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The Choice   

 

The moon daily lights up the earth without fail,

No one worries that its light will fail us any day,

She serves her earthly subjects daily without pay,

She serves her subjects daily without delay,

The light of the moon does not discriminate,

The light of the moon does not cause pain,

Yet

The subjects of the moon discriminate,

The subjects of the moon cause pain,   

Oh what a calamity it will be should the moon refuse to share its light,

Oh what a dark and strange night it will be without the moonlight in the sky,

Is life possible without the moon’s light?

Will our nights be the same without the moon’s light?

Is life possible without discrimination?

Will our life be the same without bigotry?

Should man choose the light of the moon or the darkness of bigotry?

Is this really a choice for the moon’s subjects?

Or                   

Is the choice for bigots to become like the moonlight?

 

                                           by Michael Heslop (2016)

Friends and Foes

 

When friends are foes and foes are friends,

Confusion reigns in the minds of those who fail to know their friends,

When friends are foes and foes are friends,

The interests of freedom’s foes are disguised as those of freedom’s friends,

When friends are foes and foes are friends,

Devils in power rule with ease those they fool to be their friends,

When friends are foes and foes are friends,

Those at the bottom of the pile are screwed by poison in their minds

For

Embracing their foes as their friends,

And

Revolutions to end oppression are delayed though not derailed,

When friends are foes and foes are friends,

Those who fight for justice cannot rest

Until

Those who are foes become known as foes of justice

And

Those friends of justice are celebrated as friends,

So

When foes are visibly foes of Freedom

And

Those who love freedom are NEVER shy to defend it,

Then

Freedom’s friends will never be confused with its foes

And

Revolution will win and Oppression will be doomed!

Because

Those who celebrate Revolution are the friends of Freedom

And

Those who mourn the death of Oppression are the foes of Freedom!!

 

                                                                  by Michael Heslop (2016)

Xango

 

the god Xango was conceived in love and rises to destroy the world

 

hail

there is new breath here

huh

there is a sound of sparrows

erzulie with her green wings

feathers sheen of sperm

hah

there is a west wind here

 open eyes

sails

the conch shell sings

hallelujahs

oooh

I take you love 

at last my love

my night my dreams my Africa

softly of cheek now

sweat of pillow

thigh of thorn

tender to your fire

we make with salt this moisture

vision 

we make from vision

black and bone and sound

hah

there is a tree here

a boy with knotted snakes and coffin

a child with watercourses valleys clotted blood

look

these tendrils knitted to the green un-

pearl and walk

the earth on which he steps breaks forth in tears

the rose is his

the bamboo clumps are his

 the bougainvillea bells

listen

his syllables taste of wood

 of cedar lignum vitae phlanx

these gutterals are his own

 mon general mon frere

his childhood of a stone is rolled away

 he rings from bells of bone his liberated day

and all this while he smiles 

carved terra cotta

high life/ing in Abomey

he has learned to live with rebellions

book and bribe and bomb

blast and the wrecked village

he is earning his place in the corner

phantom jet flight of angels

computer conjure man

he embraces them all

for there is green at the root of his bullet

michelangelo working away at the roof of his 

murderous rocket

he anointeth the sun with oil. hallelujah

star tick star tick cricket clock click

and his blues will inherit the world

he comes inward from the desert

with the sheriffs

he flows out of the rivers out of the water- 

toilets with shrimp and the moon’s monthly oysters

he comes up over the hill

with gravediggers

 he walks in the streets

with moonlight with whistles with police kleghorns 

with the whore's pisstle

after so many twists

after so many journeys

after so many changes

bop hard bop soul bop funk

new thing coltrane marley soul rock skank

bunk johnson is ridin again

after so many turns

after so many failures 

greet him

he speaks

so softly near you

hear him 

he teaches

face and faith

and how to use your seed and soul and lissom

touch him

he smiles

hold him

he rages

murder him

he shatters you

your thunder has come home 

 

                                         by: Kamau Brathwaite

 

GOOD-BYE  DEREK  WALCOTT

 

 

One of my absolute favourite poems is Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight"-- the opening poem in the Walcott collection entitled "The Star-Apple Kingdom".

 

This classic Walcott poem is an extended meditation on the predicament and promise of our  Caribbean Civilization as manifested in the tragic life story of "Shabine'- a "red nigger who love the sea", and who out of desperation ships "as a seaman on the schooner Flight" for a defining sea voyage that takes him from Trinidad in the south of the Caribbean to the innumerable islands of the Bahamas in the north, and ultimately to his death.

 

In recent times, whenever I travel outside of my island home I somehow feel compelled to take the text of "The Schooner Flight" with me-- perhaps for the purpose of reminding myself of the plight and beauty and potential of our Caribbean Civilization.

 

I can think of no better way to express a public "good-bye" to Derek Walcott than by quoting the following passage from "The Schooner Flight" :-

 

"Fall gently, rain, on the sea's upturned face

like a girl showering; make these islands fresh

as Shabine once knew them! Let every trace,

every hot road, smell like clothes she just press

and sprinkle with drizzle........................

Though my Flight never pass the incoming tide

of this inland sea beyond the loud reefs

of the final Bahamas, I am satisfied

if my hand gave voice to one people's grief.

Open the map. More islands there, man

than peas on a tin plate, all different size,

one thousand in the Bahamas alone,

from mountains to low scrub with coral keys,

and from this bowsprit, I bless every town,

the blue smoke in hills behind them,

and the one small road winding down them like twine

to the roofs below; I have only one theme:

 

The bowsprit, the arrow, the longing, the lunging heart---

the flight to a target whose aim we'll never know,

vain search for one island that heals with its harbor

and a guiltless horizon..................

There are so many islands!

As many islands as the stars at night

on that branched tree from which meteors are shaken

like falling fruit around the schooner Flight.

But things must fall, and so it always was,

on one hand Venus, on the other Mars;

fall, and are one, just as this earth is one

island of archipelagoes of stars.

My first friend was the sea. Now is my last.

I stop talking now...........

...............and the moon open 

a cloud like a door, and the light over me

is a road in white moonlight taking me home."

 

 

Thank you Derek Walcott. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 

DAVID  COMISSIONG

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