Tuesday, January 27, 2009

here...after

Triptych

One
A woman’s beauty is in her hair- and I am too young to question the wisdom of my father, but still old enough to prepare a way to justify my sudden actions, I think on my own, most times. I wear the reminder he delivers in every one of his unapproving smiles, but at least he smiles, probably in understanding that he made sure I had two strong limbs to balance living on. He had warned me two years ago that I may have had regrets about this, and it’s not that I’ve dismissed his words, but I’ve had to test my own waters.

Two
It had been a woman who told me I was beautiful before any man I thought I could believe, and I didn’t fully grasp what she had meant when she said that she- was in love. But I understood later on. A rose called by any other name would nearly be as deceitful, while I have nothing more than well-angled battle-scars, and the poorly-selected counsel of demons, where even the mirror couldn’t tell me anymore what my name was, it was too busy confusing images of my reflections- soul, spirit, body, spirit, body, soul, body, soul, spirit, spirit, spirit, and I couldn’t dare look into it, I couldn’t bear sight of my decaying self and the greyness below my eyelids, she had slain me, and I was dying.

Three
..Ah want no reminder of who I was then, take this pair of scissors and cut all of meh hair- off. Let nobody look upon me, not man, not woman, let meh remember who I am- again, let me remember ah different pain of rejection, let meh recall the words of my father, let meh dance in the rain at the joy of deliverance, let meh chop away at the lives of these demons, let meh wear the sun on my face to remember the reason for my Lord’s death, let meh recall these things before I forget who I am again. Before I forget who I am in Him.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

the origin of a backbone

I am third generation.

Eve’s dropping out from a breadfruit tree
would only give her
less humanly parts of a character,
so after her falling once, she thought man would help her
to redeem her steps,
a-damned road to walk,

and with this ring she vows never to forget,
that ignorance begets fear, and fear forms regret
but yuh never know why the feeling there,
until it really starts to set-
settle-
in.

So she turn uneasy in her own skin,
wearing the pride of a first-lady, but the envy of a second,
he remained silent for every time that she questioned,
her husband
was always a charmer.

Eve is not supposed to release her laughter
when it is invoked,
she would have to choke on her instinct, too profane to be provoked,
they always spoke about her,
I remember that her broughtupsy
only knew the shame behind fig-leaves
and the scorn of a non-creole God,
this Woman made her living in the leasehold she laboured,
but this is not where the rivers crossed their courses,
this is where the talk of the town carried both her and her lineage,
here are children that descended from a mess of a mixed-marriage,
pronounce them man and victim- the Red House records it,
but she would never admit the carnage is in her wedding bed,
the wreckage of a relationship harboured in the lies he always led
her to believe,
a-damn day would never pass without him going to see
his mistress,
I have come to learn that deception is ageless
as she keeps her part of the bargain
and 2) that divorce is bigger a sin for old people.

copyright 2009

Thursday, January 1, 2009

she made another year

Enjoying the spazz of the third drink
I have come to relish in hours apart,
this is moderation enough
and the view from over the brim
of the glass,
made these lines not about
my indulgences or my drink.
I seriously think she’s
at a stage of dying,
but the slower kind,
the one that the quickness
of youth reminds you of,
when neither left nor right foot
can move
to where you want them to.
When you want to speak
but words have become a task
for you to form,
when you wait for the sun
to burst through
but it never comes,
and that’s always
bad news for arthritis.
I would write this for her,
but she would never
value it as much as her
own independence,
she is already small and frail
and now bears
too much a resemblance to death.
But this is New Years morning,
not a day for tablet-taking
so get this lady a drink,
she wants a drink
but she cannot hold the bottle
to pour without breaking the glass,
so now we clean up the broken shards,
while glass forms in her eyes,
she holds them in
and I’m sitting next to her
so she can’t hide her tears.
The only thing that calls her back
at intervals are the
séances of soaps
she would take-in religiously,
and yes watching the t.v.
has become her religion
as three or four rosaries
catch cobweb and dreams
as they hang from the bed-post,
and this is how she would spend most of her days.
Her friends always
send bouquets of flowers;
this is probably the way
that an old woman prepares for her last.
She must be unhappy,
the world is moving too fast
and doesn’t pause for her steps
to even pronounce themselves,
while her children number her virtues
and spell the message out
for those slower at reading signs.
But whenever she does die,
I would not mourn her loss,
but shed my own fears
that I would ever have to cross
the same pathway she is walking over.
And every time she hugs me
she reminds me that she’s dying
and in each second getting older
And that this one might be the last.