The illuminated night, the silver moon

accompanied the firm steps of the journey.

Inside the jungle drummings, the chest burning on fire

The hatred that inflames calls us into the city

in the eyes of black men warmth and pride

in the children’s chest a cold

the heart like a river, spilled Nile’s teardrops.

The mother with eyes in need of sheltering, 

dried the sweet and hot nipples.

the hurt pulse, the slave necklace on the neck

the wounded entrails…The white skin makes

                                         in a lasting hate...

The black maid who breastfed long ago

smiled at the thought of vultures, pecking the blue eyes.

The swing, the cut teeth, the return to home...

The song was toubob fá, toubob fá, toubob fá.

The drums cease slavery

drenching slave drivers in fright.

The melungeon behind the bushes

like ghosts of the night

the hungry cease whippings.

Ebony blacks, shiny as the moonlight

serene as the sea

                                       you abandoned

                                       left them to mold in chains

those who picked all the cotton.

In exchange for the cold pain in the hot pillory.

Saw stamen flowers the clan

there is eagerness in mind

to burn down the city of dogs

before the dawn.

End leave to the vultures, the flesh of the illustrious

the taken plantation, white wife horrified,

                                      embarrassment.

I hunt the whip

that on the backs of blacks made home.

Echoes through the pores, upheavals

cries and skin sounds.

manumission! Who auctions them?

In the slave market

begs

the death of the lords, it is our wing

the marked bodies by hot iron

intone

UNIKA

                             UHURU

                                                          AMANDLA

sweat on song

May 13

One day we will decree abolition