PASSAGE
By Gary Johnston
Here is the bottom of the well
Different nations
Numbered among the living
The dark white of the sea
Blood trail of hearts
Spread like dry grass
Here my soul is taken
Every piece of bone
From skin & sky
I cry out but nothing
Comes back except another cry
Beating against the wood
Door of no return
The sand beneath my feet
The beach all I remember of home.
The sea rocks me but I do not sleep
I lay between the world & dreams
Women on the other side of the wood
Moan, pass the half white babies
As if the passing will save them
Their cries make my blood oath
Mean nothing I cannot
Protect the babies or the women
Beaten like dust I die every sunrise
The flesh off my bones
Dried leaves on bare ground
The moons I traveled
A sour trail to this “wooden world”
Where they throw the dead to the sea
Make me dance before
The women of my nation
Naked as the day of their birth
The red face men who live on the wood
Smell of sickness & greed
Their throats lay down curses
Their eyes beads of sweat
They are stealers of people
For one breath I would open their veins
Let the stench run to sea
But in the wood iron holds me
I live on the swell of tide, roll of water
The rock of side to side rubs
The skin of my hips
I cannot hold my head up.
Fish that follow the world have
Grown to the taste of flesh
They wait with hungry eyes
I will give them their feed
In the morning the water will run red
My body will float like a bird on the horizon
My bones rattle broken pieces of shells
I will fly away from the wood
Call upon the lost to call me home
I will not be dead to my nation
I will live.
By Gary Johnston
Here is the bottom of the well
Different nations
Numbered among the living
The dark white of the sea
Blood trail of hearts
Spread like dry grass
Here my soul is taken
Every piece of bone
From skin & sky
I cry out but nothing
Comes back except another cry
Beating against the wood
Door of no return
The sand beneath my feet
The beach all I remember of home.
The sea rocks me but I do not sleep
I lay between the world & dreams
Women on the other side of the wood
Moan, pass the half white babies
As if the passing will save them
Their cries make my blood oath
Mean nothing I cannot
Protect the babies or the women
Beaten like dust I die every sunrise
The flesh off my bones
Dried leaves on bare ground
The moons I traveled
A sour trail to this “wooden world”
Where they throw the dead to the sea
Make me dance before
The women of my nation
Naked as the day of their birth
The red face men who live on the wood
Smell of sickness & greed
Their throats lay down curses
Their eyes beads of sweat
They are stealers of people
For one breath I would open their veins
Let the stench run to sea
But in the wood iron holds me
I live on the swell of tide, roll of water
The rock of side to side rubs
The skin of my hips
I cannot hold my head up.
Fish that follow the world have
Grown to the taste of flesh
They wait with hungry eyes
I will give them their feed
In the morning the water will run red
My body will float like a bird on the horizon
My bones rattle broken pieces of shells
I will fly away from the wood
Call upon the lost to call me home
I will not be dead to my nation
I will live.
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