YOU SPEAK TOO MUCH, FATHER NED

You speak too much, too much, Father Ned,
Don’t you know that it’s boring?
The boy in the corner, nodding,
Is one wink away from snoring.

You speak much too much, Father Ned,
Don’t you know no one is listening?
Why not converse with your thoughts instead
And save us the suffering.

Why do you speak so much, Father Ned?
Your words are devoid of meaning;
Yet like an incessant woodpecker,
Tok, tok, tok, you keep on repeating.

We have no attention deficit,
Maybe a short attention span;
You’ve got to know when to quit
And give us an intermission.

You speak too much, too much, Father Ned,
Your words are a monotone;
It’s not that we are ignorant
But we’d much rather listen the phone.

You speak much too much, Father Ned
It’s not that we find your words boring;
Like air they flow, in and out our heads
And fall through the cracks in the flooring.

Why do you speak so much, Father Ned?
Don’t you know no one is listening?
And why do you write so much, Father Ned?
Don’t you know no one is reading?

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance

BUSH-BATH

(Happy Emancipation Day)

bush-bath does cut all blight
bush-bath could make you bright
and if people put light

burn red candle on you
work obeah or voodoo
to make you do

all kind of foolishness
they want you to
bush-bath could cut that too

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

WALK WITH ME, OH MOON

Walk with me, oh moon;
let us count the tombstones,
excavate the young bones,
piled on young bones,
prematurely pulled from earth-womb.

With you at my side,
no need for furtive glances
over shoulders at the shadows.

Hand in hand, old woman,
there is no shame in romance
but I am in no mood for romance,
I am in no mood for dance.
I am in no mood for marching,
for marching is a death dance;
I am in no mood for waltzing,
for waltzing is a love dance.
Let us walk this slow dance, this sad dance,
with cadence of reflection and remorse;
let us search for young bones
without tombstones,
old bones too,
whose flesh was never found.
Help me count the pyres,
the urns and scattered ash.

Mourn with me, oh moon;
earth and moon are old
and fertile
but I am old and futile
to stem erosion’s tide,
devouring coastlines,
consuming bloodlines.
How will river survive
without replenishing rain?
The rivers run brown with foetal blood;
brown with foetid water.

Talk with me, oh moon;
tell me, moon,
from your singular perspective,
tell me what you see.
I feel your empathy.
Is this all you have to say;
that the wages of sex is life,
and the young makes way
for the new?

Walk with me, oh moon;
we will leave no footprints
to follow in the sunlight,
nothing but ethereal
evanescence of the silence,
of silent footsteps,
as we walk into the night.

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE SUN NEVER STOPS SHINING

(for Christopher [Baby] Rocke, 5 years old, who observes everything, remembers everything and questions everything)

The sun never stops shining,
It's just obscured by clouds at times;
In rain, with thunder and lightning,
It only steps indoors awhile.

And when the moon and stars are out
And there's no sight of the sun;
Winter solstice in north, head south
And there you'll find the shining sun.

The sun rises in the east,
They say, and travels to the west;
Around the world to return east
Without compass or GPS.

This flight takes twenty-four hours,
Three sixty-five times a year;
But if you live at the North Pole,
It takes six months (or half a year).

Where the sun goes is a mystery,
What it does and what it sees;
But while you and I are sleeping,
It's exploring strange lands and seas.

The sun never stops shining,
Sometimes it's not shining on us;
But you can be sure it's out there
Smiling and shining on someone.

You can be sure it's somewhere
Shining and shining all year.

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance

PIPILE PEOPLE

(for Robyn Cross)

With feelings of foreboding,
we watched;
an Arawak and I,
perched high,
on a laurier tree
in the hills of Iere,
we watched three strange ships
with long white wings
riding the winds
above the sea,
watched them sail to shore and land
strange looking strangers,
strange white-skinned men
with long white crests and dewlaps
and long straight bows we later learned
spit thunder.

Thus began,
with axe and machete in hand,
the wanton clearing of my land.

Later, other strangers came;
strange men with ebony skin and iron chains
around their dewlaps,
then men with brown skin like the first peoples
and yellow skin like ripe pineapples.

Later still, appeared the skidder and the Stihl
with demon power designed to kill
the forest and her fledglings.

My friend, the Arawak, has long succumbed
'cept for a few straggling souls,
struggling for survival
and recognition.

I swear by my blue wattle
I have witnessed many battles
'tween Papa Bois and people
as he strove and strove to save us
from Conquistador's colonial curse
and heartless hunter's blunderbuss.

I, Pipile pipile,
better known as Pawi,
ask not for your pity,
but that you open eyes and see
that I am you and you are me.

Lose me and you would have lost
your way, your self, your soul;
I am this nation's survival--
I am this nation's past,
its present ...
its patrimony.

I am Pipile pipile,
Spirit of this island and its people.

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance