Middle Passage
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Jennie Steers
Creaking voice, broken voice box, old fears
Pass away, as I hang like fruit from the old tree
Elizabeth Dolan never took lemonade from me
Poisoned they claimed, lemons are strange fruit
Like our bodies that hung low, deep roots
Deeper than the trees, Jesus deeper than the cross
Can a mother understand the deepness of our loss?
***
A man used to stand upon the shores and test the wind
Before the dark days of the plague, a pale pestilence
Began with one ship, becoming a vessel epidemic when,
The pale men, finally made homes in permanent settlements
Then plucked our men, like farmers do with eggs of hens
Took women as belly warmers, and brutally raped them
Influenced by the subtle whispers of a conniving Satan
Under images of a white Jesus, who died for their sins–
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Laura Nelson
As my soul pierced veil, had they learnt a lesson?
Lynched, accusation: murder of a deputy
Devils dragged me with my son, no dignity
I’m penetrated by lustful, lecherous white ghosts
Dragged for six miles, brutalized, a tight rope
Placed over my head and my innocent child
Hung on the bridge over troubled water, no trial
***
Would they have taken prisoners from the holy Bethlehem?
And chain flesh upon flesh, in vessels filled with lost lambs
Waves sliced by shark fins, troubled water, from lost lands
Corpse fragments, putrid stench, cast overboard or hot brands
From trip captain to whip cracker, invasion of body snatchers
Trade on coastal rivalries, yet not enough, so we’re captured
Fifty million dead in the process, can we arrest the men?
Who follow the footsteps set by Muawiyya’s precedent
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Marie Scott
Innocence on trial, guilty the knock
Of status quo’s gavel, I told them to stop
In my home dressing, they barged in breath hot
From swill inebriation, pale faces so white
Body violated by these ghosts out of the night
“My fault,” claimed the mob, a dozen white males
Hung before a trial, for I was stolen from jail
***
Our children imprisoned in America, as penal residents
Economics was the motive, no one quotes the Testaments
Fifty million died in the process, can we arrest the men?
Those responsible for the crime, look in the chests of men
To see who benefits from not giving kids reparations
Fifty million in shark bait, a holocaust of black men
Middle passage survivors don’t receive monthly payments
Why no memorial for the so called “beasts of burden”?
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Mary Turner
Abused by Farmer Smith, a hellfire burner
Eight virgin souls punished for crime justified
Committed by another, who smartly chose to hide
Any black skin sufficient, even a pregnant dame
Hung by my feet, gasoline dowsed, set aflame
Belly sliced open, out falls child with no name
A fetus cries, stomped to death, the bullets rain
***
Middle passage deniers; claim the fire, as guests of sin
Coarse rope intertwines, like old tree vines, hesitant
Bruised naked bodies like strange fruit penitent
The vilest forms of violence inspired by Willie Lynch,
Skin melts, licked by flames, our nudity is drenched
In Molotov concoctions burning, filthy the stench
From the volatile auctions, not given a cubic inch
To bodies piled, burnt flesh on flesh filling the trench
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum, I am Cordella Stevenson
Taken from my husband’s side, then stripped to skin
They came for me at night, I’m raped and further
Husband watches the horror, then I watch him murdered
My soul passes, as my body is lifted aloft, so black
Against the sky, hung from tree limb, railroad tracks
And thousands pass by, and peer upon the scene
A crime unanswered, verdict: “The killers unseen”
***
Oh my, thirst burns in my throat, so unquenched
Like the women at Kerbala trapped in burnt tents
Behind dark halls of lost libraries lays evidence
In between lines of ancient books, a magnifying lens
Find stories of stolen lands from Imams, dark children
Tobacco and rice the cash from crops, used at auction
Beads of sweat fall from whipped backs to water lands
Barren earth, made fertile with blood, so it grows cotton
***
Asalaamu’Alaykum I am Alma
I represent my sister, and all mothers
I watched her tortured, her spleen rupture
I watched as she hung, a “strange fruit culture”
Four months pregnant was she, I was closer
Ready to give birth, when whites enclosed us
At burial, my nude form in casket inspected
“Movement of my unborn seed could be detected”
***
Bought a young buck, and his sister, for a hefty bargain
Sold illegitimate children from rape, no use for condoms
Black Codes, and Jim Crow, had black folk at base bottom
Strange fruit hung from trees, slowly fall, on ropes rotten
Lynched, misbegotten, perpetrators given pardons
Like Yazeed who stole heaven’s flowers from the garden
99 virtues reflected from the farmer
Inspired by Zainab our souls spit verses on her honor
Through my death you will learn of the family’s name
Insha’Allah my blood flows for the blood of Hussain
This is the sound made of many voices—
The downtrodden, oppressed and exploited
Left without choice, save the greatest resistance
Revolution, an ablution from the sweat of persistence
-Professor A.L.I. aka Black Steven
