Slaver in the River
In the wake of Edward Colston’s statue being thrown and retrieved from the Harbourside in Bristol, George Ayres reflects on history.
George is a member of Bristol Reclaim Independent Living, which gets supported by Arkbound Foundation. He constructed the first poem on the evening of the Sunday after hearing in the afternoon of the statue being pulled down and placed into Bristol Harbour; the second was on the morning of Thursday having learned that the statue had been fished out by the Bristol City Council.
Slaver in the River
High thy stand
Fall by hand
Now you will quiver
Slaver in the River
Vindicated thyself by wealth
You indurated that wealth
You disarticulated others’ selves
You obliterated their health
You rooted your wealth
By looting their selves
“He gave to the city!”
Says gammons in pity
While you placed heavy chains
On souls sold to Jamaica Bay
Sold for spice for your gain
As they came to work in pain
If they had not died on the way
“Tis fair in King Charles’s day”
The gammon will say
Till they forgot pain
That made you gain
The wealth you rooted
The selves you looted
As done in King George’s day
How can we give you pity
When you robbed others of dignity?
Before and after you: souls were sold
Lives sacrificed in the name of gold
Made to give and toil
Until they became soil
You sold lives for spice
Now you pay the price
You arise proud: now fall
Down to the streets you go
Stones are named after you
Now: forsake you in thy call
Sold now take you from their woe
To finally let you go
Go into the river
They may not wear chains
But they are kept chained
Through that which you
And your friends took
They are set to woe
As you grab them by hook
Yet they never forsake
Their will to be free
On either side of the sea
They will make the Earth shake
For their dissent is old as their chains
And they now have a world to gain
As Haiti forced Napoleon to humility
So now folks cry for their humanity
To face knees on necks
As their grandparents face nooses
They have nothing to lose
As for the pigs: go to Hell
For cracking down on the doves
No wonder Doctor King once spurred:
“Riots are the language of the unheard”
Now you whose name litters roads
Do you wash the blood on thy hands?
Feel no need from where you stand?
You gave crumbs to the poor
To golden the name of yours
By selling souls for your hoard
Rivers of tears gammons pour
As you’re laid on the floor
Till you were taken to bed
In the river go your head!
What you gave you stole
That is the story: the whole!
Man, woman, child: sold!
No price too dear to hold?
You had souls thrown overboard
So they will not spoil your hoard
Join those bodies on the waterbed!
You made it: lie you in your bed!
Once you stood
With no good
Now you will shiver
Slaver in the River
This poem of 92 lines is dedicated for the victims of Edward Colston and other precipitants of the Atlantic Slave Trade. I give my support to the protests of Black Lives Matter and to the city of Bristol which took to the streets in the name of justice. Solidarity forever! Statue Fishing AKA To Fish a Slaver
Sequel to Slaver in the River
By George A. Ayres
At Bristol Harbour came the scene
Green winding pulled by machine
Metal hands pull out a metal man
What do they set out? What plan
For a slaver that was in the river?
Set your eyes from the riverbed
Of which a statue rested their head
See a man deeply thinking most concise
Of the lives he sold for a mighty price
Before: pale guys in shorts and socks
Tried to fish out the statue with rod
That day their venture was faux
The next day came forth a squad
Who set up a much stronger rod
This machine used green winding
To pull the slaver out the tiding
At Bristol Harbour came the scene
Of a slaver fished out with a machine
Oh slaver: what to do with thee?
After you threw souls into the sea?
Best rest your head on a riverbed?
This poem of 25 lines is reflection of the recent extraction of the bronze statue of the slave trader Edward Colston from Bristol Harbour and is dedicated to his victims. Solidarity forever! 