FULL MOON

Tonight, an erudite moon hoots
softly from the marble
reflection in a pygmy owl's eyes.

Skies are starless, stars
obfuscated by the brilliance of a full moon.

Fish-clouds bring a twinkle
to the knowing eyes
of a fisherman's optimism.

There are no werewolves here,

only lagahoos;
mysterious creatures shapeshifting
into man-

icous at midnight, luminous
moon-sized eyes, eee-

yes, to thwart and bring, with douen
and garbie, confusion
and fright to hunters lost

among the lastro and the roseau
in forests of desires.

Lagahoos who prefer to turn
beast, pull their chains, and crosses,
in the dark be-

fore day morning.

But bite your cutlass
handle and, like a charm,
walk away unharmed, unfazed

by full or waning moons, and yet,
like lunar phases,

still undecided
as to whether we are men
turning to beasts

or beasts
turning to men.

©2012 by G Newton V Chance

RUBBLE

Come, let me show you ruins

Of dogmas, philosophies, ideologies, mythologies, religions,

Rubble of lives, edifices, nations, empires built on

Classic lines and blatant falsehoods.

Come, I will show you ruins of neighborhoods,

Kingdoms, monuments to ambition and immense pride,

Rode unbridled, without reins, of monarchs and their reigns.

Coliseums and Parthenons crumble,

Fade to dust like old daguerreotypes

In mighty Aton's intense glint and glare.

Societies stutter, stumble, fall

prey to Chronos' depredations and timelines.

They that stood tall, standing on the toes

Of Timbuktu, like Timbuktu, are gone

The way of all flesh and bone and stone.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

VOICES

Once, I swear, I heard voices
inside the buttressed tree-trunk of a mora tree
in a mora forest at Guayaguayare.

Sound as of a radio rooted
in sacred ground of forest floor.

Was it the tree-trunk talking,
playback of conversations taped,
in a long forgotten

language of a long forgotten
Taino chief or shaman?

Once a mora tree spoke,
in soliloquy, its mad monologue to me
in a mora forest at Guayaguayare.

Sadly, I was too shaken, too taken
aback to try to translate or conversate.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

PLASMA

(Rivers
sold in
plastic bottles
thrown in
rivers).

Earth
tears,
fragments
meandering
through suffocated cities
into seas of men-
dacities.

Earth tears,
fragmented,
lament after lament,
contiguous cries
of continents and countries,
and centuries.
Miscegenated cultures

whose children, mulattoes and douglas,
are cut flowers, flowers cut
from wild chaconias,
red rose of the mountains, plucked
and planted, and transplanted,
in blood-
filled bowls of morning-
mosquitoes.

Whose children would believe
that the hug of hags
and twilight bats
were nothing but their dreams,
and nightmares, except for the hickeys
of a socouyant on their necks,
arms, legs, backs, bellies
and exposed breasts.

(But even that soon fades away,
leaves only inner scars that all can see
except the scarred).

Whose children are mountain doves
battering heads bloody against gorilla-
glass ceilings and one-way walls.

Wings beat forever in amber;
petrified butterflies in a distant,
denuded garden
of bachac ants
and Liliputans
more afraid of Lilith
than of God.

And the priest, the priest in purple,
sanguine splendour,
is a praying man-
tis, preying man
this, who prays
the prayer of predator
and prey.

Meanwhile, fallen stars
clutch at drowning straws
of pyramids and sphinxes,

Sisyphus still draws water,
from new wells
and old polluted rivers,
earth's raw wounds,
and the doctor still bleeds,
draws blood from all,
draws lifeblood
from the well, the not so well and the unwell.

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

CARIBBEAN NOIR

(Living in the past,

we are living in the past

cause the past is not yet past.)

Welcome to a paradise

that never was

true, except for the privileged few.

Hammock of knitted knots

and rocks strung

between the old world and the new.

Chain of islands, coves and caves,

once haunt

of buccaneers and pirates,

now haunted

by restless duppies

of Morgan and Blackbeard.

No nine night, forty night,

hundred night rite

will appease curse,

the spirits

of the damned.

No longer spawning wars,

your grimoires, now

daily horror

stories of mindless

murders,

grim noirs

in the ghettos

and shanty towns

of Kingston,

Georgetown,

Port-au-Prince,

Port of Spain.

Survivors

coexisting with the lions

and the roaches.

Echoes of duende, perched

proudly, black-

plumaged cockatoo

on shoulders

of Cristobal Colon

and his wretched lot of seamen.

Echoes of duende, Las Casas,

like a black

plague, ravaged

and decimated

house

of Hyarima.

Echoes of duende, corbeaus

disguised

as seabirds,

raucous, discordant

song, circled, hovered, black

cloud, over the Zong.

Echoes of duende, Nanny

Maroon and Cudjoe,

black

resistance,

freedom fighters,

from plantation, grave-dirt,

tilled and toiled

in seeping

blood, escaping

to limestone hills

and caves and gorges.

Vodun,

beat the silent, spirit

drum

for Toussaint, Christophe

and Dessalines.

Insatiable thunder

of hurricane,

earthquake,

Shango.

Soufriere bowels

erupting,

belching, sulphuric fury

and sound

of a thousand giant conch shells.

Caribbean, my Caribbean,

your cradle was my casket,

oh Atlantis,

your swizzled sea

my Atlantic catacomb.

Bottomless black

basket of unburied

woes and bodies flung,

like fodder, to the sharks

and shadows.

Oh that a cup of lemon

grass could cure

this roasting

fever, scourge of scurvy,

in your Jolly

Roger bones.

(Living in the past,

we are living in the past

cause the past is not yet past.)

©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

               

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

58 (an epigram)

At 58,
Celibate,
With a swollen prostate.
What's there to celebrate?

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

INTERLUDE

...but for me,
the best part of the movie
is the ending
when the audience, rising,
relieve cramped seats,
block spent screen,
in the rush to beat the rush
towards the exit.
Violin and cello,
oboe and piccolo,
with plaintive orchestration
seal poignancy and pathos
of the theme.
Serenely seated, patience.
Clouds of credits ascend
like smoke of sandalwood
and hecatombs
up to the heavens,
inducing introspection,
a moment's meditation,
on the never ending
movie we call life.

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

SCARBOROUGH (VI)

   VI

the rock looked down
at the sea and said
remember the days
when your water ran red
when the air was acrid
and heavy with smoke
and lead gulls skimmed waves
across flaming gunwales
from brazen to blazing oak
the sea replied yes
my faithful friend
well I recall
the frenzied commotion
across ocean and current
continent to continent
over and over again
there was tossing and turmoil
of monarchs and men
never content with the spoils
of crusades of conquest and crime
that ignoble time
of cut throats and crime
swashbucklers
buccaneers
pirates and privateers
how your language and land
changed from hand to hand
and bones of bold galleys
sailors and slaves
with sovereigns and guilders
lie buried beneath my sand
said the rock to the sea
but those days are long gone
no longer war-torn
from hostile to civilized
men are docile and socialized
even servile and sissified
the sea retorted
old friend be warned
lest you come to grief
a turtle will travel
from reef to reef
across ocean and current
continent to continent
but will always return
to the beach from where it was born

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

SCARBOROUGH (V)

V

You may have thought I no longer love you
Cause I left you, in the new moon of romance,
But how could I forget you when you never left me.
If I told you that those carefree mauby years
Were the best days of my life, would you believe me?
Would you accept me? Would you take me back?

It's not that I want to make up; did we ever break up?
I wore you, not like a pendant,
More like a wound upon my breast.
Vale, Wilson, Sangster, Glen, Governor, Gardens,
Lover of the green dreams and sleepy eyes,
Silent sacrifice to the carving knife of progress.

Like a gypsy, I knew you, loved you, lived you,
Caressed your every nook and cranny,
Ate your almonds, sucked your sea grapes.
Lover of the green dreams and the sleepy eyes,
I still hear, still feel, the love song of your heel, and toe,
Will forever hear and feel, your love, your song,
The healing of your tamb'rine and your fiddle bow.

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

SCARBOROUGH (IV)

IV

Here where hurricanes only wag their tails
At us and seldom bare their fangs.
Where emerald of sea, seamlessly segued
Into azure sky, in Easter, lies placid
Like oil of coconuts asleep
On cool Caribbean nights.

Here where hurricanes wink their eyes,
Wag their tails and seldom bare their fangs.
Here, blue horizons of an island's heartaches,
Intimate as the life-lines on my hand palms
Or the cocoyea fex from palm fronds
Of coconut, cross-flexed into Christmas kites

Waving cotton tails, cutting cotton threads,
Reaching for heavens without horizons
To sag and sink and stagger back to earth
Where navel string lies buried with the past.
She is the woman I have loved but left
Because I loved my freedom more.

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

ON INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY

In the aftermath

Of Dr LeSieg's hat,

Bear in mind that

It's the educated jackasses,

Moreso than the ignorant masses,

Who have the world

Where it's presently at.

© 2012 G Newton V Chance 

BURNT BOOTS

A player can choose

To hang up his shoes,

Discarded, on the high wire

Or save a worn pair,

A singed souvenir

Of running through the low fire.

© 2012  by G Newton V Chance 

SCARBOROUGH (III)

                      III

Oh howling hill of forts,

and forgotten thoughts of futile doom,

where dead men fought and fell

for monarchs from far off places.

Great wound of my heaving heart

without which there would have been no healing.

Oh grieving eye, harbour of an island's comings and goings,

and leavings, salty gloaming of our secrets and our losses

hidden like oil denied or shipwrecks awaiting dredging.

You have lost your coast, I would have lost my way

except for the glimmer of your lighthouse

among the weeping night sky's guiding stars,

spread out like a harbour's commerce of ships.

Oh howling bowl, begging bowl of the Bocas,

your bowels sought and  bought and sold in US dollars.

You have lost your land, I would have lost my way

were it not for your stereoscopic healing and congealing

the dichotomy of my cloven split of flesh and spirit.

My barren rock of flowering frigate and caularthron,

my virgin splendour and beauty of pelican and prickly cacti,

your wild and unspoiled art was the unveiling of my heart.

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

DOGTOWN

bitches wagging

pit bull swagging

wolves werewolves

aggression regression
dogs were once wolves
men were once feral

under a yellow moon

dog eating man

man eating dog

dog eating dog

man eating man

bias obvious

as a rudeboy's drawers

in a turbulent time

every whisper is the enemy

it is a man's man's man's world

but it would be nothing

without a dog's tongue in it

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance 

SHOTTER

Shatter! shatter! shatter!

Gunshot ah buss;

Shotgun ah fire.
Oh God, mi people!

Why are we still

Slaughtering each other?

by G Newton V Chance © 2012

TO KILL A MOSQUITO

And the more mosquito you kill,

Is the more they keep coming still.

(Ask Stalin).

by G Newton V Chance © 2012

OCELOT

I have never seen you

(have you ever seen me?)

in the wild.

I have seen you in the zoo,

in full view

of the curious and the caring,

the cruel and uncaring,

pacing, pacing, pacing

with unease,

enduring flash and stares,

spotlight and friendly glares,

probing, probing, probing.

But they will never know your secrets,

see your patience, grace and stealth,

stalking unwary quarry,

your super-anime strength,

though not quite as lethal

as your cousin from the Bengal.

I have never seen you

(have you ever seen me?)

in the wild.

Do I look to you

as uneasy as you look to me,

usurping territory,

bumbling, bumbling, bumbling,

stumbling, stumbling, stumbling,

falling, falling, falling,

felling trees,

the forest on its knees,

(uprooting evolution

by the roots),

planting, transplanting, asphalt

and concrete jungles in its place?

I have never ever seen you

(have you ever seen me?)

in the wild.

Copyright ©2010 by G. Newton V. Chance

ANDREW TABANKA

Look mi in mi eye, boy.

Tell mi tabanka not killing yuh.

Not you who run shi,

tell shi shoo

like yuh chasing fowl or fly?

Now the house empty,

yuh feeling it all in yuh belly

but yuh too big to beg,

yuh too big and bad to beg.

Look mi in mi eye, boy.

Tell me yuh doh cry, cry, cry,

dry tears from your heart,

wet tears from your eye,

nostril running snot,

when yuh think nobody watching.

Tell me yuh doh feel yuh going

crazy with tabanka sometimes.

Yuh think you is the first

or you will be the last?

Look mi in mi eye, boy.

See the ghost of tabanka

past, present and future.

Forget dem foolish thoughts

of ending everything.

Jump back in the water,

Plenty fish just waiting.

Get up from your arse, boy

and move on.

Copyright ©2012 by G Newton V Chance

BO MASEKELA

(for Hugh Ramopolo Masekela)

Great elephant of the Serengeti
Wielding tusk of burnished brass
Shimmering
Like the burning sands of Kalahari
Belching enharmonic bullets in
Staccato
Bursts of flugel-fire
Tom-tom
Talking drum
Djembe
Mali to Malawi
Ghana
Guinea
Liberia
Nigeria
Botswana
Lesotho
Senegal to Azania
Cut spiritual swathe
Cleared aural path
Through Colonial man
And Apartheid
With Mama Africa
Or Fela
Sometimes at his side
Hurled curses and music-missiles
At the coal mines
And the coal train called
And conjured from a cowbell
With a cry of “Stimela!”
Smoke
Hot muzzle of a flugel
Mixing
Blending
Harmony
Melody
Rhythm
In a smoke filled
She-been in Soweto
Voice of Shango
Thundering
Roar and shriek
Of revolution
Mellowing
To love ballad
Torrid
Yet sweet and sensual as strawberries
Courting
Cajoling
Seducing
Fela’s Lady
That early piece of brass
Golden gift from Satchmo
To the boy elephant
On a mission
In a Mission
In Johannesburg
Was worth one million times more
Than its weight in ivory
The Black Man
Black treasure
Master
Legend
Living
Kicking
Stomping
Huffing and a-puffing
Shrieking
Choo-choo
Like a coal train across the Transvaal
Colossal
As the hills of Kilimanjaro
Mighty
As the waters of the Zambezi
Was there with Sly and Jimi
Miles
Marley
Freddie
Miriam gone but Moses
Musical Moses
My Music Mecca
Ramopolo
Still here
Living
Kicking
Stomping
Huffing and a-puffing
Shrieking
Choo-choo
Like a coal train across the Transvaal

Copyright ©2012 by G. Newton V. Chance

RICE

(From the lagoons of Rangoon,
shone one million little moons)

I

Scattered to four corners.
Fruitful, bridal, exponential winds
Of multiplication,

Gospel of nutrition.
Every religion,
Every household,
Every land.

Rice, salt of bitter earth,
Blessed among victuals,
Oh cereal,
Infinite as the sand.

II

Removed from brown,
Strong exterior.
Refined to almost lifeless,
White interior.

Bleached bland,
Bleached red and black
From skin
Like Michael minus melanin.

Still gave sustenance to peasants,
Every two days, one tin per pot
In the killing fields of Pol Pot.

III

Apotropaic little grass seed
Mathematic little glass bead
Protecting families from famine
As the granaries of Egypt once did.

Green miracle
Of arithmomania, protecting,
Still protecting,

From salt-phobic soucouyant
And mirrorless soul
Of sesame-counting vampire.

©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

COUNTING CANDLES

Here but for a while...
We are here but fo r a while.

One candle, two candle...
Lighting candles.

Every day, a new day,
Every day, a day older,
Every day, a day nearer.

One candle, two candle, three candle...
Lighting candles, blowing candles.

Every year, a new year,
Every year, a year older,
Every year, a year nearer.

Here but for a while...
We are here but for a while.

One candle, two candle, three candle, four candle...
Lighting candles, blowing candles, counting candles.

Here but for a while...
We are here but for a while.

Every day, a new day,
Every day, a day older,
Every day, a day nearer.

One candle, two candle, three candle...
Lighting candles, blowing candles, counting candles.

Here but for a while...
We are here but for a while.

Every year, a new year,
Every year, a year older,
Every year, a year nearer.

One candle, two candle, three candle...
Blowing candles, lighting candles, counting candles.

Here but for a while...
We are here but for a while.

Every day, a new day,
Every day, a day older,
Every day, a day nearer.

One candle, two candle...
Counting candles...

Flickering in the wind...
Candles flickering in the wind.

Here but for a while...
We are here but for a while...

© 2012 by G Newton V Chance

POISONED ZABOCAS

Rather than surrender to the cycle,
life's perpetual seesaw
of birth, rebirth and death,
a nation swooned and fell upon its word.
The white and wizened wraith of year-end yearnings
doodled broken études of regret.

Decapitated dreams, like chicken heads,
flutter in the dust of left behind.
Tukuma yampi eyes are slowly opening,
the sloth slowly awakens from its sleep
to poisoned zabocas upon the tree;
to Janus blurring boundaries

(of a new integrity).

© 2012 G Newton V Chance