The Map Woman

 

The woman’s skirt is the map of the town;
along the hem runs the blue blue sea,
a constant pull onto the port,
where the silk cotton trees crowd.

Look close at the intricate detail,
like the flipped off lid of an ink-well,
splattered black lines run deep and wide,
dividing up this vibrant masterpiece.

Just off centre is Laventille, where
metal roof hovels crouch like crabs
in the hills. Tempers brew, sparks
fizz from the overhead electric cables.

Harsh showers send sewers and earth
swimming along the old streets,
tunnelling and burrowing
looking for home.

 

 

 

Laventille Love Song

After Langston Hughes

 

If I could take the Laventille night

and wrap it around you,

take the electric cables,

take the chanting, screams, gun shots

and tone their harshness all the way down.

 

Then I would take Laventille’s heartbeat,

make a steelpan whine,

put it on a record and let it spin

and while we listen to it play,

dance with you till the break of day.

 

 

 

These two poems have been published in Poui: the Cave Hill Literary Annual, University of the West Indies, Barbados, Issue X, 2009.

 

 

Still Life

After Sharon Olds

 

At moments when I almost thought of him,

I was wandering through the market

when he was shot.

 

I was with dappled shaddock. I was in

the vicinity of rough yams, of floppy

green dasheen, of firm breadfruits.

 

Juicy red bell peppers – and wilted stalls –

he was wading into a sea of sweaty bodies,

lapping onto Woodford Square.

 

Casting off his silence while I was wandering

crates of coconuts, with broken heads

and milk drying, seeds of a watermelon

 

dripped along the dusty tracks.

He had settled me from the start, to food,

he cried out in pain, to the wholeness

 

of stew, how it stood in for that spirit

of home, the mixture of lamb, onions,

tomatoes, curry powder and cumin, trailing

 

scents through the Parish, hot and thick.

And my son was a moving boat, a touring heat,

he stood shoulder to shoulder with his friends

 

and demanded to keep his island his own.

He raised his fist into his chest,  held

it there and screamed, and fell to the pavement.

 

And I wandered, calm, amongst the beheaded

red snapper, and crabs, clams, silver prawns

and sword fish, even sharp tooth shark,

 

strung up by its tail like a wide sail.

There are things I will never know about a mother’s love.

I wandered, ignorant to my son, amongst

 

the sweet potatoes, marrows with their holy

stripes. He lay there and I walked blind

through the waves.

 

 

 

Static Rain of  Maraval

 

Rain waits inside us for a door to open.

Rain is heavy as full-moon lips carrying midnight.

Rain is an utterance made with broken pebbles.

Rain is that village girl who was

molested by an uncle on her way home

from school, crossing the lone cocoa hills

for a shortcut.

A variety of life and lies, looking for she,

a mahogany tipped breast

catching honey smeared raindrops. Static.

It was April, a time of blossom and damp stars.

She dripped in and out of memory for fifty years.

Rain steals everything but our secrets.

 

 

 

Social Unrest

 

Today, within the sound of the ocean, a man,
no longer young, is getting ready to breathe.
Before dawn, he slips out of the chattel, alone.

He has many miles to walk, too many.
The land he calls home is changing.
There is no honest way for him to make a living.

It's not what he would choose. He joins
the trail of other men, walking. He is both
sorry and not sorry to share the journey.

There are many left in the town who understand this,
that the red, white and black flag is mere cloth,
see through, to where betrayal and failure lie.

Before he reaches the capital, he will take a breath.
Today is forecast hot and very close
as he is thrown into the gap, heaped and washed away.

 

 

 

What’s Going On?

After Marvin Gaye

 

What’s going on, son?

I see you coming, afro sky high,

fists clenched, face closed.

What’s going on? Burning and looting?

For what? In my time, after the war,

where we fought and died in vain,

still used as fodder, we took

to the streets under Butler.

Wouldn’t take a back seat in my country.

What’s going on? It’s all fancy talk

and fancy style. African influence?
What do you know?

 

Father, father, I know you sit in your

broken up chair, here in the hills

and stare at nothing but wide green leaves.

You, me, everybody, is living under

the shadow of the plantations.

What’s going on? Your youth has gone

mine is here right now. You put your hope

on Williams’ back. He’s a white man

in a black mask. What’s going on?
I’m taking back what’s mine, starting

with my mind. I’m joining hands

so we can carve up the streets.

 

What’s going on for the first time,

in my lifetime- I’m singing through

the skin of my body-

like you before me , for those

who come after we.

 

 

Untitled

 

Even the silk cotton trees feel it,

their white blooms, their sensitive veins,

bend in the breeze and beg for forgiveness

to come in a sudden shower;

 

and join the crowd in silence that stand

witness. One woman, held in a cell

and whipped, never works again

in the refineries.

 

In the midday light, the harsh

humid light, that burns hearts,

a song sweeps from mouth to mouth;

a man’s memory carves out centuries.

 

Down and down, a calypso beat in his heart,

in an old ship that crossed an ocean;

the screams of grief – is that why

we remember certain times and not others?

 

The rumble of the base, the hiss of the whip,

the seething strangled breeze,

bruises floating through the heavy air

like blossom and landing,

 

landing here, in this place.

Everything has its time. And can again.

 

 

  

Port of the Island

 

A tired ship in from the South,

crowds around the ticket barrier,

dressed in their Sunday best,

will receive no warm welcome

from the natives, no flags or banners waving

or waiting. Something about their faces

will instil a sense of fear and disgust.

A captive blue sky. Clutching their grips

they board, eager to reach their destiny

which was theirs before they were born.

Across the ocean, from one small island

to another, the future will arrive in droves.

The Rivers of Blood follow behind.

 

 

 

Fish Market, Orange Valley

 

Changing from one moment to the next 

-the skins of red fish had too many colours to choose.

Early morning, arrived, they’d be

thrashing in pod nests, their eyes

fixed marbles where the sea once rode.

 

The men, in net vests and shorts,

stroked the fish with cool practiced passion.

And before each gleaming body,

they’d be on their knees claiming

their riches from the seas.

 

In wanting-light, small boats moored,

fish, men and sea would retreat

into the arms of women.

 

 

 

Desperadoes

 

Boots, with his close-knit, salt and pepper afro

swings his dark muscled arms as he searches

for a 55 –gallon oil drum.

Once found, with sledgehammer at the ready,

he pounds to the bottom of the drum.

They want to drive a nail in the coffin of our aspirations.

 

Boots works up a sweat as he stretches

the metal into a dish shape.

This is sinking the pan, stretching the metal,

hammer, hammer, bang bang bang,

easing out any aggression,

as they try to drive a nail in the coffin of our aspirations.

 

Getting tired now, Boots does not rest.

Carrying the drum down to the beach,

he builds a fire, letting the drum burn

for just a little bit. Then plunging it, red hot,

deep into the ocean, he simmers tempers,

making it stronger than it will ever be

 

Drawing  lines on the sunken head,

Boots, turns the heat on and up,

as he bangs out the groove.

Like a crowd of police batons,

the outline of  each note is knocked out.

They need to drive a nail in the coffin of our aspirations.

 

Cutting the barrel sides, into a short skirt,

Boots pong pongs pongs the notes in, from beneath,

creating bubbles on the inside,

creating tension, making sure that they are all

vibrating at the right pitch.

They are driving a nail in the coffin of our aspirations.

 

With a keyboard, Boots tunes each note,

tunes each note until it sings and blends with each other.

He slaps on some bright paint; blue,

yellow or red. Dipping the whole drum

in chrome to make it shine, high shine like silver.

They will fail to drive a nail in the coffin of our aspirations.