"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing," (Edgar Allan Poe)
In the nastiness of existence,
This nastiness of existence,
I, King Corbeau,
Sovereign of Sewer City,
Ruler and Lord of the Labasse,
Mayor of the Malodorous,
Connoisseur of Carrion and Carnage,
Corpses, Cadavers and Carcasses,
Dark Bird of Death and Disgust,
Fowl of the Foul and Decay,
I, Gobbling Gobbler of Ghoul,
No sweet songbird, say,
Could I sing,
Would sing you songs,
Stories of the ones found,
Flesh never found;
This raucous caw,
A dirge for the lost and the missing.
Plastic rivers dumping cargo,
Lagoons and bays abused
All along the coast;
Floods exposing dirty minds
And habits;
Streets of Sewer City.
Rural roads
Throughout country,
One contiguous Labasse.
I, Supreme Scavenger, can clean
Labasse from land
But not Labasse from minds,
No more than can the garbage man,
Minus mask, underpaid and scorned,
Or CPEP cleaning, cleaning, cleaning,
Litter mounds, cycles never ending,
Of dirty, dumping, minds
And habits...
Constellations of Blimps,
Corbeau at carrion, clamour under clouds;
True stars shine silent against night sky
Above constricting clouds,
Sodden with Labasse smoke.
Land of limbo,
Lost and missing;
Who will rise above bar,
Clouds and empty bluster?
I, Supreme Scavenger, keeping
Close eye on plastic land and river;
Lagoon abused,
Lacuna of local culture,
Allowing foreign vulture
To pry out eyes and entrails;
Keeping closer eye
On sister isle;
If needed I will go.
In the nastiness of existence,
This nastiness of existence,
I, King Corbeau,
Sovereign of Sewer City,
Ruler and Lord of the Labasse,
Mayor of the Malodorous,
Connoisseur of Carrion and Carnage,
Corpses, Cadavers and Carcasses,
Dark Bird of Death and Disgust,
Fowl of the Foul and Decay,
I, Gobbling Gobbler of Ghoul,
No sweet songbird, say,
Could I sing,
Would sing you songs,
Stories of the ones found,
Flesh never found;
This raucous caw,
A dirge for the lost and the missing.
Copyright ©2010 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.
3 comments:
Pardon my ignorance but, any chance I can get a translation for 'Lebasse'?
Caribbean dump: a garbage dump
[Late 20th century. < French la basse "the flatlands, the shoal, the swampland," after an area near Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, where garbage is dumped]
MSN Encarta Dictionary
Had a feeling it was something like this. Thanks.
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