The Heart of a Savage 
Poetry, lyrics, and Prose
All works©️LaCresha Denese Savage
including all images,media graphics and photography
unless otherwise noted.

And You Let Us Bleed ©️2/10/2025

Freedom for our sanity
Freedom for our lives
Freedom seiged
Freedom believe



Freedom you sling 
and wave in the face 
Freedom once more
could be a memorialized taste 

Step back before you clang
your shackles on me
step forward I breathe
Resistance in steam

Push back your ignorance
of my ancestors strength
Miscalculations of your plan
to disintegrate me

My freedom, my truth, my people,
My life, my rights, my existence
rebound from the shadows of the past 

Never again return
so once again we clash 
Once again, hate appears like a rash

Yet once again, crumbled
and thrown away like trash

Standing firm, line after line
Holding together, our freedom 
it binds, inclined

to not rewind the days of yesteryears 
This time around, absent of tears

As we are gassed to believe 
our existence is blight

concentrated to serve hate 
A new reich

Yet once again, we still see the light 
never dimmed, our hearts bleed bright

Red for the passion of our freedom
Red for the land we cultivated 
Red for our ancestors, who toiled
Red as the ground once soiled

We stand in line, after line, after line
We stand with sanity within our minds

We stand strong, we stand free
We stand mighty, as we breathe

Freedom that will not be taken away
Freedom that dipilates fear today

Some may pray, some will analyze 
Freedom will not fall, freedom will rise

Clank, clank, clanking
Shackles of pride

heavy as they miss their fate
Rusted thoughts of a weakened state

Step forward we breath
Step forward we lead

Our liberties we see them
Our rights we see them
Our past - we will not repeat them
Our future is freedom 
Our being is freedom

We breathe freedom
We bleed freedom
We are freedom

© LaCresha Denese Savage

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My Home (A Slave’s oath) 
©️3/13/2014

You can't see that 
this is my home?
While my blood stains the cotton 
I have grown
It soaked it so deep
the color has changed
From fresh fluffy white
To a red burgundy range

You can't smell that
this is my home
From the sweat that poured 
Down over my arms, back and breast
On to this land that I toiled 
While you gave me no rest

I should have did 
what my brothers have done
Kept my freedom and went home by the SON.
Meeting the Sun at the waters
Waving goodbye
Since you deny me this home
Forever in ties.

You can't feel that
this is my home
By the blisters and the sores
That cover my feet
My skin so thick, as if concrete

You can't hear this 
is my home 
As the spirituals, drum beats and freedom dances
Purge and echo throughout this land
Just waiting, waiting on the final stand

You can't taste this
Is my home
From the crops that I yield
Or the food I have grown
To place there at your very table
While I eat after the pigs in this bug ridden stable

I should start doing what the others now do
Plan for rescue from Underground
to finally hear the freedom bell sound
but no, I will not leave, I will not roam
until I die, This IS my home.

© LaCresha Denese Savage 

---

Jumping Ship to Freedom
(Poetic Response to  John W. Blassingame’s - "The Slave Community" , Chapter 1.)
©️July 1, 2013


Turmoil intensified

diving into abyss

escaping my captives

this world dismiss



No longer human

torn from land

beneath me cold waters

flowing through God's hands



Shackles and chains

equally disdained

my captors' eyes 

for me, the land ahead which lies



Wait no more! wait no more!

Africa land unpromised, compromised

In depth, still home I will go

Heaven which I fantasized 



Ultimately free, boundless

in flight to the skies

Even with metal  and ropes

my soul will still rise



Reflections from the tides

now nigh,

cries then shrieks,

painful noise of my people's sighs



Feet are burning on this wooden board,

Splinters pricking;

blood flows through

At least me they will no longer hoard



Coastal grounds still in my sight

Though death and rebirth is now my plight

Skin infected, peeled and burned

An end to mayhem strongly yearned



Smell of decay, but defecating breeze

intoxicating waves atop the seas

heart beats amass brethren with me

Sinking down for heaven's keys



No floating, drifting, Idly wandering

Just sinking, immersing with liberty conversing

Baptize the wounds

tarred like coals

escape the tremors

this nightmare folds



Perched and Ready, Lids closed tight

Fists clamped closed, dismiss the fright

yells and screams thine ears missed
escending slowly to the abyss



Encompassed quickly by the skys

mere seconds regretfully despise

toes plunge into waters edge

between life and death forcefully wedged



Though beauty meets me one last time

To tearfully gaze upon my eyes

Blues,greens, browns and yellows

Rainbow fantasy the ocean bellows



Lasting hope of independence

subsiding further, perseverance

Breaths decreasing, consciousness faired

limp and wilted this life now staired


Wishing only to be reborn
to a home, never scorned

© LaCresha Denese Savage

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