JOURNAL OF A MODERN SLAVE

Poetry about modern slavery

Dedication

This poetry is dedicated to modern slaves.

Refugees and new slaves are silent witnesses

of our world. Close to us yet invisible presences.

Deliverers of a great richness and new values for our lives.

 

JOURNAL OF A MODERN SLAVE

 

Monday, February 2017

 

I hear children who are loved and cuddled

As pearls inside their families.

I hear about mothers who sing to their babies

And rejoice full of love and admiration.

 

I hear about men who dance with their wives

Under the moon when it also embraces the dark ocean

In the summer evenings, when the grasshopper

Teases the pine trees protecting the emerald cost.

 

I hear about elderly men who sit together

With chants and novel wines in the Plaza

Searching in their mind beloved memories,

Warmed in their heart by forgiveness.

 

Tuesday, February 2017.

 

I hear about joyful dogs, lazy cats,

The birds and the butterflies, and the trees

And the wind blowing into the pinnacles

Of the ruined cathedral at the priory.

 

[…]

 

When the silence and the darkness

Appear, they cross my window.

Down in that smelly cellar of prison and fear

Few hours of rest and then

Back in the fields, just outside tormented towns.

 

Wednesday, February 2017

 

In my nightmares that travel in the boat

Floating on an ocean of desperation and freedom

Burned by sun and thirst, frozen by cold and rain

Death as salvation, life as desperation.

 

  

My hands are so aching. They bleed

For stress and labour. My mind, my liberation,

Rehearsing Archimedes while picking tomatoes.

Sweating under the shouting of my masters.

 

Thursday, February 2017

 

Desperation mixed to trigonometry,

Poverty and fear mixed to algorithms.

A probabilistic future into these filthy clothes

That never change.

Once engineer. Now slave.

 

And while my tears turn into despair

Kepler whispers me in my planetary agony

Resting on a putrid matrass while digesting

Unchangeable beans and sausages.

 

Damn! Can’t be true!

 

Friday, February 2017

 

The watch already

Turns into five in the morning.

No time for memories.

Just rehearsing my grandfather’s chants.

 

Saturday, February 2017

 

I am ready again

To move this sinister Globalisation

While ingrained into the cogwheels

Of this unexplainable

And faking reality.

 

Happy and shouting children out of my window

Pirouetting around Darwin’s statue,

There, in Chestnut Square, Number 8,

While evolved rats feast with my matrass

In this life of agony, in this basement of seclusion.

 

Sunday, February 2017

 

The week turns finally into its endless conclusion

Ageless bells from the cathedral accompany

Happy families and joyful children

Cherished  by a compassionate pastor.

 

One day of freedom, one day of liberation.

My master at the local betting shop.

I take my way to the small chapel,

Lighting a candle to Saint Joseph,

A worker like me. Courage, Endurance and Love.

 

My last thought to my children somewhere

And to my wife perhaps slave as me.

My last glimpse at the moon’s beans

Crossing my window to reflect ominous shadows.

 

My mind is now weak,

I can’t longer say what is true and what is not

What is hope and what is despair

I bleed internally, in my soul, in my life

Is this the end? Or the beginning?

 

Saying goodbye to life

 

My wife taken,

My children escaping into the bushes

I’m exhaling my strength…

Slowly…

Softly…

Leaving this world…

Finally, that whisper from my grandpa:

‘S…l…e…e…p

M…y

D…e…a...r

S…l…e…e…p

S…o…f…t….l…(y)’.