I imagined I see them… stirring here in the net 12 Manacled with double cuff The crack of bull whip Stopped the chain of thought 13 They had brains Not just a set of conditioned reflexes yet fugitives from his own skin 14 A fat house nigger The lowest beast of the heard bust free from her snare 15 parrot the talk Like the skulking baboon call it nigger slang 16 A gust of wind swept through the field I shiver in a spasm of cold |
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