Inspired by slave narratives

AUNTIE CAT

massa whip crack de day open

but misery don’t skeer me;

dey calls me Auntie Cat ‘cuz of

de cat ‘o nine tails on my back

from my allus runnin’ way

Marse Tom take de whip to me

wid de pepper en salt to worry

de cut; my back a map of lash

en pain, den come de night en

Marse trouble me again

Marse Tom too old en mean to

go to war so young Marse Griffith

tuk his rifle en shot up de air

hootin’ en hollerin’ ‘bout he

was most likely gon’ bloody up some Yankees

still he tuk my broder Hoss

who wuz built up like a haul of

bricks just in case;

well he come back buck-starved bones

wid not much to say

a passel of dem Yankee soljers

come down here en et mo’ ham den

a hell-fire preacher; Marse Tom looked pale

as Georgia flour en just glad dey wasn’t

itchin’ for blood --

but dey give dem hams a work out

dey don’t skeer me none talkin’ ‘bout

freedom to scratch en beg for

some freedom place

since dey tuk us from dat Africy

wid de vittles growin ount’n de trees

sun shinin’ cross yo’ head

en sweet freedom jes flyin’ way

ON THE AUCTION BLOCK

in the marketplace that day

straight from the bowels

of that demon ship,

their whiteness stuck to my mind

as they came upon my nakedness

standing on the barter block;

they laughed their familiarity and

stained me with their eyes;

drooling animals, horrid beasts

in the light of a reluctant day

they mocked my chains, prodding me

in places innocent and rare;

their eyes darted and tongues

pink ribbons of lust and wager

barked like dogs in a strange land

where houses piled up from the ground;

I was surprised that the

the sun shone nonetheless

A SLAVE SHIP NAMED "DESIRE"

Inspired by The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African: Written By Himself

life was barefoot, too tender for palm wine

too virgin for marriage bed when they bound me

on a ship named “Desire”; on this wooden ark

my nation slipping away, shrinking in my eye

the ocean swallowing but drowning us not

too far from the circle fire and drum,

too far from the songs and libations

too far from the brief huts with perfumed chairs,

too far from the goats and bullocks,

too far from the plaintains and chickens flaming

in salt of wood ashes

these men reek strange on a ship where

we are fouled below, tightly bound and tethered,

iron chained infamy, blood lace;

the air is not; is a knife to cut you in two

with no fresh supply save on deck where

they drink ugly spirits and unwoman women

but in the distance I see it ripe and clean

hovering over waters pitched; it is calling…

I follow my spirit floating away

The Iron Bit

Olaudah Equiano writes about the iron bit in his slave narrative, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, as “the iron muzzle”. He writes that “the iron muzzle, thumb screws, etc. are so well known as not to need a description, and were sometimes applied for the slightest faults.”

African queen from

Dahomey shores

caught by her own

and sold on a casual day

not knowing

the unthinkable

that these men thought

the pale ones arrived

from the land that had no sun

skin so curious, undone

and yet when she arrived

the sun splashed

on the tobacco and corn;

all-in-a-row slaves bent

nowhere to go broke

under some pounding tongue

she wore the iron muzzle

like a horse’s bridle

for a word askew

a glance cut quick

freedom breaking out of its noose

in the kitchen she

molded biscuits and

banged the pots

the pain hot in her eyes

tongue aborted

yanked back so that

she could not swallow

and it was all that

she would do

no word could form from such horror