Tell It Poem by Buxton Shippy

Tell it horns,
Tell it drums
When they worth less than mules
Bareback on plantations
In the blazing sun.

Tell it whips,
Tell it spits
How flesh burns
How it bleeds.

Tell it seas,
Tell it ships
Lost of the mother-tongue,
Muted songs from the mother-land,
The packing,
The hunger,
The liturgy of death;
The stench;
Tell it.

Tell it earth,
Tell it skies
Of freedom stolen,
Of dignities crowned with scorn.

Tell it abeng,
Tell it spirits
Bodies left for vultures;
An heritage splintered.

Tell it dungeons,
Tell it flies
A sordid history
Of a human race.
Tell it.