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upon the back rails
of human frailty
slavery
came to be
so fearfully born
engines of song
echoing across
the broad nation like
plantations
bills of sale
paid with, for and by the beaten
down black man's sweat
via the horrid lash and cry
of the cutting voice and
quivering whip
regard
let alone respect
chewed up and spat out
by the 'Masser'
at even his own mother's feet
and in the face of his so called
property
that is if he indeed had a mother!
hatred has always been too easy
where understanding takes real work
writing kills some of the distaste I feel
inside for this matter
as my humanness to such pre and post civil
war ideas simply cannot abide
where are you Rosa Parks
Do you hate me today
for what my not so 'fair' ancestors
did to you
and of you had to say
something tells me that you are incapable
of hate as you are too fine a lady
but still I wonder
after all you've been through
could you bring yourself to hold
say, my hand on a public bus
if I offered it
like I was taught to help you up
I'd give up my seat ten million fold gladly
for you today
to change even one violent outcome of
the white man's age old acts of rage
and even in your segregated era I know
I would have done so just the same
no big show
just a young, respectful girl,
giving up her seat to a fragile, elderly lady
instinctively with little care for consequence
as that is my way
why do people ignore what they know is truly right
in their souls
do you think that even they, themselves know why
this is so
has their daily diet of prejudice
driven them so deep into the darkness
that even their inner eyes fail them so
spectacularly
my soul quivers at the slapped down notion
and if it could
I know it too would cry out for such injustices
to my fellow man
and oh how I wish certain bitter harsh deeply
gouged realities had never been allowed to
take place
all scars on the black man's race
let alone
be so often one sidedly recorded
(and we know from who's point of view that is!)
in our quotable history books
as facts built from many a white slave owner's
lies
so to the false romanticism of slavery
this poem I write
so to firmly wave to it
'A Loveless Goodbye'..................
(written Sept. 8, 2001 4am)