Monday, February 8, 2010

SHAKA LAKA


(for Winston 'Shadow' Bailey who used to plant peas for Shaka Laka)

cocorico cocorico
cocorico cocorico
morning a chachalaca
of synchronized ebullient
song flung and bounced from clan to clan
echoes across canopy
talking drums cross hill and gully
here in this piece of paradise
piercing this peaceful paradise

where serpents are macajuels
no mapepires or corals here
‘cept the brains among the reef rocks
but beware there are scorpions here
parrots too who believe
speaking other people’s language
the way to suck seed and achieve
make up your mind about this bird
am I pest or nation’s pride

cocorico cocorico
cocorico cocorico
will never tire of this tune
from morning noon to afternoon
proudly I stand proclaim and crow
defiant as mighty Shadow
saying go cook curry ochro
I declare never will I disappear
wont let you do me like you did the deer

hear this I am Shaka Laka
and this is Shaka Laka land

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance
Posted by G. NEWTON V. CHANCE at 11:28 PM

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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.

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older
than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

by Langston Hughes

the poet writes the poem;
the reader gives it life
(© G. Newton V. Chance)
Make somebody happy (© Alexander Ligertwood & Carlos Santana)

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