[A] CAR- GOES with
descendants
This poem was
written in commemoration of International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave
Trade and its Abolition August 23, 2002 - As the International Day for the
Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was recently celebrated
worldwide , UNESCO continuous implementing its Memory of the World Slave Trade
Archives project, one of its many initiatives related to the slave trade. I
tried to show the links between the nexus of the human condition...
in
on
the rea banks
ambitious
dissenters, zealots,
an’
metal workers
set
to work without guild
near
a ring
where
bull deer
were
reared
generations,
centuries later
came
wherever
the car[here] goes
migrant
workers never forget
bajan,
kittian, Jamaican toiling
at
longbridge…
nor
scottish,welsh, english, polish, asian
irish
peoples plying their trades
in
the wake of the birth of an industrial heritage
is
was and still is
going
to B
taylor,sturge,
wesley
would
smile at lloyds
brindley’s
glittering canals
more
miles than
never
forget though
the
nameless orphans
some
offsprings of despised
canal-boat
dwellers
except
for those smuggled
to
black
country furnaces
ports
of
cities
like
unto
guinea coast and
port
royal xymaca
(2)
cargoes
sugar
coffee tobacco
rum
molasses cotton
gold
and ‘staple’ humans
shackled;
90% of this
trade
orchestrated by mercantile
giants
in Liverpool,
where
also slavers, buccaneers and even privateers
recruited
openly sometimes
in
deception of those hired
there…everywhere
watts’
steam engines transferring
more
than technology, trade
with
ever
attendant greed
never
before since cargoes
virgin
vistas witnessed such
wanton
pillage
man
made flames
blood-letting
of
innocent and guilty parties
on
all
sides
slate
from mountain tops of wales
ferried
along
to
trade with ‘de indans’
restraining
irons…groating pudding
maize
cutlery..pottery…
finery
for the mistresses
nails,
pig iron, coal, blankets
to
trade with ‘de bandits’
paid
for
by
god fearing enterprising
forward
thinking philanthropic scientists
who
dared to query..
as
albion Jacobins…lunar friends
Unitarian
dreamers toying and fermenting
Sugar
chocolate coated oats
Bullets,
medals, coins
etal
supporting far away
Harriet
Tudman; listening
To
discourses on
Equality,
Dignity,
A
human’s right to
liberty;
The
likes of Equiano
Francis
Barber
Peter
Stanford- Methodist Minister
Isolating
oxygen…colour spectrums
Hosting
Priestly’s
timely hurried departure
To
Loyalist
riotous mobs on broad street
to
ole’ moseley lands
----
[B]
Descendants of CAR- goes
cargoes
of edgewood carriages with
american
wars…
fuzzie
wazzie, nubian, karifuna,tasmanian, boer an’ biafrian
franklin,
wesley and day
understood
abolition
of this precious trade
and
the consequences
Are
these humans capable of “higher thought ? “
Among
themselves these learnt men
Owners
themselves of such chattel
Aware
the booming “noble” slavery trade
of
Boston & Maryland. Yankee slavers
plying
their trade from
to
abolition
decades prior
Cargoes
wanted
posters proclaim
irish,
welsh, english Scottish
indentured
labourers…fellow Christians
albeit
protestants, objectors and some catholics
on
the run with afrikan slaves,,,
today
in Moseley
handsworth,
live
multi racial
descendants
drive cars
their
familiar surnames
occupying
dwelling
houses
whose
facades have not changed…