"The Shadow Speaks Truth"

I know those papers are fraud,
I hear the distrust in your reply.

An unfavorable feeling creeps
when you speak of Liberty.
Your tales of tyranny travel
a hallowed hall of Hypocrisy.
This land is polluted by Savages
pregnant with Vanity, perfumed in bloody Death.
And you mock me?
Well, I mock the mockeries:
The joyous Offerings, the humble Prayers,
the proud Parades, the boasting Orations
are all a deception so cold.

A thin veil hides the Guilt in your benefits.

But no, We are inhumane,
a shocking inheritance of Starlight and Stripes;
the abusing irony of the New American Slave.
Allow us a Day of Independence.
Free us from this Nation of Freedom.
And we will rest where the shackles rejoice,
where the last layer of earth reveals your gross Injustice.
We will commit sacrilege in your illuminated temples
for we know the pattern of your ways:

You will come from your Land of Despotism,
rifle-up and creep in from a distance,
searching to save our Charred Souls
from the Hell we already know.


And when your footsteps soil our soil,
we will swell from the shadows and swallow you in Silence.
This very hour is not ours, now be a slave to your own Salvation.

-R.Gibson


*This poem was inspired by an excerpt of Frederick Douglass's "Fourth of July Speech, 1852".



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SRaa3IaY-8