Four hundred years after
and the black man still in chains.
Iron chains have been replaced
by thick gold chains around the neck –
gold chains and gangsta attitudes;
manacles have been replaced
by gold bangles and slave bands;
cattle brands have been replaced
by tattoos, with willy-
nilly Lynch philosophy,
and hip, big, bad brand-name tags
that make brand makers wealthy
and black brand wearers poor;
iron chains and manacles
are replaced by self-hatred,
by economic shackles
and mental chains around the brain.
Four hundred years later
he calls himself 'Nigger';
four hundred years after
and the African still no free.
Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance
- G. NEWTON V. CHANCE
- George Newton Vivian Chance (Trinidad and Tobago) -- member of the Poet Society of Trinidad and Tobago, http://poetssocietytt.blogspot.com/ and the World Poets Society, http://world-poets.blogspot.com/ -- born in Tobago on 3rd March 1957. While residing at Rio Claro was inspired to write over a hundred poems at the turn of the Millennium. Hobbies include playing wind instruments, building computers, observing nature, reading and writing poetry. Believes that the power of a song is in its ability to evoke emotions by the marriage of lyric and music but that music without lyric can be just as powerful, that lyric without music can also be just as powerful, that there is music in the lyric and that lyric can be simple yet profound. Also, in this the age of computers, would like to model his lines after simple and efficient code and, analogous to Object Oriented Programming, achieve most of his imagery from nouns and verbs, avoiding the bloat and excess of unnecessary adjectives. This is what he aspires to attain in his poetry.
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