(in memory of my cousin George Daniel, tailor/ musician)
In this ready-made age,
the village tailor’s
thimble-armoured thumb
lies stitch-less, naked,
numb and dumb,
subdued
by designer-needle’s evil-eye,
no longer nimble,
no longer needed.
The neighbourhood cobbler
has long succumbed—
his last lathe can be found
among the cobblestones;
his late art lies rotting
and forgotten,
under an anonymous
headstone
at the foot
of a huge, sedentary,
cemetery samaan tree
in a neglected plot—
a neglected plot is his final lot.
Meanwhile, the careless, carefree
consumer is consumed, covered,
buried by now-for-now,
buy now for now,
gluttonous eye-gratification.
Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance
- G. NEWTON V. CHANCE
- George Newton Vivian Chance (Trinidad and Tobago) -- member of the Poet Society of Trinidad and Tobago, http://poetssocietytt.blogspot.com/ and the World Poets Society, http://world-poets.blogspot.com/ -- born in Tobago on 3rd March 1957. While residing at Rio Claro was inspired to write over a hundred poems at the turn of the Millennium. Hobbies include playing wind instruments, building computers, observing nature, reading and writing poetry. Believes that the power of a song is in its ability to evoke emotions by the marriage of lyric and music but that music without lyric can be just as powerful, that lyric without music can also be just as powerful, that there is music in the lyric and that lyric can be simple yet profound. Also, in this the age of computers, would like to model his lines after simple and efficient code and, analogous to Object Oriented Programming, achieve most of his imagery from nouns and verbs, avoiding the bloat and excess of unnecessary adjectives. This is what he aspires to attain in his poetry.
1 comment:
A sad tale indeed. The death of a noble profession. I remember that my grandmother and a sew machine, and so did my mom and my aunt. She sent us to a seamstress for sewing lessons one summer. My sister and I tried to make our own clothes for parties, but not successfully. I think we were impatient.
Fortunately, in Africa this profession flourishes and feeds many mouths. When I lived there, I rarely bought ready-made dresses. The seamstress did a good trade.
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