Kernahan junction, old East Indian woman
squats, chuku-muku, waiting transportation,
waiting chauffeur willing to move at slow pace,
to place bags of bodi in trunk, if he has space.
From the ricelands of Barrackpore, South Trinidad or North India,
agricultural squatter, on State Land, wetlands of Nariva.
Sitting beneath breadfruit tree at Mayaro,
beach-breezing under coconut tree at seaside,
watching seine surround, around foolish fish they go,
salt, sweat, sunburnt sinew pit against riptide;
struggling pace of progress so moroccoy-slow,
lagging, straggling, behind exploration and drill location,
rabid exploitation of rapid gas and petroleum flow
since the first gushing discovery in nineteen hundred and one.
I sit silent, patient, like sand, and bide my time,
overwhelmed, held spellbound by the Atlantic roar,
scaling, gutting, slicing cavali and washing it with lime
while angry waves slowly washing away your coconut tree,
dashing against your shoreline, rapidly claiming more and more
from under me, shifting sands of wasted opportunity.
I hear Michael reminding you of your history
and the lizard-man who love hole, the Zandolie,
coming out of unholy hole to make you whole and happy,
to tickle Mildred fancy with an earthy, dirty ditty
while on the other side is stiff extempore bois from Gypsy,
the stickman, bussing head with double entendre impunity.
At Radix Point, poor fishermen, like pelicans, fish for bait
while oligarchic parasites speculate sky-high real estate;
at Galeota, conscientious corporations prospect black gold,
at Connor Park, conscienceless cocaine jumbies quickly grow old.
I feel forlorn, hopeless as stone-throwing terrorist Arabs
against the Goliath, Israel, hopeless as the tied up crabs
sold by the scrunting, soliciting, hopeful roadside vendor
together with the stingy strings of conchs and cascadura:
who will crusade the cause of trussed-up, culinary crustacea?
Who will crusade and come to my rescue while I slowly flounder.
Copyright ©2001 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.
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