now back home

there's little room for laughter nor for wit

in a beige room with a good downtown view

learning that not all good comes with the new

and breathing in the scents of bile and shit

you learn then all the signals of hard grit

but night and day someone must turn the screw

the pain will come as much as you are due

and you must sleep now for a little bit

love is sustained upon a sea of tears

though brotherhood itself may seem to fail

in curtest questions still you can draw breath

surprise yourself that you withstood your fears

and are arrived to laugh about this tale

since by a hair you walked away from death

a ballad for august morning

i bow to those who went before

bearing the hoe and long cane-bill

who wept and worked at others' will

till august eighteen-thirty-four

 

we make our choices know the score

believe we act with style and skill

but every option good or ill

begins in eighteen-thirty-four

 

the ships that took them to that shore

in stink of vomit shit and swill

rivers of ink and blood to spill

till august eighteen-thirty-four

 

we cannot tell how much they bore

which ones resisted which stood still

and fed the canes into the mill

till august eighteen-thirty-four

 

our duty now is not adore

but spread the word from plain and hill

that we bear their remembrance still

since august eighteen-thirty-four

 

to bow to those who went before

bearing the hoe and long cane-bill

who wept and worked at others' will

till august eighteen-thirty-four