Revised:

Your white child’s eyes are like mine:
Our blood bleeds the same color.
Each day I toil in your fields, yet
Each night you defile my mother.

Our family tree is beaten on my back,
Each lash grown into the other.  
And willed to me as my inheritance:
New branches by my fair brother.

Ah, but freedom talk is in the wind!
Emancipation, wretched father, when
Unlocked chains equal your slow death:
Time as master and son, no longer.

Original:

Your white child’s eyes are the same as mine,
And our blood bleeds the same color.
Even though each day I toil in your fields,
Every night you defile my mother.

You’ve beaten your family tree into my back
Until each branch is part of the other.
And before you have aged to infirmity,
You will teach the whip to my fair brother.

But I have heard freedom talk in the wind.
Emancipation you should fear, wretched father.
For my unlocked chains will equal your slow death:
A time when we will be father and son no longer.

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Author guidance for This poem

I included the original I submitted for the poetry tournament below the revised poem I'm still not content with the flow between stanzas, which means that I'll probably revisit and revise ten more times.

updated May 16 '10 by C3Lady