The Colonial

From the hollowness of the cave I come, the echo of a cry

Of pain, the shadow of a slave

Whose sole salvation was the grave.

My bone fertilizes the earth,

My blood lubricates the machine,

My sweat waters the field: my worth

Was predetermined at my birth.

1 carve my memory on rock,

Preserve my grief in song.

Slammed by the racket like a shuttlecock From this to that imperial block.

Broken in spirit and in frame,

I stand on the verge of tomorrow With the incubus of my shame:

Without identity, without a name.