To The Melanated

Virile black man
Bound and gagged
Reduced to a fear filled knot in throat
Your defiance bloodied
what about the tears cried in your heart?
The blood that drips from your wounded soul?

Beautiful black woman
Ripped from her home
Child of your youth torn from your breast
Words are too futile a device
So you scream and cry your despair
I hope that the wind delivered
Your unuttered curses
To all who caused you this pain

Hands and feet shackled
Metal pins put through your lips
Water granted only at the behest of the pale ones
And when it is given, it takes something away
Are the gods angry?
Why are they silent?
So this is the meaning of captivity-
The sale of the vanquished

And now I can see the house on the water
That will take me from my homeland
Who will tell my mother not to look for me?
Who will tell my young wife
That she might as well marry another?
How many nights will my father’s eyes defy sleep
Waiting for me to return?
And my little brother whom I tell
Stories of Yemoja at bedtime
Who will tell him now and hold him close
When childish fear threatens sleep?

Taken away to a strange land
Where they do not care what you named me
A place where the whip breaks my skin
And drinks my blood
Where hopeless pain is all I can feel
A place where love is exploited
To bring forth servitude- never ending?
To ensure the endurance of this unholy legacy
And the price for seeking freedom
are the fangs of a dog
Buried in my throat

A place where the master pillages and plunders
Everything and my body too
And my only comfort cannot suckle
As I must feed the child borne the master
And when my child becomes a woman-barely
Her innocence is sold for coins
Black mother her lips mouthing prayer
Praying that her youngin
May have a chance
Praying, seeking, supplicating that it end with her
Spare my child!

In a place where entire lifetimes
Are spent shackled to the will of another
Longing for a home I have never before seen
But stories have been passed to me
And I dream of a day when I shall gaze upon it

And now after freedom has been hard worn
At no small cost
Lives, blood, hopes, dreams ,futures and potential
All sacrificed at the altar
That these chains might be broken
And still, centuries after
We chant our right to life
STOP KILLING US! BLACK LIVES MATTER!
How do you still not know?
What is the cause of your fear?
What you fear you cannot understand
Ain’t I a human too?

If the ancestors could see us now
What would they think?
Of you who peel off your skin
To look less like us
And deprive yourself of your glory and beauty
As shades of you melt away
Does a part of you wonder
If this is what your ancestors died for
That you may be ashamed of your beauty

Of you who cart off your brothers
Into forced labour
In foreign lands
While their fathers lie awake
Attentively seeking the sound of footfalls
And their lovers wait in anticipation

Of you who sell your sisters
To the selling of their bodies
Their youthful charms exploited
At the hands of indentured slavery

What will the ancestors think of us all
Who do not speak against?

Virile black man
Beautiful black woman
Remember how they traded us
For iron, gin and umbrellas
But remember a time before that
Of fertile lands and prosperity
And walk with your head held high
Shoulders squared
Your pride always at hand
You are worth so much more
Than they have let you believe

Jayne Rone

Jayne writes poems but doesn’t consider herself a poet- yet. She is the 2021 winner of the Tony Tokunbo Fernandez International Online Poetry Competition. She has a Bachelors in law from Igbinedion University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Derby. She rarely lawyers these days as she is currently dipping her toes in the world of finance. She resides in the UK with her husband and when she isn’t reading or writing in her favourite coffee shop, she spends most of her time traveling, cooking and finding the utmost pleasure in the simple things.