GISELLE

Once I met an angel,

a beautiful angel

named Giselle,

in a drugstore

at South Quay, Port of Spain.

(Don't think she wanted

to be recognized.)

"Champ.

You are the greatest!

Keep hammering them

like an avenging angel."

(or words to that effect), I said.

She quietly acknowledged,

with a smile

as potent as a kiss,

and went about her business.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

MILK OF MALICE (BISCUIT AND MILK)

At start of school term,

Sir, 
inspecting lined up fingernails,

stuck out tongues,

skinned open eyeballs

for signs of malnutrition.

Then the charlatan would declare

"You look pale, you look frail,
you need some fat" and prescribe

Government non-fat powdered milk.

He did not care to hear

that (your father reared cattle)

you drank fresh cow's milk everyday

or that your poor stomach 
could not stomach

the nauseating non-fat milk,

mixed in plastic pails,

served at room temperature

in brightly coloured plastic cups,

which you could not refuse
or throw away

(but would make you sick 
to the stomach,

your stomach would reject,

forcibly eject,

throw up behind the school)

under fear of being caught

in the act

and administered,

on tightened seat of khaki trousers,

the guava rod which served

both punishment and persuasion.

Somehow he never prescribed the delicious

Government sweet biscuits kept crisp

in large Bermudez biscuit tins

for children of the privileged.

Somehow the terrorist

never told you that you had a choice;

that you,

and all the other pupils 
of your primary school,

were entitled

to sweet biscuits with your milk.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

BURNT BOOKS

(dedicated to a little heroine named Malala Yousufzai)

Somewhere in my psyche
there's a dim, dark repressed
memory

of bigots burning
pages labelled bad books;
tons of priceless tomes
dedicated to advancement,
the knowledge of the ages;
fascists burning
libraries in Alexandria;

zealots burning
tresses of trembling
Salem sisters labelled witches
at stakes and solemn crosses
in bonfires of holy hell;
adulteresses,
death sentences by stoning
abominations
with boulders and humiliations
in public places;
all in the name of heresies;
Inquisitions and confessions
wrung with racks from visionaries;
and genital mutilations of trembling
little girls, scarred in secret places;
all in the name of religions,
all in the name of traditions.

Somewhere in my psyche
there's a dim, dark suppressed
memory

of bigots burning
crosses and colored churches;
tarred and feathered bodies;
swollen, purple fruit suspended
from twisted limbs of poplar trees
swaying in the southern breeze;
fascists burning
bodies, gassed and stacked and bundled
like cords of firewood
in demonic Auschwitz death camps.

Somewhere in my psyche
there are dim, dark repressed
memories.

Now with bullets to the head,
bigots, fascists and zealots are stoning
female babies, burning
female babies, fourteen year old babies
just because they yearn for books
and learning;
twisted sadistic warning
just because they yearn for books
and learning.

Somewhere in my psyche
there are dim, dark repressed
memories

of a Dark Age;
memories in dim recesses;
memories of Dark Ages
the world once thought were gone.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

RAINBOW

There is no rainbow

Without rain

And yes, there is no rainbow without sun-

Shine, shining through the rain.

Beyond prison of jaundiced prejudice,

Sky's oval prism splits, separates, radiates,

Exposing, by refraction, beauty, diversity,

Cosmopolitan colours of the cosmos,

Illusion of the unity of light,

The unity of life.

There is no rainbow

Without light

And yes, there is no rainbow in the dark

Night of a nation's soul

Struggling through thunderclaps

Of insomniac, dreamless sleep.

Sky, promise me this relentless deluge

Of disappointment and discontentment,

Like vapour of a mirage,

Eventually, will pass:

These arrows of showers, showers of arrows,

That pierce and penetrate

A subdued people's shield of will at will.

Rainbow arched as if by water-weight

Of Heaven's heavy burdens:

Beaten brows, bowed backs of men bend

Under vertical weight of heavy fists,

Long lines and waiting lists,

Screwfaced scowls await clouded justice.

Sky, promise me this vertical oppression

Of searing sun, eventually, will pass:

These tainted smiles of painted lips,

Tainted lips of painted smiles,

That mock and scoff with churlish glee

The aspirations of simple, honest men.

There is no rainbow

Without rain,

No relief without pain, pain without relief,

And yes, there is no rainbow without sun-

Shine, shining through the rain...

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance