Cap’n Cruel
America’s last slave ship
Jolted from my deepest dreaming,
ivory-eyeball demons screaming.
Voices pleading from the hold,
for freedom or fresh water cold.
Setting sail from Lagos leaving,
Gulf of Guinea, mothers grieving.
Sons in irons slowly walked,
in silence to the loading dock.
Branded, beaten, collared heathen,
shackled, shaking, barely breathin’.
From steaming Benin jungle tracks,
came cargo bearing bloodied backs,
Caught and brought to Ouidah Port,
treasure of a human sort…
Aye, Captain William Foster; I
commanded able seamen spry,
Clotilda took us on the tide,
safely to the New World side.
Not wind nor wave nor raging sea,
could keep us from Montgomery.
And God be willin’ those inside,
Clotilda’s bowels had nay died,
From hunger, thirst or whippin’ shock,
Afore they reached the auction block.
“Hoist the topsail! Clear the jib!
Haul taut! Let go the Halyard!
Coins of silver wait ye mates,
Ten fer every sailor!
Pause not my boys to query God,
Regarding divine favor,
Why black man be a wretched slave -
and white man wretched slaver.”
By Ian Cunnold
