There is something
Victorian
In his whiteness,
A correctness
Disciplining the rest
So regulation
Rules in dry doctrine.

And to his eye
His black skinned brother
Is carnal opposite
To the structure
Rigid in his self
And he fears
The hot power
Of a primitive.

And thus
The black man
Is subdued
For being
The outward heart
With body filled
With blood and vigour

And the white man
Gelds himself,
Separates from his pulse,
His inner fire,
Grows cold and stiff,
And with backstroke
Of his incising knife
Flays
His collateral brother,
So in neither
Is the life found flowing,
And in both
The cut
Equally deep.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015