Slaves of History

Modern media helps us empathise

With the human cargo sacrificed then

Free people broken by their own and ours

Commodoties, things for profit and pleasure

Of gentlemen, and their blind supporters

Empathy an inbound not outbound act

So what do we think now, Mancunians? 

Gazing at our new Manhattan skyline.

The flimsy foundation of lost empire

Tangled deeper than it’s cotton-plant roots

What do we tell the children, awestruck

By the flash new front at the old Exchange

Do we tell them that no good production

Comes from old murky morality

Or shall we say that nature finds her way

To take revenge on those sinning sailors

By making their kith and kin squirm

In the best seats, hides tanned by the elders

Maybe, we hope, future  sons and daughters

May sail safe seas, blown by wiser winds

With brothers, sisters, woven together

Bearing no malice in their afterthought

Forgiving but never quite forgetting.

All slaves of mutual history now

The price of many things has varied since.

But fetid hot air uncleansed by salt sea whip

Remains abundant, unvoiceable, quiet.

Lashed and bound together, white and black

Mates and masters, indistinguishable,

Their newer vessels on the same old tack

An image of brotherhood now prevails

Just as skin deep in this life as that

Except we all chant spirituals now

All those with the wherewithal that is

But King Martin’s dream is still a dream

Torture for all who are and see below decks

And these warehouses blasted pristine clean

What shall they stand for?

Now that the relative wealth of chained states

Regurgitates those dark satanic ills

Shall they stand, head bowed, to whitewashed hands