THOUGHTS OF HOME

Today I stopped at a baby’s smile
Caught off guard by its total lack
of defense and boundary,
without a care for walls to hold at bay
a world grown cold and dull with pain.
I stopped and paid homage to that smile
because it gives me hope that one day, I would be at home.

Sometimes I reflect on those who are stranded in time
whose reality lie shattered at the feet of the callous,
reliving their painful circumstances in some instinctive way
satisfies the longing for human connection,
evidence, at least, that even dementia cannot break the mold;
We are and must all strive to be twain.
We must all have the hope that one day “I would be at home”.

For now I wander through one day to the next,
they are the rooms of a house bereft
of furnishings and warmth
whose bare walls just give respite
from the cold night air and harsh sunlight.
I plod on through these empty spaces and times
because of my hope that one day, I would be at home.

Copyright © 2003 by Judy Rocke

SCARBOROUGH

I

the naked claustrophobia
of a small town is a tapeworm
that gnaws away at the innards
a nameless yearning to escape
its oppressive confinement
to alluring adventure and romance
of the large unknown cities overseas
you watch the ships in her tiny harbour
and your mind sails off sails over
the Atlantic and you wonder
why some discoverer named her after
another small town way over yonder
in a small island called Great Britannia
the boom of the boat as it raises boom
forewarns you as you take one long last look back
that one day your heart will yearn to return
to your prison of Scarborough
and as you spend the vigil of your wake
watching the frothing wake of your Mayflower
a solitary seagull squawks
a warning "don’t damn the waters you cross"
and it dawns on you the size of your loss
your small island grows small on the skyline
as you turn north to face fresh horizons
and you spare her one final angst-fraught thought
for now for you know you cannot
forget she will never allow
her ex-convict to forget that
a small island has a wry way
of retort to rhetoric without words
as innocuous as the droppings of birds

II

my small island capital Scarborough
my small town of Scarborough Tobago
if these two worn ‘up and down’ streets could talk
could tell the tourist their true history
could count the times that foreign feet trampled
upon her people’s dignity
if these quaint old edifices could walk
away walk from their dilapidated
state from their impending demolition
away from their destiny
and be restored to their once great glory
as cantos of colonial chronicles
oh what cruel tales of tort and torture
oh what cruel tales they would tell
what sordid stories what tales of terror
what terrible testimony
of unjust constructs founded on foundations
funded by fornications with demons
who sacrificed the souls and psyche of slaves
whose flesh was ground into the ground
whose fate was pounded in mercantile
mortars of mortality
like chocolate or chilibibi
with European pestles of brutality
for pounds and guilders francs and pesetas
this tale of pity and morbidity
is not a tale of two cities
it is a tale of colonies
it is a tale of slavery
it is a tale of history
it is a tale of two islands
it is the tale of these islands

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

BABASH

On the still
of stagnation,
the cauldron bubbles.

From the stench
of ferment
comes water,

pure and potent
Devil water;
still with a sweet stench.

Light a fire with the first-drop,
liquid fire clear and sparkling;
throw the crystal

beads and inhibitions,
throw them up
into the air

and see them disappear
before you,
evaporating mountain dew.

On the still
of stagnation,
the bog bubbles.

The Devil,
busy with the idle,
releases from the bottle

of babash,
the genial spirit
and in a flash,

a car crash, whip lash,
backlash, a cutlass clash;
and spirit lash

steals spirits,
souls and cadavers
from us.

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance

ROAR

Roar! Roar!
The beast is risen,
the beast has arisen.

Dinosaur bones go
thump, thump;
stomping down carnival streets.
Monsters murder their peers,
minotaurs murder by pairs.

Roar! Roar!
The beast is risen,
the beast has arisen.

Butterfly bones go
thump, thump,
thump in tamboo bamboo dreams.
The phoenix falls, is falling,
has fallen, is fallen.

Roar! Roar!
The beast is risen,
the beast has arisen.

Roar! Roar!
Great men build ruins
and Nero plays Pan
or Pan father, while…
home burns.

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE OLD MAN

he would sit there
evening after evening
the old lonely man
on the old wooden bench
as if he had all the time left
in his world
to recollect and regret
lives and opportunities
aborted that now haunted

sometimes the lady
of the night wafted
redolent of past pleasures
as the wind flapped
thread worn tattered curtain
and twilight would reveal
silhouette of a caring
face hovering behind
tottering window sill

in his eyes were untold stories
but there was never time
to stop and listen

one evening the old
lonely man and wooden bench
were no longer there

the old house with thread bare
curtain and caring face
were no longer there

someday I will no longer
smell the white night flower

someday I will no longer
pass that way

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE WRITER AS GOD

with pen in hand
and sword at side
one wave of wand
ten warriors died

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance

SISTERS ROCK

How many times have I, in my mind’s-eye,
in soaring, free flights of wistful fancy,
on a fair trade wind, floated out to sea

to land upon your jagged peaks and clefts,
there where the breeding, brooding boobies nest
on steep crests whitewashed with pelican mess,

among fledgling terns, featherless but furred;
or circled high above, a frigate bird,
then swooped so fast an osprey, vision blurred

to graceful cotillions of man o’ wars
and Spanish flotillas or armadas
that once did proudly prowl and prey your shores;

or mingled in the froth of crashing waves,
washing your feet and rushing at your caves
where many pirates rest in watery graves

and seaweeds waltz to solemn siren songs
among the shells of pacro, whelks and conchs
and salt-cured cedar ribs of galleon bones;

or scubaed with the groupers and the sharks,
with fish gills in your underwater parks,
and marveled at your reefs, your coral arks,

then, like a submarine to ocean floor,
would dive dark depths, discover and explore
cavorting creatures mythical of lore,

descending deep into your timeless sands
to sift encrusted gold coins in my hands
and lift the plundered treasures of your lands.

Then, like your loosened stones, my daydreams sink
for treasure I possess naught but this ink;
my buried navel string will never clink.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

CLOUD NINE

(In memory of Garfield Blackman,
a prince who walked among us)

Cloud nine
will only cloud your mind
and make you get left behind;
cloud nine
will only cloud your mind,
you’ll get caught, hook, sinker and line.
You’ll end up doing time,
broke without a dime,
among the vagrant slime,

no reason, no rhyme;
dirt and grime
and a life of crime.
So the media extol
the virtues of alcohol,
they still sell tobacco
even though
the CMO say no.
You think that it macho,

it hip to be high,
instead you end up so low,
feel you want to die.
Trying to fill that void,
all you get is paranoid
in a life demeaning,
of meaning devoid.
You living a delusion,
chasing an illusion;

all you get is hallucination
and your life full with frustration.
Following bad company,
now who is bad company,
now you is bad company,
you never listened to your mammy
pulling you off that track,
that rocky road to crack;
thought she was wack,

now you know is a fact,
friend does carry
but don’t bring you back.
The world is now your enemy,
can’t face reality;
you been taken for a ride
down the road to suicide.
The world is now your enemy,
can’t face your family;

you lied and denied,
they cried and they cried,
Lord knows they tried,
no longer can you hide
a curse and a disgrace,
don’t want to see your face.
Your name is Distress,
a perfect pest,
now you under arrest

and you feeling depressed.
You thought you was hard,
you was doing hard dope,
now you know that you soft,
you softer than soap;
you can’t even cope
and you don’t have a hope.
Now you suffer and suffer,
can’t satisfy this hunger,

can’t afford to feed the monster
eating out inside you,
what you gonna do?
You done sell all you had
but the monster still mad,
so you steal and you steal
and you sell and you sell;
is ill that you ill
and you heading for hell.

Your name is Distress,
a perfect pest,
if the law don’t hold you
somebody will kill you.
You making people suffer
while the dealer getting richer;
just a mindless user
being used by the pusher
cause you hooked,

hook, line and sinker.
Just a pathetic jumbie,
reduced to a non-entity,
a despicable nobody,
fugitive from society;
it killing you softly,
slowly but surely,
destroying your mind,
your soul and your body.

From the womb to the tomb,
is doomed you doomed,
from the crib to the crypt,
you on a death trip;
now is the time,
you running out of time.
Be quick! Be quick!
You have to break that line.
Cloud nine

will only cloud your mind
and make you get left behind.
You have to live
positive and constructive,
keep clean
and stay green,
like a fruitful tree,
a healthy human being,
positive and productive,

contributing,
to the upliftment of humanity.
Don’t have to be sick
to get high off the music,
could be your final fix,
is nothing to kix,
falling from a cloud
into a latrine hole,
floating around

in a toilet bowl.
Climb out of the pit,
that deep, dark hole,
quit that hit
and regain control,
kick that habit
and redeem your soul.
Be bold! Be bold!
You have to break that hold.

Behold! Life’s treasure
across the threshold.
Get off cloud nine
and you will feel fine,
forget cloud nine
and look to the Divine.
Make haste! My brother,
make haste!
A mind is a treasure

too precious to waste
and life is a treasure
much too precious to debase.
Cloud nine
will only cloud your mind...
and make you get left behind;
cloud nine
will only cloud your mind,
you’ll get caught, hook, sinker and line...

Copyright ©1991 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE BLACK CRANE BARACK

(An adaptation of William Carlos Williams’
‘The Red Wheelbarrow’)

"The stone which the builders refused
is become the head stone of the corner."
Psalm 118:22

so much depends
upon

a black O-
bama

dazed McCain
Sarah

beside the white
pigeons

it will take more
power

than red wheel
barrow

a black crane
Barack

to lift Ame-
rica.

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE ARENA OF LIFE

I

In the arena of life, my son,
there are no laws, no rules, but one;

the battle fought be lost or won,
the vanquished and the victory run,

the also ran, the marathon,
the game of love, the pro, the con;

my son when all is said and done
there’s naught but self preservation.

The leader’s never at frontline;
in war he always leads behind

to save his precious rear and mind,
there to count the dead and dying

and console the widows crying,
and mothers’ sacrifice consign

their sons’ corpses in box of pine
except the ones they never find.

It was a wise man said before
that all is fair in love and war,

cat plays a game of paw and claw
alas the rat will play no more;

love’s worth living, and dying, for;
but whatever life has in store

of you this one thing I implore –
no idol or hero adore.

II

I chanced upon a maid one day
and down fell love like rain in May

on my love life, as dry as hay,
with passion wet, suffice to say

she moulded me like potter’s clay
and made my heart a harp to play

etudes of love, how sweet the lay,
like Judas’ kiss would soon betray.

Sweet Siren Love left me no choice,
I heard her soft seductive voice

‘bove din of waves, the crashing noise,
on treach’rous rocks to shipwreck poise.

III

After dry season earth will rejoice
when showers convert dry dirt to moist

and slumbering seeds their heads will hoist
as if to escape her swollen joist,

but then submerged by swelling flood,
raging rivers, like haemorrhage blood,

her short-lived joy will drown and clod
vital organs with stifling mud.

Her habitants cry, “Why, oh Lord,
must life be bruised on scrubbing-board?”

The thunder heard and answer roared,
the lightning, hearing, struck accord,

“Love spareth not the loved to know
there is but one, one way to grow;

the mother bird in time must show
the baby bird it’s time to go,

to spread new-feathered wings and flow
upon the wind where it may blow,

to fly nest never left hitherto
to hither, thither, to and fro.

In time, my son, you’ll come to learn
to face the fire, though you may burn,

to ride the tide on prow and stern
through ocean calm, or chop and churn;

to challenge life at every turn
while lesser men may sit and yearn,

to sail beyond horizon known
and thence triumphantly return.”

IV

“Turbulent seas will smooth the stone,
striving strengthens sinew and bone,

and though the blade to rust is prone
the grinding stone its edge will hone;

carbon may under pressure groan
but diamond shine would not bemoan;

in dungeon thrown or royal throne
know that you never are alone.

In you there’s ohm to overcome,
to seize the wind and ride the storm,

lies sleeping like the lily corm
awaiting rain in earthy dorm

to spring anew and take true form,
survive adverse, like desert palm,

a source to draw sustenance from
and super strength beyond the norm.

Does subject meet exalted King,
Sitting at home with beads praying?

Or goeth forth, early morning,
with resolve and gifts a bearing,

toward palace, humbly hoping
for earthly favour and blessing…

when all at once he hears a bird sing,
‘Why seek abroad the King within?’

Trust not in chariots and horses,
but harness your inner forces;

count blessings, forget your losses;
greed adds, and multiplies crosses;

anchorless, turbulence tosses,
rudderless drifts shipwreck courses;

one ocean, with many sources,
one Source, with many oases.”

V

To you I hope my words make sense –
fruits they are of experience,

picked from the tree intelligence,
the centre of the forest dense;

while I was lost in fears immense,
stripped bare of ego and pretence,

I climbed the tallest tree, and thence
reached through the clouds of recompense

to sky above the canopy,
from where I saw the land and sea

of human woe with clarity;
and then I soared, my spirit free,

defiant of my misery,
as if by some divine decree

my eyes opened my soul to see
the spectre of divinity.

Then stone-like did I sink and dive
with carnal did I strug’ and strive

in mire till, more dead than live,
instinct amniotic to survive

and senses many more than five,
through dark and deadly subway drive,

guided me safely to arrive,
at last, the born-again archive.

And then my spirit soared again
graceful, an ibis or a crane,

over plateau and over plain
where fettered flesh could ne’er attain;

the bowed old man threw ‘way his cane
and rose above life’s old-age pain,

rode like a horse without a rein
like Pegasus with wind-blown mane.

VI

Then doubt and guilt of Adam’s sin,
through broken dike, came rushing in

with malice of a million jinn
and hit me squarely on the chin,

then on the floor my neck did pin,
said, “Give up now you cannot win!”

but iron will with split-lip grin
quipped, “Courage be my kith and kin.”

Yea, ten times ten did I fall down
but never once stayed on the ground;

with analytic notes profound
my mind stood up, conversed with Jung

and sung Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’;
my soul, refusing to be bound,

soared once more with sonorous sound
as of mallet striking a gong.

Like waves over the ocean spread,
my soul went where the sound waves led,

in universe and in my head,
even where angels dare not thread;

no longer paralyzed by dread
nor chased by fierce bulls in the mead

from which in nightmares I had fled
by learning first to fly in bed.

VII

My son, I have seen thick and thin,
refused admittance in the inn;

accepted too like Rasputin
then waylaid by the assassin;

a victim of the serpent-sting,
a mendicant for love, begging;

a eunuch in the king’s harem,
soul shorn apart like yang from yin.

I had my share misfortune too,
methinks I more than paid my due;

yes, expiate holocaust Jew
but let Massa too take a clue

and calculate the slaves’ accrue’
lest niggarding we come to rue:

it’s time to write history anew,
true point of view and not askew.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

MADAME SPIDER

"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death."
Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

“Come into my web-bed boudoir,”
said seductress Madame Spider
to the bar-fly on the wall;
“I’ll strip you and beat you
and whip you and eat you
and whip you till you bawl,
and whip you till you crawl.”

“Come into my web-bed boudoir,”
said domi'trix Madame Spider
to the gullible bar-fly;
“I’ll strip you and chain you
and whip you and drain you
and whip you till you sigh,
and whip you till you die.”

“Come into my web-bed boudoir,”
said seductress Madame Spider…

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

TREASURE FOUND

What greater pleasure
can there be,
to find some treasure
rare and free?
Can joy of gain,
bereft of cost,
negate the pain
of what was lost,
negate the pain
of one who lost?

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

ON THE CATWALK

mobile mannequins
and animated paper dolls
sashay sensuously
elegantly down the catwalk stage
satin lacy silky sequined things
midst cheers and catcalls
swish sassily
flamboyant flashing floral corsage
super sexy
souped up coutured super models
all pretty petite neat
and beneath a certain age
some chic
some anorexic most centrefolds
posed and exposed
upon the playboy page
beauty’s temporal fragile
orchid petals
exploited
under neon spotlight vantage
oh how quickly the flower fades
and falls
ere the lust
for life and love it can assuage
but the glitzy
glamorous tinsel world
still enthrals
young models with old dreams
along life’s catwalk stage

Copyright ©2000 by G. Newton V. Chance

PORTRAIT OF THE POET

In him beats the warm heart of the poet,
with pounding blood of idealistic youth;
forever he pursues, off beaten path,
the absolute of idealistic truth.

Upon his face the light of beauty shines,
imagination burns pastoral shade,
to change the world with but his virtuous lines,
the virtuous innocence of virgin maid.

The poet seeks perfection, it’s his quest,
the order of the universe, his goal;
as glorious sun each day sails east to west,
a cosmic orbit guides the poet’s soul.

With glorious words his pen attempts to paint
a world where all may live in pride, not want,
and on experience-canvas, a portrait
of contentment and acceptance, not vaunt.

Nature’s secret language he converses,
with birds and beasts and trees, and hidden things,
and muses, he writes his lovely verses
so eloquent of earth that heaven sings.

To right the wrongs, the right he writes, he tries,
fearless and unflagging verbal assault;
with words of solace, dries the widows’ eyes
and plasters tyrants’ wounds with caustic salt.

And when Chronos etches lines upon his face,
in rocking chair recline, hairline recede;
though slowed down in his idealistic chase,
no soil can slough its germinating seed

for though planet, moon, and star should pass away
and darkness overtake the shining sun,
as surely as the word will ever stay,
the poet’s work, forever, shall live on.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

SILK-COTTON TREE

Proudly you stand there, so regal, in your gargantuan majesty,
a gentle, verdant giant, towering over the canopy;
in leafless April, swaying, silken tresses, your kapok crown adorn,
beautiful maiden betrothed, bedecked upon her marital morn.

There was a time not long ago, it’s said, when
Houleyg, Socouyant, Papa Bois, La Diablesse and Douen,
Garbie, Jumbie, Lagahou and many a ghoulish fiend
would walk and stalk the land disguised as men;
that in that time, when men feared the four-road,
your buttressed tent served a ghostly abode.

Should I believe that under buttressed tent
sinister strangers, strange, of evil bent,
money-hungry men with diabolical intent,
ambition and achievement, would go to any length
at the witching-hour, with Faustian pact cement
fleeting financial success with debenture dement,

confront Mephistoph' at midnight, by candlelight,
and faint-hearted men turn ghastly white,
with thought of flight, transfixed by fright,
in the middle of the still, dark night,
deal with the Devil, in season of penitent Lent,
and sell souls to eternal damnation and torment…

or when measuring tape your wing could not encompass,
Rangers recording ‘exceeding twenty five feet girth’;
on scaffolding, courageous men would climb, and with axe
achieve the daunting, the seeming impossible feat,
chop, chop, chop after chop, bring you crashing down to earth,
prostrate, humbled at their feet, in deafening defeat;

or that many primitive years, not so long ago,
Amerindians dug soft belly for drum and canoe,
with Warahoon ritual incantation, a shaman
would beseech benediction to bless expedition
from Mainland to sacred old hill of Naparima
or to send young warriors off to adventure or war.

Ceiba, your trunk spans centuries, continents and oceans,
your kapok crown spreads across the Old World to the New;
you who soothed the uneasy dreams of kings and queens
with sweet repose on kapok-filled mattress and pillow,
so mighty, once “monarch of all you survey”, it’s true,
in this age of destruction, what lies ahead for you?

Can spiny armour protect you from marauding man
as he wantonly decimates your habitation?
Will you one day, like pawi, be faced with extinction.
Pentandra, like legendary son of Pendragon,
King Arthur, will you meet your demise, meet your Camlan,
by power-saw, skidder and bush fire, at the hand

of mankind’s civilized, globalized insanity?
A shaman said, when rivers dry and rain forest die,
sacrificed on altars of progress and expediency,
only then will humanity truly come to see,
beyond misguided messiahs, science and technology,
that you and I, and nature, all life, are one, Silk-cotton tree.

Proudly you stand there, so regal, in your gargantuan majesty,
a gentle, verdant giant, towering over the canopy.
O Tree of Life, will your silent strength be enough to conquer, the monster
concrete jungle who, your primal jungle, seeks to devour, forever.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is importing horror in October
just as in August we import summer
in a land without spring, autumn, winter.
What next? Thanksgiving Day or July Fourth?
What the hell wrong with we? Maybe is time,
with all the cable programming and crime,
to change we nationality and birth
certificate from Trinidad and Tobago
and be known, henceforth, wherever we go,
as the United Island States of America.
I say what the hell foolishness is this,
this wicked, immoral, Devil business
of imperial cultural interest?
I say, go to hell with Halloween propaganda.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

ISLAND-MAN

(for Dr. Edwin Carrington, Secretary General of CARICOM)

From a Third World,
within a Third World,
within the Third World;
forgotten, behind God’s back,
there, where I found you at the end of a donkey track,
now a pothole road donated by the Doc,

ending by a river where no bridge was worth building
to cross over; the same river,
running into your history,
running into your destiny,
running into a bloody bay,
polluted by pirate blood

spilled in criminal,
colonial wars of yore,
wars for position and possession.

Black and blue, my great grandfather
toiled, on your indigo plantation,
(when sugar-cane was king;
there was no beet or saccharine
to sweeten the coffee of the Queen),
by force, he had no choice.

Then later, my mother toiled, on your estate,
(when copra and coconut-oil was king;
there was no soya-bean
to lower the cholesterol of the Queen),
for a ha’penny and a farthing,
she had no choice.

Yesterday, I toiled, in your food basket,
(when dasheen and yam and cassava was king;
there was no oil-boom
to overflow the coffer of the Queen),
for a shilling, for next to nothing,
I had no choice;

until you bring your employment project,
to hell with your food-basket;
I will still make a little hustle in the sea,
plant a little garden and thing, maybe.
But now the dollar is king,
now I don’t need no gayap or len’an’

I can do without tradition
because money is king
and if thing too slow, I can go to town
on a pothole road;
except when rain come down
and block or break away the road;

or even better, I can cross the water,
by steamer, the same coastal steamer
that yesterday used to dock from bay to bay
to pick up my dasheen and cassava,
when the road was a muddy track,
now a pothole road that will bring me back

to a Third World,
within a Third World,
within the Third World,
still behind God’s back;
the lights and the water and the telephone
taking so long to come.

Sucked by houleyg and soucoyant,
and mosquito and vampire,
sucked and raped by politician,
sucked, raped, plundered by businessman,
by Frenchman and by Dutchman
and Portuguese and German,

American and Englishman.
I have produced coffee, cocoa, cotton and sugar,
indigo and copra, ground provision and timber,
fish by the boatload, and great men;
men of integrity, dignity and honesty;
men of high honour, and valour;

I am a man, to my word; I will always be here,
come rain, come sun, or river come down,
expect Island-man to be there.

Copyright ©1995 by G. Newton V. Chance

SILENCE

Let silence resound
for silence is more, much more,
than the mere absence of sound.

There is note and there is rest-note;
the ocean laps against the boat,
the tide subsides and makes no note.

Let silence abound
for silence is more, much more,
than the mere absence of sound.

There is sound and there is silence
but the ear, to hear the silence,
listens… beyond the ken of sense.

Let silence resound
for silence is more, much more;
it is the celestial sound.

Copyright ©2008 by G. Newton V. Chance