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