THIRD PARTY

hear you say

this hearsay

he say she say dem say

who say

they feteing with we money

fetch after fetch

fete follow fete like coquette

follow fashion

party after party

party follow party

one big Westminster party

DJ Poli-famous and the

Fiduciary Fiddlers playing

the Treasure Dance

high profile low fife

gong-ho gang star and t-eve

party with three letter

four letter imp-

unity

alligators with allegations

like Silver Surfer flying

left right and central

but no evidence prima facie

to prosecute anybody

doctors lawyers fathers mothers  

daughters sons murderers

getting away with murder

one party two party three party

patty after patty

patty follow patty

one big Westminster pasture

foul farm stench strangling we

drat cock-

roach scarab ant fowl feteing

party after party

fowl party follow fowl party

now third party

in the party

with three letter

four letter imp-

unity

hear you say

this hearsay

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

SNACK PACK

Mama an alcoholic

Papa a power addict

Uncle more cunning and clever

at conning than a cocaine piper.

Baby suffers from colic

bath water fast running out.

Do not be fooled by tarots

reshuffling of party cards

impacting the social pact.

Beware brothers and sisters

of friendly part-time strangers

bearing grab-bags ram-
packed with goodies and out-
landish promises.

Beware my little children

of sweet-talking flute-
playing part-time strangers.
They will feed your hearts alive

to the Devil.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

OWL

                                      night howls

                  night-sky a hooting owl

      portent of a people's impotence

                  a four-headed dog barks

            chokes on its own placenta

                  swallows its own vomit

                  eats its own excrement

                   it is the hour of the owl

                                       a pygmy

                   hoots at Pygma-lion's

                            disappointment

          in office atlas askew on axis

                      clock stuck on one

                o clock is there no one

                              pure enough to

                                      save goal

                                   save game

                                  save world

                           messenger wanted

                                    apply within

                         messenger for hire

no dogs and calypsonians allowed

no dogs and calypsonians allowed

no dogs and calypsonians allowed

no dogs and calypsonians allowed

 will the children ever play in safety

                                 without fear

         thoughts of morning conjure

                 no optimistic promise

                      in an underworld of 

           waning oil and rising crime

         waning sun and rising prices

                              Anubis awaits 

          with scale of Maat in hand

     ©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

TOUCH

(In memory of my father, brothers and sisters,

even the ones I never knew)   

The dead are all around us.

We don't see them,

they don't see us.

Touching how a memory

can make contact

without touching;

how the seed of a virgin

orchid rooted on a mango

limb could bring you face

to face with long buried

memories of a father who first

showed you gentleness

in the savage

nature,

beauty in a wild

orchid uprooted

and transplanted

to a front yard garden
from the precipice

of a flowering rock.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance 

LANDFILL

In a world where truth

is a liar and heaven never was,

where love and money make fools

of men and all the things

that make you happy

are the things that make you

sad, nothing is a number

too often spoken

by hordes that hunger

far from horns of plenty

hoarded by the few.

Amidst brown destruction

of wingless locusts,

electric fireflies flicker red,

yellow, green in drawing rooms

but no one proceeds with caution.

In a world of grand illusions

where deities and leaders

are deluded creatures

created by the gullible of men,

there are heroes in the landfills

resurrecting the discarded.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

MOTHER AND CHILD

These five things are forever,

I have learned over the years:

the first cries of a baby

after a mother's labour-

cries of pain, her joyful tears;

cries of pain and joy combined

when first she lost her maiden-

head and found her womanhood;

cries of an aborted

foetus, a weeping womb

for a baby never born

whose breath a mother's breast

will never know nor ever

miss nor death will ever mourn;

a mother's cries, a child's tears

for a love forever gone.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

BROWN WHEELBARROW

"So much depends/ upon/ a red wheel/ barrow..." William Carlos Williams

So much more depended on the chickens

than a red wheelbarrow.

Not the assembly line fast-grow, force-grow,

couped-up white chicken of today

but the free verse common fowl

farm fertilizing yardie

Rhode island, frizzle fowl and clean-neck cock;

the ever reliable fore-day

morning "cook curry ochro" crowing

country clock waking up to fry egg,

boil egg, scramble egg, raw egg with orange

or milk and stout; the vociferous fuss

and commotion "cock, cock, me lay" cluck

of a laying hen announcing to all

and sundry, fresh eggs for the plunder

or the round oh! oval of surprise,

delight of discovery

by schoolboy of uncharted nest

filled with young eggs before malfeasance

of mitosis intervened;

to say nothing of the drumstick, wishbone,

wings and feet reserved for Sunday lunch.

Who needed to push a red wheelbarrow

when we had a low maintenance, low

pollutant auto wheelbarrow needing no gas

but grass, the oxymoron of a dumb jackass

that, saddled with cocoa, ground provision

or gravel would refuse to overload,

grin, bare big teeth and snap at you, fart

and fling kick at your knee like Bruce Lee

or Wang Yu, refuse to budge,

lie down with the load, roll around

on the ground and refuse to get up

till it well and proper felt to do so;

or if by chance Jenny should pass,

go berserk with donkey fever –

to hell with you and your labour;

ignore the cruel whiplash, laugh in your face

and bray "haw hee haw hee" as if to say

to the world "look at this dumb jackass

inflicting cruelty on what he thinks

is a dumb jackass beast of burden,

not seeing the beautiful,

strong and stubborn creature of resistance

with its own mind, willing to cooperate

when treated with respect and dignity;

forgetting is I who bore a Man-God

on my back to Jerusalem to bear

the cruel whiplash, to die

and live again to save the world."

So much depended upon

a brown wheelbarrow.

by G. Newton V. Chance ©2013 

SHATTERED

"He that is without sin..." John 8:7

a st-one's th-row a-way a g-lass
ho-use at which s-tones are thr-own
at w-itch s-ton-es s-to-nes st-on-es thr-ow-n th-rough
wind-ow at w-it-ch thro-ugh win-d-ow
fro-m in-side a gl-ass
ho-us-e devo-id of mirr-or-s
de-void in-s-id-e an-d out no-t
on-e sin-gle pain-ted gl-as-s
of liv-in-g w-at-er

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

RAIN ARIA (A RAIN AIR)

hi-hat overhead
cymbal-flash and thunder-rolls
rain-brush keeping time

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

RAIN ON ROOF

all night rain on roof
need no further proof
rainy season here

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

MAD BULL

Bulls are elated

each time a mad matador

is gored in the groin.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

APRIL SHOWERS

Rain, rain, the short-lived

sound of rain upon my roof.

April showers bless.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

25/30 SNOOZE

Wake up with haiku,

take another tired snooze;

get up, haiku gone.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

WATERWOMAN

I replaced the candle holder on my wall

with a painting by an artist unknown,

brought back by my wife from Habana,

of a woman with jug upon her shoulder –

I call her Waterwoman. She reminds me

of my mother and the women of her era,

how they would carry a bucket brim-full

on their heads from the river without

spilling one single drop of water. Such 

natural grace and poise as of a gazelle; 

Africa, across ocean, soft-wired in DNA;
each one a beauty, each one a queen,
each one a beauty queen, like Oshun,

flowing, fluid, each one a waterwoman.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

30/30 GRATITUDE

Thou shalt not be crude

Or rude

Or lewd

In making advances

To the Muses

But rather be shrewd

And subdued

Lest thy advances

Be viewed

Or construed

Or misconstrued

As crude

Or rude

Or lewd;

Lest the Muses

Demure with excuses

And chooses

To revert to their ruses,

Their subtle subterfuges,

Or bluntly refuses.

Thou shalt not be crude

Or rude

Or lewd

In making advances

To the Muses

But rather be shrewd

And subdued.

And for every gift received,

Give thanks, give praises;

Show gratitude.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

29/30 GERM

It only takes one trillionth of a nan-

o second of contact to catch a germ,

contract a condition, spread an infection.

According to ancient mythology,

cosmogony, cosmology, behind

the veil of cosmetology, the small

bang theory of the Hopi-

les people, the world began as

a worm in the warmth of a womb

in the sky when an egg was pene-

traited by a celestial sun sperm

in the one trillionth of a nan-o

second of contact it takes to catch

a germ, contract a condition, make

a connection or conceive a creation.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

28/30 WOUNDS

I sing of 

gaping

wounds

gaping

like huge holes

in the pavement

of Old Piarco Road;
 

wounds raw and open;

new wounds bleeding,

old wounds festering.

Here,

we fight a war with-

out an enemy

like the war on
poverty, AIDS,

drugs and crime

or terrorism,

a new kind of war with-

out an enemy

except the one with-

in ourselves;

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

27/30 GONE

(To all the gangstas the ground has loved before)

To the lad, the drug lord extends open arms

with more thorns than a peewah palm tree.

The monkey, donkey-riding on his back,

has its hands clutching at his neck.

On the heads of the youthful dead,

institutions of high reputation

launder dollars and dirty drawers,

mud-money washed unclean in lamb's blood.

Mothers moan and mothers mourn,

mothers groan for sons gone down

to the house of the setting sun;

to the sound and the gong of the guns,

the sound and the fury of gangs,

gangsta anthem of one more gone...

sentenced by ignor-ance and gore

to an ignoble early grave,

lifetime or death row and the gallows.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

26/30 FACES

speak without words

or sign language

crinkles and wrinkles

write long stories

of champagne glasses

tinkling with merriment

drowning in dolphin moments

cares that soon resurface over

stoic facades of granite rock

do not waste words

dear one trying to convey

the nature or degree

of your pain and anguish

or even ecstasy

like music like feelings like faces

moans and groans and laughter

have no language

or else a language

understood by all

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

24/30 BANANA BOAT

In them days I was a little boy

when two coastal steamers,

the Scarlet Ibis and Bird of Paradise,

painted nation colours of red, white,

black, named for national birds,

pride and beauty of Trinidad

and Tobago,

would arrive and with horn-boom,

boooooom, dock and drop anchor

in the natural deep water harbours

of Parlatuvier

and Castara.

Then strong men, like the short and stocky

sailor called Selassie, looking all dashing

and resplendent, immaculate in white

sailor cap, shirt and short pants

like sailor mas on Carnival Monday,

would come ashore on a white life boat

and tie thick rope from steamer

on coconut tree trunk at high shoreline;

as steamer rode waves'

relentless ebb and swell and coconut

waved and swayed in heavy trade winds,

smelling of sea, sea life and dead sea things,

gulls and terns would screech,

make steep turns in tight formation,

and the rope would belly-sag and tauten

over and over again;

sometimes to show off strength

someone would walk the rope by hand,

Tarzan on jungle vine,

and little schoolboys watching

from schoolyard would whisper,

when I get big

I want to be a sailor

just like Selassie and them.

The boat would load cocoa,

dasheen, sweet potato, yam, cassava,

green plantain and green banana,

untie and with horn-boom, boooooom,

bid farewell and head out to sea again.

But that was a long, long time ago.

Now, we import rice from Guyana,

soursop, zabocca,

yam, dasheen, banana

from St. Vincent and Grenada...

I know we now a Republic

but how come now

we being dubbed by some, a banana

boat Republic?

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance

23/30 BENE-DICTION

"All them Tobago gyal..." Mighty Sparrow

Yuh dare not come

back from Tobago

with your two hand

swinging jus so;

without a bag-

full of sticky

bene balls,

bene sticks

and cakes bought

at the airport

or at the wharf

from some Tobago

gyul, dark and sweet like

tulum, round and sweet like

a caysa ball, thick and tasty

like a butter ball, bouncing

like a sponge ball, soft

and sweet like a

sponge cake.

Is like a addiction

or some strange bene-

diction

or some blessing

from Mt. St. Bene-

dict,

like open sesame

or life on Sesame

Street;

man, woman and chile,

bring back some bene

balls for we

whey the bene

balls yuh bring for me

as if bene

balls for free.

Get your bene

balls here;

you could suck it,

lick it,

bite it,

chew it,

keep it

in the corner

of your mouth

like a lump

from a gum-

boil

but don't try to swallow

the whole thing whole.

Yuh dare not come

back from Tobago

with your two hand

swinging jus so;

(remember when yuh was small

and your parents come back from town)

man, woman and chile,

every man-jack,

looking out

for their bene-

diction.

©2013 by ©2013 by G Newton V Chance

22/30 TRAIN LINE

Long after that mauvaise langue fella, Spitfire,

spat fire on Dorothy on Sugar Hill

the night before her wedding

then wrote a calypso called

'Last Train to San Fernando'

to let everybody know,

the train ran on.

And when the last passenger train left

for San Fernando and for good,

the train ran on

like molasses
with stalks of sugar

from the cane-fields of Debe and Barrackpore

to the factories of Usine, St. Madeleine

till the tall gate across Naparima 

Road, St. Madeleine was lowered

and raised for the last time.

Meanwhile, all along the train line

the homeless and the lawless, 

like explorers and discoverers of yore

in the name of Kings and Queens
of crime before, plant flags 
and take possession,
in the name of the poor,

of vacant lands 

where the train once ran.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

21/30 BIG HOUSES

big houses

with many

empty

rooms

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

20/30 EUCLIDIAN

if 

as Archimedes said

the shortest distance

between two points

is a straight line

and two lines meet

at an angle

between three points

forgive me for going

off on a tangent

but how come

the Creator

in complicity

with you

threw me

all those curves

to get

from here

to the hypotenuse

of your heart

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

19/30 CARIBBEAN NIGHTS

Tonight, the night is drunk;

the air intoxicated

with the wonderment of you.

Marion, Marion,

I drink your name,

roll its bouquet on my tongue;

taste your eyes,

the wild burst of its tang;

dine on your mind,

savoured like a fine wine.

There is music in the piano-

perfect notation of the aria

of your smile.

This date, holding you in my arms, in truth

is sweeter than fruit of palm trees;

my love, your love a harem-

full of olives, grapes, doe-eyed doves

and I, sleek sheik who alone owns

this oasis of your body for this one

enchanted hour surrounded by

desert dunes of daily cares

and grim uncertainties.

Ah, sweet wisp of sylph-

silk, whiff of vanilla scented smoke,
puff of patchouli and rose incense,

my dream pipe unbottled genie 

born of bubble from the water cooled

chilum of a Caribbean night 

of Arabian fantasies.

Ah, my smooth dark Nubian nymph,

I am lost in lust.

Before this night is over,

lose me in the secret of your love.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

18/30 UNION

                 I

sun and moon make love

an hour glass trickles sand

celestial union

                II

days turn months to years

a long hand and a short hand

soul-mates forever

               III

lovers hand in hand

they age and ail together

true love transcends time

©2013 by G Newton V Chance

17/30 OLD MEN

"young men use strength, old men use art" - an old man

The world is run

by old men,

old men

and their peers,

old men

with experience

and gray hairs

growing from their ears.

The world is ruled

by old men,

old men

wearing spectacles

and a vacant smile,

old men

a little senile

with skull-

cap spare of hairs,

balding bold

and near

the end

of their ill-

lustrous years

and grand careers

of ingrained ill-

gotten gains.

The world is run
by old men,

old men
ruled by their wives;
so guess who rules
our lives.

©2013 by G. Newton V. Chance 

16/30 BAMBOO

("Big big bamboo bamboo..." old calypso)

In China

alone, over

three hundred

species of

bamboo

grace sky,

like skyscraper,

wave in wind.

Big bamboo,

small bamboo,

long bamboo,

strong bamboo,

tamboo bamboo

bamboo 'ood,

good 'ood.

Build scaffolding,

build roof,

build ceiling,

build wall,

build furniture,

build utensil.

First razor,

first flute,

first pan,

first paper,

fishing rod,

flying swordsman.

Flexing joint,

strong stem

tough root,

tender shoot,

panda food,

people food.

Bamboo flowers,
fertility food,
gregarious,
once per
hundred years.

Bamboo fence,

root keep river,

road and hillside

from eroding,

soil slipping,

and sliding down.

Bamboo cathedral,

baboon crossing,

Baptist pole,
Orisha pole,

jhandi pole,
flag wave
in wind.

Deya stand,

bhodi stand,

barbadeen and

caraile machand.

Fuel to fire

long-time dirt oven

and chula.

In Trinidad,

take lot of fire,

lot of tyre-

burning ire

to kill

a bamboo stool

or get anything done.

©2013 by G Newton V Chance