INTRANSITIVE OF INSENSITIVE

Someone sinned, this morning.

A Cyclop-sun ascended city skies,
Shone down upon the son of someone lying down
Upon the ground among maggots and flies.
A country condescended to look down with a frown
Upon the son of someone lying down upon the ground
Among maggots and flies, Machiavellian lies,
Apostrophes, Orwellian apologies
And conscience-soothing excuses.
A country closed its eyes,
Pretended not to see
Or recognize its own humanity,
Or inhumanity.

Someone sinned, this morning.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR ME, LOVE?

(Excerpt)

What would you do for me, Love? Would you weave a cloud,
A shroud, like Penelope wove, waiting for Ulysses,
Awaiting his return from exile overseas?
Would you thwart your suitors, grown bolder day by day,
Unravelling fabric of dreams to keep the hungry wolves at bay?
Would you, like Helen of Troy, risk the wrath of Menelaus,
A nation and hearts destroy, all for the love of Paris?
Or would you, struck by Cupid's heart-dart, descend from Olympus
As the huntress Artemis to follow your Adonis
Through hill and vale and forest? And when I lie down wounded
By the barbs of this harsh world, would you sprinkle your nectar
On my blood, before it's cold, to form a bright red flower,
A wind flower or anemone, to bloom and quick be blown away
Lest another hapless lover, beholding, be led astray, also falling prey
To lethal love for your beauty, oh Aphrodite?
Would you be my Selene, showering Endymion's
Eternal-sleeping, youthful body with kisses and caresses
In your moonlight, every night, without restraint
While I dream sweet dreams of love and sylphs and heaven?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

APPLES DON'T GROW ON TREES

Dashing through the snow-
Less crowded streets of Christmas
Shoppers and street vendors
In a last minute rush to catch
The commercial Christmas spirit
Of Santa’s pimping ho-ho claws
As Frosty the Snowman peddles
Black cloth and white death on red streets.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Baptist ringing bells
Foretells the second coming
Of a Christ, a Shepherd, some say
Was born in a stable,
But not on Christmas day;
A Christ, who fingered the informer
On the Supper table ,
Foretold betrayal
And denial in the garden;
Who died on a Good Black Friday
And rested on the Sabbath day;
The Rose who rose on Sunday,
Raised his nail-pierced hands to bless
Believers and convince
A doubting Thomas
Before ascending into heaven.

Yet there are still unbelievers
And believers who don’t believe
In Virgin Births or Resurrections
And Ascensions or Trinities
Or Talking Serpents selling apples
(And grapes) to believers
And unbelievers in the snow-
Less tropic poverty of hell.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ONOMATOPOEIA OF ABSENCE

It has been three days.

The plip plop, drip drop
of the leaking tap
on the dirty plate
in the kitchen sink.

The tick tock, tick tock
of the kitchen clock
counting down the days
to her soon return.

There will be pop, pop,
pop, popping of corn
and cork of champagne,

while watching ‘Gone with the Wind’
and ‘Love Story’, the movies
I downloaded while waiting,

on her soon return.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

PROMISES

I promised you the world, my love,
But the world slipped through my fingers
Like water through a sieve,
A forearm through a sleeve
Or sunshine through the leaves.

I promised you my dreams, my love,
But my dreams evaporated
Like water in the sun,
A foetus never born,
An action never done.

Promised you my love, my love,
But love slipped through my fingers
Like water through fish gill,
A hundred dollar bill
Or wind through window sill.

I gave to you my world, my love,
But the wind slipped through my fingers,
Promises evaporated
And like toy balloons, inflated,
Love floated off to other dreams
And left us incarcerated.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

DEAREST ONE

Remember when this heart, an envelope,
Forlorn, lonely letter, lay unopened and unread;
And you, beautiful ballad, you a song whose name,
Dearest One, I knew from the first exquisite note.
Dearest One, but for you, long would I have gone
Quietly into that cold, dark, blue oblivion.

I remember you in the scent of carbolic soap
You loved so much, my manhood’s fresh ablution,
When morning smiled her big infectious smile,
The hills lit up with joy and pairs of lovebirds,
Wild and free, would wave hello while winging
Their way on green winds to bounties in the trees.

And we enjoyed the sweet fruits of belonging
After the long dry season of our longing.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

REQUIEM FOR THE LIVING

Oh, this land is a pleasant place
For them that’s rich and high
But this land is a fogged up place
For wretched folk as I.

Land of holy days and holidays where
Wealth and power prosecute and persecute
The destitute and prostitute

With sticks and stones and brittle bones
Of old philosophies and old theologies
While pimps and paedo-priests walk free

On honey-roasted city streets, fronting
For the crime and grime of filthy slum-
Lords; the buccaneers never left.

Oh, this land is a pleasant place
For them that’s rich and high
But this land is a fogged up space
For wretched folk as I.

There’s a smug and smoggy skettel bird,
Singing with shrill discord,
A dying kettle’s whistle
Of steam and boiling blood,

While corbeaus in peacock feathers
Lip-sync in stinking galleries,
On sinking galley stages
Of shrinking work and wages.

In this tropic transience of things
Garish billboards proclaim obituaries,
With graphic, graffiti obscenities,

Nocturnal festivities at the Club-
Foot of estranged hills and gullies.

Another city folds and crumples;
Skyscrapers fall and crumble
Into rubble like crisply shattered crackers;
Protect us, Lord, from all disasters.

Do not wait up or weep, my love.
Where night goes, Knight Templars may not return
But rest assured the morning cock will crow
And by the sun the mongrel morn shall burn

The aspirations of the tyrant day
Whose kingdom is a harsh and cruel land.

Oh, this land is a pleasant place
For them that’s rich and high
But this land is a fogged up place
For wretched folk to live... or die.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

AARDVARK

Waded through the squelch and slush
to trellised truths in concrete jungles
of canned and canopied stories.

The Emperor went unnoticed,
au natural, in the midst
of nature, in naturist colonies.

Picked the fickle
from the pickles,
flecked red with disbelief.

Ah the relief of release,
the release of relief.

Said the elephant,
student of history,
to the entrepreneurial ant,

“While the mammoth scoffed,
the aardvark never laughed
at the absurdity of the Ark.”

And sometimes, God would cease
to exist, for the atheist,
but for the arrant proof of pain.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

HIP HOP (An Epigram)

More important than hip
hop is how to be hip
without limping.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ACCENT ON WHEN

Time, grim collector of souls...
Witnessed time's tick and tag catch up with testimonies;

Oh (how) the twisted minds of but a twisted few
Have ruined thread and morality of many a screw
And what the meditation durst mortality subdue.

Worshipped love in cathedrals of nature
(Or was it the other way around),

Took gospels with generous sprinkles of soul-
Salt, pressed juice and oil and essence into golden
Cups of love, most potent of abraxas.

Who will push or lever, roll stone from sepulchre,
This Golgotha of poisoned praxis,
Like bold Atlas, turn atlas 360 degrees on axis.

Ask not the unanswerable
Of Archimedes and Pythagoras.

Can lines and angles circumscribe
A mind or soul whose life has been a constant song,

Melodies, harmonies, harmonics, enharmonic
Pitches, chords, discords, intervals, scales, modes, degrees,
Notes, tones, octaves of seven and twelve,

Breve, minim, crochet, quaver, beats, upbeat, downbeat,
On the beat, off the beat, after the beat, just plain beat,
Broken, into bars, beats within bars,

Beats across bars, beats under bars, behind bars, beaten with bars,
Beaten bards, broken bards, limbo bars, pause, rest, arrest, eternal rest,
Cardiac arrest, twitch, the final tick of broken metronome.

How long are parallel lines, the parallax to infinity
And at what point exactly does day become dusk, twilight
Become night, return to dawn, to daylight.

Will ripped adonis, Atlas, bare, bronze muscles exposed
In elemental attire, ever tire of the weight,
The orbit and the ambit of waiting to expire;

But then mortality is for mortals and mortal things
Like burnt-out butts of chronologies
And slept-out endings of documentaries.

When, when, when, when, when, when, when...
Will we truly understand the meaning of e = mc squared.
Is there really such a thing as beginning or end

Or is the mire of Nostradamian soothsayers,
Prophets of doom and Mayan calendars,
Nothing but maya and miasma.

Newton, Einstein, Hawkins, we have seen your science,
Heard your grave and sceptic, morbid silence;

Now speak to us of heaven or heavens, or even
Of heavenly designs, and the Divine.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

METRO RASTA

This is the era
of the metro Rasta.
Punk-ass brothers,
young, pretty and black,
talented too,
dread up in dreadlock
braids and weaves and twists and plaits,
partly shaved and marked,
studs with studs and ear-rings,
parfum beaucoup,
pencil-tight trousers,
cool, confident crawl,
tie around throat,
radical,
intellectual,
ladies' man,
listens Lady Caca
and Mavada,
ital, vegan,
(or meatmouth),
metro, macho, all man-
icured and moving up.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SEE THE HOURS

See the hours scurry
like an orgy
of time lapse photography
or the credits of a movie
by Scorsese.

The mirror grows old
but slowly;
dreams crumple in the
twilight of a wrinkle,
ghosts of glass still tinkle,
still glow and twinkle,
now and then,
with remembrance
of fleeting whens
and laughter of long lost friends'
reunions.

Who among the querulous,
the dubious
or the credulous
can trap the insidious
mouse of time.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

HERE LIES...

Here lies the burnt out loom of Earth,
'Longside the wicked weaves of dearth.

Time bolted, like Usain off starting blocks,
Left in wake, broken clocks and barren rocks.

Once Mama spun and bloomed for all her worth,
Breast fed the many brats that love gave birth,

Tended house and yard and family,
Lover-man took care of husbandry

But suddenly, husbandman went awry,
Squeezing neck while milking titties dry;

Little boys ran round the yard shirt-
Tail, the girls held on to Mama's skirt

And wondered at the lifeless loam,
The burnt out loom, once Mama's home

Before merchants of Venice bought her breath
With tokens, sold science that brought with it death.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

FRIDAY

Friday, most merciful of days, drunk,
staggering landlubber on ship deck
of stormy Sabbath waters; the sea
baptizes anew all day till skin
is a pallid, shrivelled, salted prune.
Gale, soft morning breeze, gently lifts eye-
curtains and waves workout new beaches.
Look up! the bird with wings of silver
owns the sky, flies against a mango-
ripe sun, wary of the sporting gun.
Island to island, islands, pebbles
in pipe dreams of uniting peoples;
pelau, callaloo and curry stew.
Monday returns with an empty heart.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ROSE

And should I pluck your rose...
raise it to my nose,
ever so tenderly,
inhale the fragrance
of your essence...
and your beauty;
would I be pricked by thorn
or, perhaps, stung by bee?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE BOY WHO HEARD

The boy who heard, understood
And never said a word;
Heard songs of Orpheus
In head and wind;
Who in summer, swam river,
Swam sea, caught crayfish with mermaid
Tails in deep, foreboding, forest pools
Of rippling blue and green, emerald
And crystal-clear, cool water fall-
In’ like lovers, head over hills,
Over rocks of stippled hues;

Travelled universes and ages
With words that flew off pages
In chariots of paper wings,
Big sister, Elva’s history books,
Borrowed tomes and terms
To claim and own,
Burrowed among the leaves
Like tattoo foraging for food
In sweet potato beds, vines
Etched, indelible, on skin
Of worlds within the mind;

Soared and floated, frigate birds
And fork-tailed terns in fine formation,
Plummeted with precision,
Straight for the whites of salt
And spray and eyes
Of salmon dreams’
Steep dives and leaps;
Lobsters in the reefs
Iguanas on the beach
Recurring lucid dreams;
The boy who lived in different worlds,

Travelled and discovered,
Matched strides with Marco Polo,
Fathomed Vernal mysteries
Fathoms below the sea
And miles inside the molten earth;
Suffered bitter gall, betrayal,
Jealousy of the blackamoor,
Mourned William’s Othello,
Full of dole and tragedy;
Put soldier to the sword
And assegai,

Genghis Khan,
Shaka Zulu,
Alexander, Hannibal with elephants’
Indomitable advance,
Crushed provinces like puny ants,
Marched many gruelling miles,
Raid and rule along the way,
Razed whole cities, black and brown,
Right down to the burning ground
And to the cruel stomp of drums,
Planted flags on burial mounds;

Read grim stories from the Brothers Grimm,
Norse mythology and lore,
Erik the Red, Ragnarok and Thor,
Spartans and Gods of ancient Greece,
Pyramids and sphinxes,
Egyptian jinx and fixes,
Exodus to freedom from
Inquisition and martyrdom,
Pirates and priests of ancient Rome;
And came back closer home
To buccaneers like Blackbeard,

Came back home to Miguel Street,
A Hindu street with Christian name,
Came back home to L’Anse Fourmi,
An English ville with Patois name
And relics of indigo days
And memories of bloody bays;
Lonely ghosts of long lost
Jumbies, Anansi stories,
And on and on and on
The boy goes on and on
Into the man, become the song.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

BLACK BE ATTITUDES...

Wretched are the meek and poor
For they shall inherit the world
Of worries, a world with no end
Of troubles, endless worries,
Endless troubles, endless worries...

Wretched are the weak and poor
For they shall wander through
The wilderness of water-
Less rocks and like the fool of Marley,
Be forever thirsty...

Wretched are the bleak and poor
For they shall eat crumbs of hackneyed bread,
Once manna, of hosannas
And hallelujahs, dangled
From heavy, heaving, three-piece heavens

By fatted shepherds, toting
Fattened collection bags...

Wretched are the meek and poor
For they shall be crucified
Upon the cross of Capital-
Ism, Communism, Socialism,
Colonialism, Marxism...

Wretched are the weak and poor
For they shall inherit hell,
Inherit hell of here and now,
Inherit hell of hereafter,
Inherit hell forever...

Wretched are the rich and wealthy
Whose pockets are never empty

But blessed are the rich who give
All their possessions to the meek
And poor, all they have to the weak
And poor, for they shall want no more,
For they shall want no more...

Blessed are the black and poor
For they are black and poor.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

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

BETWEEN ISLANDS

... went down to water-
edge where gravel-stones groan,
moan, on mourning ground's
intercession,
waves' incessant, white
baptism of fire-
less smoke;

through sea spray, Sahara
dust, early-morning Toco mist,
squinting at distant
horizon's faint silhouette
of hills... mighty midge with arms
for wings
set swim toward the Main
Ridge, in shark-mail suit,
swam and swam and swam,
swimming, swimming, swimming,
alone with Atlantic
ocean and thoughts;

... one valiant
sperm, ocean, semen,
sea with sharks, men-
sharks, shells, exo-
skeletons, ex-officio
sharks, old skeletons,
dissolved to salt-
corroded memories,
forgotten memories;

... one valiant
sperm, heading north east,
as if to return
along the Passage
home to womb of rape
from whence once ripped,
coastal ghost,
Bird of Paradise ship,
landed on Roach's Rock.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

NAIL

When you pierced His hands and feet
And the Roman mallets echoed
Ungodly thuds, as they impaled
His holy body on the anvil
At the crossroad on Calvary hill;

And water flowed from spear wound
While two Marys wept and waited;
And in the numinous, ninth hour
When the earthquake split the temple-
Curtain and rocks and tombs were opened,

Did you feel the weight of the world
Suspended from the crucifix;
And if you had not known, would you
Have bent and twisted and refused
To penetrate His holy flesh?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SNAKES AND LADDERS

By Bunsen's blue flame,
With serpentine wisdom
And scalpel, probed life;
And at autopsy came
To crossroad between
Darwin and creation.

And Adam with the apple
Grappled with his adder
Like Jacob on the ladder,
Wrestled all night long,
Till the Spotless One,
The Beloved Son,
At once the Shepherd
And Unblemished Lamb,
Gave His Gethsemane
To retri-eve my Eden.

Go straight from jail, Barabbas,
Climb to Calvary;
And now, I too know
Why doves and mountains coo
And call with such insistence.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SAPODILLAS

Sapodilla, your silly-sweet, brown, seasonal
Madness would enslave me but for the reticence
Of your scarceness. Sap so sweet, smell exotic,
Almost erotic. The lady with the tray
Outside the market allows me to feel and squeeze
Her sapodillas, gently of course, for the
Softness of their ripeness. Impatient as I am,
I would squeeze one now, carefully, till it opens wow
To my nose and eyes and mouth to partake of
Smooth, brown, sapodilla sweetness and you would hear
My soft mmms and ooohs and aaahs of satisfaction,
Savouring fruit-flesh while saving seeds for future
Sapodillas' silly-sweet, brown, seasonal
Madness to captivate new generations
Of softly squeezing lovers of sapodillas...

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE BEST DAYS

Those were the best days of our lives,
In batchie pads, we had no wives;
Ate parlour-food and burned the pots
And sometimes suffered from poor-guts;

Limed at the bars, blagged with the boys
And came home to an empty house.
The girls came by, we told them lies;
We promised them the moon and skies.

But all good things must one day end,
You lie in bed, ask God to send
Someone to keep you always warm.
You visualize her rounded form,

Her skin soft as a baby's yawn,
Her breath as sweet as early morn;
Her mind as brilliant as the sun
Yet condescends to be the one.

These are the best days of our lives,
The batchie pads, now homely hives;
Those were the wasted days of lives
Now relegated to archives.

For so much love in our lives,
We thank God for our lovely wives
And though their tongues be sharp as knives,
We could not live without our wives.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

BLEATING OF THE LAMBS

But for the bleating of the lambs,
Silence, a kind of unholy silence,
Pause, rest, the cadence of inexperience,
Illuminated ignorance.

The shepherd had made a solemn promise
Not one head would come to harm on the farm;
Then the wolves descended like Assyrians
In the dark, not one ass or cur did bray
Nor bark; the old rams and the ewes
Chewed and swallowed the censored news.

While the builders built big buildings
Virtual warriors fought asinine,
Internecine wars in cyber cafes,
Shed virtual blood with avatars.

You who know nothing of the olden ways,
Would reinvent steel with papier
Mache blades, like samurai wielding words
And paper swords in patriotic games,
Shielded by patrons and fictitious themes,
Remember that a sharp is just a flat,

The same note, by another name.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

TREMOR II (RESILIENCE)

Tremor turn trauma;
Rainless flood brings nuclear rain…
Cherry blossoms bud.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

TREMOR

Tremor, terror, trauma;
Floods rampage with no rain...
Cherry blossoms bud again.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

WHAT IF (EXISTENTIAL)

What if you were to look into the mirror
And saw nothing, no one, no reflection?
Would the mirror be a mirage, no longer
A mirror or would you be a vampire,

Alive without a soul or shadow?
And what if you were to look into the river
And saw the moon, wet and shimmering,
Cold and shivering, underwater?

Would the river be a mirror, no longer
A river and the moon not in the sky
Or would the river and the mirror
And the shimmering moon, all be in your eye?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

TO WHAT PURPOSE

To what purpose, said the porpoise,
This purported pulchritude;
Year after year, wave after wave,
A sea of jiggling jelly-

Fish flesh parades across wet stage,
Feeding frenzy of sand sharks
To the wailing of the whales, flags
And banners waving full sail

In winds of age-old adage,
Breaking dry sticks in bucket ears.
Drunk with wine from grapes of wrath,
The Ship of Sate continues on

Reckless path, sailing to wreck with
Record speed and celebration.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

IMPECCABLE WARRIOR

Impeccable warrior, bearing the wings and wheels
And weapons of peace; weary of this war-torn world,
Wearing a golden helmet, gleaming in the sun,
Angelic halo, alighting from his chariot,
Abseils into the abyss of what was, what is
And what is to be, scales over Glocks and outcrops
Past delusions of the disillusioned, descends
To the centre of his soul where, of all people,
He meets sad Judas Iscariot, scapegoat of
Salvation, before ascension to his Jesus.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

FREEZE TILE

This about the gab-glib, bravura, ad-lib, self-
Serving style that is free, worth nothing, says nothing,
Does nothing to free the body, mind or soul or

Spirit of a people from abject poverty;
Contributes absolutely nothing noteworthy
To uplift humanity.

Words more ineffective than a broken, bladeless
Sword and yet powerful enough to make puerile heads
Euphoric and overawed.

Broken, spoken words that revel in the fruitless,
The fooling, the freezing and unthawed gerund of
Moribund and meaningless,

Rent-a-tile cliché, golden goblets cast with clay,
Void of any substance, full of noisy chatter
and empty ramajay, leading the mindless ones

On a journey to nowhere.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SONG FOR WADADA

(In memory of Arthur ‘Wadada’ Greenidge who died in tragic circumstances. Wadada in Amharic means love and he was indeed a beautiful person. Will always cherish his memory.)

Dem kill Wadada!
Yes sah,
Dem kill mih brother,
With machine gun and revolver.
1990, the 25th of November,
A night I'll always remember,
For a few pieces of silver,
A few pieces of filthy lucre,
Dem kill mih brother,
Arthur,
In error.
Just another
Martyr,
Like Martin Luther
And Mahatma,
Oh Jesus, dem kill mih brother,
Arthur,
A man who knew pain, poverty and hunger,
So much pain and agony he suffer,
Now time to reap the fruits of his labour,
Just when he was sure,
Of a contract from Amar,
To let the world know he was a star,
To send his message of love near and far,
With the philosophy of the Emperor,
As captain of the Black Starliner,
A modern-day Marcus Garvey navigator,
To repatriate the minds of his brothers
And sisters
Home to Africa,
Home to spiritual Ethiopia,
With roots and culture
As a Twelve Tribes of Israel soldier,
Up comes that Dragon, Lucifer,
In a plot with Babylon, the Harlot Mother,
And send bad-boys to slay mih brother.
But dem couldn’t reach far,
Struck down by the wrath of Jah,
Don’t you see it’s a spiritual war?
But the Lion of Judah,
Surely, the Lion shall conquer,
So said Jah,
Cause He is the Ruler
And the Creator.
Dem kill Wadada!
Yes sah,
Dem kill mih brother,
King Arthur.
Murder!
Dem kill the rasta,
Shot him in the vocoder;
No more
Shall the humble lion roar.
Have mercy on them, oh Jehovah
For they know not what they have done.
Arthur Napthali Wadada,
May your soul rest in peace in Mt. Zion
Where you belong.
Selah.

Copyright ©1991 by G. Newton V. Chance.

ANGRY HILL

And from the angry hill, if I don’t get killed,

I stand and look over the overlooked.

I see 1970, when, with clenched fists,

wearing beards and beads,

afros and dashikis,

people proudly punched through ceilings,

punched the skies and shouted

"Power to the people"

and young artisans punched eyelets

in archipelagos of leather.

I see 1970, and after,

the Drag and industry, and after,

the Drag, the dreadlocks and the drugs,

I see the misery of Sewer City and I ask,

how conscious were we,

how conscious are we?

I see brothers, like Harry Hippie,

in the throes of vagrancy,

liming on the Promenade of the Prince,

the new home for the homeless, the aimless

and the mad where the conscious and the soulful

once sold sandals while the conscienceless

sold dope to hook and drag

brothers through the mud like Hector's hapless corpse.

I have seen the hooked, like bachac, in procession,

dragging the spoils of their conquest of distress

to the Drag to exchange, for almost nothing,

for coke, for smoke, for rocks, for stone,

while the conscious sat and looked

and said nothing and did nothing, and I ask,

how conscious were we,

how conscious are we?

And from the angry hill, if I don’t get killed,

I stand and look over the overlooked.

And I remember, NUFF respect, how the young

and foolish, the conscious and idealistic

like Jones and Jeffers once went up into the hills

and went down, for almost nothing, in a hail

of the Fox’s bullets before he posed with gun

on shoulders and his boots upon their chest.

And I see the conscious, forty years after,

emerging from amnesia of annual processions,

walking up the hill again like zombies

awoken from the sleep and shadows of the past

and I wonder, how conscious were we,

how conscious are we?

I see 1990, twenty years after,

I see 1990, and after,

the holy war, guns and gangsters, and after,

the ignorance of young fools killing each other,

for almost nothing, for ranks, for turf,

for the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel.

Then I take a walk up Frederick Street

where the hip and the holy once would meet

and congregate with the conscious

and the conscienceless.

I keep walking to the high walls, the cold walls,

now crowded with the children of the conscious

and the conscienceless

and I remember Mice and Nyah,

the King brothers and Guerra and Dole

and all the other gangsters, the monsters

and ministers of mayhem and blood money

how they murdered each other

and how nine evil men came to a doleful end

but the Orinoco, the Orinoco and the blood still flow;

and I wonder who they were fronting for,

who they were fronting for,

who they were fronting for,

and I wonder, how conscious were we,

how conscious were we,

how conscious are we,

how conscious are we?

And from the angry hill, if I don’t get kilIed,

I stand and look over the overlooked.

©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

WINOLOGY

(Wine, wine; wine, wine; wine till you sprain your spine.)

These brief beats of alla breve we call life
In pelvic fomentation of two isles’

Relentless syncopation, then letdown
To pews and ashen penitence of lent’s

Long abstinence and fasting from the flesh;
Forty days, and lifetimes, to overcome

The Devil's ploys and partake of divine
Wine; a little wine never did no harm.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

AS YOU BRAVELY TRUDGE

As you bravely trudge this jungle
of concrete, steel and galvanize,
as you navigate and explore,
cutting your way across the wild,
be wise and wary of the world;
and may you never fail to feel
the flames of love burn away
the dross, burn away the chaff,
the gross of fear, self-doubt and worry
from fallow fields of heart and soul
to leave the forest of your life
forever virgin, pristine,
forever clean, serene and green,
As you bravely trudge this jungle.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

GOLD GONE

Gold gone,
So too embalming oil
And all that's left…
The vitriol
Of those who never knew
True hard labour
And attitude of food;
Still the tiller of soil
Toils on.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

A LEAF FELL

Today, a yellow leaf fell to the ground;
Tomorrow, what was green and young,
Yesterday, will be brown and on the way
To decay, just another leaf
Torn from the book of life, once white and clean
But empty, before the black quill
Of trials, with blue ink, wrote a poem
On a page, one page of one family
Tree, that can never be erased,
Whether glory or disgrace; another
Leaf bud has already sprouted
In its place, nourished by living humus
Of discarded, torn out pages,
Passing on green baton... of the ages.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

MELANIN

(In memory of Harriet Tubman)

Melanin, oh Melanin,
The fairer ones who hurt your skin
Unfairly… shall one day beg
Forgiveness and confess their sin,
Their folly of exclusion;
Will one day beckon you come in,
Into the castle of their skin.

Those who violated you,
Ultra sans humanity;
Refused to hear your ululu,
Trammelled you with whip and flay,
Trampled your rights in every way,
Will one day beckon you come in,
Into the castle of their skin.

Melanin, oh Melanin,
The fairer ones who hurt your skin
Unfairly… shall one day hide
Hot, raw hides from tan and flay,
Sautéed hell of UV ray;
Will one day beg you to come in,
Into the castle of their skin.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

WOMAN OF THE WEEPING NIGHT

Woman, oh woman, of the weeping night,
The womb of man that weeps her children’s plight;
Mother of all mothers, womb of darkness
From whence came man, the infant, and the light
Of all the nations. Oh Eve, oh Eden,
Woman of the weeping womb, oh weeping womb,
Flower full of nectar that bore the fruit,
And the seed, in sweat and pain of labour,
Flower from whence came honey and the strong.
Oh woman whose sin was in believing
A deception and a lie that man born
Of woman and of womb would live forever
And not surely die even in the flesh,
Until the pain of Cain’s stone tolled a bell,
A burning knell felt deep within her belly.
Woman of the weeping womb, oh weeping womb,
Ebony well from whence springs milk and honey
And myrrh of tears more bitter than calumba,
Mixed with crimson blood of her placenta,
Flowing, falling, like Zambezi River
Into swirling whirlpools of the ocean.
Oh weeping womb, oh weeping continent,
Mother, sister, daughter of Yemanja,
When will your tribulations be over?
Woman, oh woman, of the weeping night…

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

MADIBA

When the great, heroic prince Madiba Mandela
Emerged triumphant from his deathly dungeon
After seven and twenty long-suffering years to sever
The hideous, hoary head of that foul, demonic dragon,
That evil, revulsive, repulsive dragon Apartheid…
The noble son of Shaka demolished the last mighty bastion
Of shameful, shameless, colonial oppression
Like a rushing, relentless, tsunamic black tide
So that murderous, scoundrelly bastard, P. Botha,
That bloody, child-murdering, Afrikaner boar-Boer,
Like a drowning man going under water,
Was forced and sanctioned to swallow his pride;
To accede and concede to be ruled by democracy,
Thus restoring the natives their human dignity.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

OH AFRICA

Oh Africa, glorious Africa, are your Gods dead
And your Elders and Ancestors lie sleeping
Soundly, soundlessly, in tombstone-pillowed bed,
Silent griots in their lifeless, stone-cold graves,
Unheeding, unhearing, unknowing, uncaring
Of your children’s torment and suffering.
Daily your children drop and die like flies,
They flounder beneath the roiling waves,
Submerged by floods of rough and cruel tyranny,
Wars, famine, viral plagues, drought and misery;
The pestilence of their leaders' lies
Has become a Red, a Dead, and bloody Sea.
Arise Obatala, Black Messiah, and save
Your Diaspora; deliver us from this bottomless cave.

Copyright ©2001 by G. Newton V. Chance

FRUITS AND FLORA

Bless the earth to bring forth sweet fruit, oh God,
In green profusion. Grant the land a sea
Of green, lush cover, bearing succulent,
Sweet fruit. Curse not earth-clod with bitter, clot
Harvest of Abel’s sacrificial blood, shed
By Cain’s green evil of envy toward
His brother but rather let the fertile
Green fields flow fresh juice, sweet as sugarcane;
Sweet sea of grass and herb and flowering
Flora rich with earth's abundance as coral
Gardens' overflowing ocean treasures;
For without the fruits and flora, we are
Nothing and life and labour but in vain
To reap the rot of sickness, age and pain.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

EYE OF A STORM

The winds of strange are whirling,
Windmill blades twirling,
Cauldron seas are churning,
The wheels of signs turning,
SUVs are burning.

Earthquakes shake a warning
With mourning in the morning;
None can foretell the hour.
Storms, more kind, their torture
Belies their awesome power.

The tides of ides are swirling,
The sails of times unfurling,
An ocean's gaping rupture
Opening aperture
Of imminent disaster.

The sentries and the soldiers,
Abandoning watchtowers,
Are sleeping in the dorms;
Is this the psalm that comes
Before the cosmic storm?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

GOLDEN APPLES

1963,
Flora beheaded
The giant pommecythere tree
Growing in the gully
(Oh death, your victory
But temporary).

Resilience grew again,
Coppiced even larger,
Bore sweet thousands of golden
Apples, tropic apples,
Golden for a brief,
Ripe end like a leaf.

But except you weighed a bird,
You learned to take no chances
With brittle branches
Or promises of
Narcissistic goddesses.

Pommecythere, drooping drupe,
Dendritic, imposing seed
Designed to make gums bleed,
No pome, more green than golden;
But then, one day, maybe,

The new gold, the true gold,
Will be green, renewable,
Sustainable, sea green,
Shade green, jade green; green
As golden apples.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

GODS OF GOOGLE

We are the Gods
Of Google,
Ogling the world
From the mountaintop
Of Olympus
On a desktop;
Zooming the universe
From planetariums
In our bedrooms
On a laptop.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SUGAR LOAF

Sweet and juicy, fruity rose,
Apple of the prickly pine,
Ah pleasure... to peel your clothes,
Taste and savour your divine,

Yellow flesh laid out on table,
Prima donna of the fruit salad,
My sugar loaf, delectable,
Sweet mountain of fruit meat, clad

In sugar-coated amoroso
Of delightful juice and pulp;
To slice and dice, for me no chore,
Aroma swallowed in sweet gulps,

Braving your scratch, your prickle and your thorn,
Bromeliad of the swirling flavour storm.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

FIRST THE FIREWOOD

first the firewood
then the kerosene
and then the gasoline
and then electricity
and the exodus
to the town and city
the city constipated
regurgitated...
and then the kerosene
and then the firewood
but there was no forest left
the forest was a city
and the city was a forest
with the ozone in distress
oceans under duress
glaciers growing less
plates and tables under stress
the world in one big mess
convulsions in protest
first the firewood...

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

DREAMS

these dreams
recurring dreams
recurring themes
once nightmares
fuel of fears
fuelled by fears
fuelling my fears
clutching raising hairs
shouted whispers
into eyes and ears
until learned
to perceive
were just dreams
to awake
whenever wanted
from his father’s memes
and forget
and learn to laugh
in face of danger
and death
with no book
no Freud
no Joseph
no Dreamtime
nothing but the winged
nagual of flight
the lucid screen
the silent scream
the piercing scream
on nebula of night
no gauge
no graph
no map
no chart
no manual
no autograph
nothing left
to navigate
beyond integument
except a dubious epitaph
written on the faded weft
of a midnight shroud
like a dissipating cloud
what does it mean
these dreams
recurring dreams
recurring themes
no longer nightmares
to be feared
or shared
or even remembered
and yet
to forget
to have shut the door
it seems
has left the window
wide open

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE VILLAGE

In the village, where everyone knew everyone,
Shared common business of pasture and garden
And pirogues daily, with the climbing sun,
Challenged ocean and aloof horizon
Before the advent of the satellite,
The global village and mass migrations,
Within countries and nations to nations,
Made of neighbours strangers passing in the night
With no needs except for all the amenities
We ever needed, a hunger for food
And love and friendship, all now scarce commodities;
The overlords surveyed and saw that it was good
Fiduciary for the elitist and the few;
That humans are robots and robots are human too.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance