BRENDA MARIE OSBEY’S BRILLIANT HISTORY AND OTHER POEMS: A Brief Excerpt

HISTORY AND OTHER POEMS

By Brenda Marie Osbey

from “Qu’on Arrive Enfin (a tale in-progress)”

1

and so we arrive at last in our native land —
the earth itself marked by slavery.
up there, in the open air, the stink, the hot funk of hot blood
the rowdy rebel-niggers of the past.
funny, no?
how we always return to this —
the city, the life
that slavery built,
tales altogether invented
as told by historians, founding fathers, the church.
but we are sick and tired of lies, dirty tricks and fraud,
we are sick of tales and of historians
sick of indigo, tobacco, rice and rum
we are sick of king-cotton and sugar cane
sick of it all
and can only wish hard-hard-hard
that the lakes, the bayous, swamps large and small
will have swallowed it all
flooded
erased it all.