CAGE

And sometimes, a raindrop
is a gunshot,
resounds upon the rooftop
of the furtive little house
in which she lives.

Locked away her heart
in peel of lime-
stone, accretion from the
many years of hurt.

There are holes, large
and treacherous,
numerous and lurking
like the cave lands at Cumaca.

And sometimes, in the solitude
of evening can be heard
the far off, muffled cry
of a blues bird,
a poor-me-one

or perhaps an oilbird
trapped among the spikes
of stalactites and stalagmites,
the cruel cage within her cave.

And yet somewhere, there's an ocelot
that will not be tamed
pacing, pacing, waiting
impatiently inside her

to bound out of the kitten
brought here by her mother
so many moons ago
to keep her company
in kitchen, room and field.

She is a cocoon waiting
to break out of its skein
and love, a true love
to believe in,
is all she really needs.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

NOCTURNAL

I am that ghost who walks
the lonely streets,
moonless nights,
shadow-less shadow, peeking
into strangers,
like burglar-proof windows
unable to keep light
or shade out;

stopping to stare, peer
into sarcophagus,
shop windows,
through cobwebs
of black widows,
at back-stabbing smiles
and rigor mortis
of mummies
surviving without daddies
and dollies
searching for sugar daddies
with dollars
and soft hearts
prone to heart attacks;

staring into stone-
cold heart-
less strangers stepping, and
side-stepping, over stranger
strangers sleeping
on the lonely streets,
non-existent
like the once existing
pride of Independence
Square, Salvatore Building;
ghosts, ghosts, ghosts,
too dim to be discerned
by traffic lights and headlamps
and neon eyes of window

shoppers, searching
lifeless buildings for bargains,
stepping over strangers
like stones or plastic bones;
I am that ghost who walks
the lonely streets,
moonless nights,
shadow-less shadow...

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

GREENING THE GROUND

Hail the man who tills the soil,
from thorn and thistle extracts oil
of copra, soya, olive and corn,
labouring at the leprechaun
of plenitude to fill the horn
With fruits and flora of his toil.

Praise the woman at his side
whose earth is deep, whose hips are wide
and from the vine extracts the wine,
the sugar and the salt divine
to pour and sprinkle on the shrine

of lust for life and love and feast
to calm and tame and sate the beast,
the hunger that consumes the world;
the sacrifice of green for gold
myopic greed with vision blurred.

Hail the man who sows the seed
and from the soil fulfils the need,
with faith and hope for sun and rain,
to fill the farrowed earth with grain,
greening the ground where brown had lain;
Indeed, he is a special breed.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

MATAPAL

Gave you succour, support of sky,
carried you atop shoulders with gospel
fervour and pride like an epistle, first
an epiphytic appendage, in need,
waving green fronds in windows to my world.

Raised you above my head, above earth,
lifted you aloft for all the world to witness,
shared air and birds and bird calls in branches
of my lungs' longing for fulfilment.

Ignored warnings of strangers
about parasites and succubus
and busts and butts on busty stranglers,
deceivers, disguised, dressed, in fig leaves.

Gave you room to let your roots down and all around,
held you to my heart, inseparable,
lovers infatuated, lost
in the forest of love's wild abandon,

the timbre of our love song,
as stranglehold grew stronger, stronger,
tighter, tighter, tighter, day by day,
month by month, year by smothering year,

slowly, slowly, slowly, with lumbering,
slumbering, clambering, stupendously
strong, strangling, entangling hug of a matapal,
absorbed me into you until

I am you, no longer me,
wholly assimilated into you, your body,
your trunk, your torso, your reality,
the paper of your sentence,
the very timber of your existence.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ARROW HEAD

(Tradition has it that Columbus sighted three peaks in the Trinity Hills off the Moruga coast, named the island 'La Trinity' (Trinidad) and first landed at Moruga bay.)

At Moreau Road, Marac, I found
an arrow head of roughly hewn
triangulated stone, buried,
among pottery shards and bones
in a teak field, man-made forest.

I wondered, pondered how
many Moussaras bled, and died,
chopped down, lopped up, replaced
by well intentioned foreign

interventions and how
many warriors fell, felled
by an ancient flint head's

inadequate sulphur
against ruthless fire power,
the thunder of gunpowder;

how Arawaks and Caribs bled,
like incense trees, died
and gurgling arroyos dried
while wild animals lay dead;

how piping guans flew and fled
and grieving women held their heads,
cried, dried their eyes, buried

their braves, brave victims
of a long forgotten bow
and an old, encrusted arrow
head and I wondered

should I have left that ancient
arrow head, buried
with the other dead,
pottery shards, bones
and stench of strangulated past

in a teak field at Moruga Road?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SINGE

From the belly of the hurt,
she revels in the rebel
when there's really nothing left
but hell to rebel about.

Sing how, like a bison, love
led her, yanking her protest
by the gold ring in her noose.

There are truck marks on her skin
and psyche from the cure-all
perforations of syringe.

In the tightly braided air,
breathes a tinge of burning hair,
acrid, a manicou on singe
or perhaps her father's sins.

Branded by fashion houses
like slaves or cattle, bonded,
on for-bidding auction block;

With gaudy, gaga, go-go,
goo-goo, synthetic artifice,
she wears scar-tissue-tattoo
skin-exhibits like an art

but hides the many piercings,
the raw, the bleed, the healing,
in her worn and wounded heart.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance