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Ernest Williamson III is a 32 year old polymath who has published poetry and visual art in over 200 online and print journals. He is a self-taught pianist, painter and PhD Candidate at Seton Hall University.
Visit his gallery at http://www.yessy.com/budicegenius/
Today, Afternoon & After Class
spilled along the chalk board
were your letters
hints of hemlock
stained the garrulous feud
frozen
in gray marble
beneath my feet
students were transfixed
like inward taste buds
accustomed to numbness
as whenever the teacher
uttered
words
salient expressions,
built with alacrity
smoothly
yet irregularly
along
faces
dead faces,
moved with faint pulses
for the sake of something
beyond
bland
something
captive
like Africa
today
afternoon
and after
class
George Moses Horton: Slave Poet from North Carolina
Horton was bonded to a Chatham county farmer but was well known to students at the University of North Carolina for his poetic skills. By selling love poems to students for their sweethearts, Horton earned money to help purchase his freedom. These love poems were often acrostics; a young scholar would tell Horton the name of his sweetheart and Horton, who could not yet read or write, would recite a poem in which the first letters of the lines corresponded with the letters in the beloved's name. He soon learned to read and write and several poems in his own hand are held in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Horton’s fame on the
campus led a professor’s wife to send one of his poems to the New England
newspaper that first published his poetry. Later, Horton published several poetry
collections, including The Hope of
Liberty (1829) and The Poetical
Works of George M. Horton, The Colored Bard of North Carolina
(1845). Despite these publications, which Horton and his supporters hoped would
secure his freedom, he remained enslaved until the Civil War, when he left the
state with Union soldiers from Michigan. Read more about Horton's life in the
autobiographical sketch he included with The Poetical Works.
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
Farewell to Frances
Farewell! If ne'er I see thee more,
Though distant calls my flight impel,
I shall not less thy grace adore,
So friend forever fare thee well.
Farewell forever did I say?
What! never more thy face to see?
Then take the last fond look to-day,
And still to-morrow think of me.
Farewell, alas! the tragic sound,
Has many a tender bosom torn,
While desolation spread around,
Deserted friendship left to mourn.
Farewell, awakes the sleeping tear,
The dormant rill from sorrow's eye,
Expressed from one by nature dear,
Whose bosom heaves the latent sigh.
Farewell is but departure's tale,
When fond association ends,
And fate expands her lofty sail,
to show the distant flight of friends.
Alas! and if we sure must part,
Far separated long to dwell,
I leave thee with a broken heart,
So friend forever fare thee well.
I leave thee, but forget thee never,
Words cannot my feeling tell,
Fare thee well, and if forever,
Still forever fare thee well.
A Slave's Reflections the Eve before His Sale
O, comrades! to-morrow we try,
The fate of an exit unknowing--
Tears trickled from every eye--
'Tis going, 'tis going, 'tis going!
Who shall the dark problem then solve,
An evening of gladness or sorrow,
Thick clouds of emotion evolve,
The sun which awaits us to-morrow,
O! to-morrow! to-morrow!
Thick clouds of emotion evolve,
The sun which awaits us to-morrow.
Soon either with smiles or with tears,
Will the end of our course be completed.
The progress of long fleeting years,
Triumphant or sadly regretted.
In whom shall the vassal confide,
On a passage so treacherous and narrow,
What tongue shall the question decide,
The end which awaits us to-morrow?
O! to-morrow, to-morrow!
What tongue shall the question decide,
The end which awaits us to-morrow?
The sun seems with doubt to look down,
As he rides on his chariot of glory,
A king with a torch and a crown,
But fears to exhibit his story.
What pen the condition makes known,
O! prophet thy light would I borrow,
To steer through the desert alone,
And gaze on the fate of to-morrow;
O! to-morrow, to-morrow!
To steer through the desert alone,
And gaze on the fate of to-morrow.
The Chickasaw Plum - Volume VI - Number 9 - September 2009
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