The Long Gloomy Night.

Being birthed black must have been
nature’s lottery loss or a perdurable curse:
The grim night’s hue, the resplendent day’s shadow,
mourner’s shroud or an unknown of something worse;
where surveying stars neither illuminated
nor twinkled, but glared and seared flesh of sweat
spewing swarthy toilers of the cruel fated
and the leather lashing rain smeared a wet
legacy of red tinged imprints across naked backs;
which streamed into the undrying tributary
of eye sourced brines constantly rushing
into the flooded sea shores of pain’s territory.

The waxing moon: a morose crescent
of sad emotions beamed in descent;
the half moon reflected
a race’s status inhumanely inflected.

But the ocular monocle of full moon
through which a sliver of gleaming hope
was glimpsed, that one day soon
this oppressive night shall surely elope.