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Poetry

The old lady who weeps for me

Why do you weep for me old lady?
Why do you grieve, pray and plead?
You feel my pain and my agony
You know my torment and my need.

You absorbed life's blows for me
When you were younger, old lady.

But now you are far away and frail
While life's blows rain like hail
Battering my bare head and broken heart
You weep for me Mama, far away and apart.

Etwaria R. Singh
New York, January 2011


Hidden Girl

That hidden girl you see,
She lives inside of me.
Sometimes frightened,
And sometimes free.
Why didn't she leave and go,
A long time ago?
Since high school?
Perhaps since university?
Oh why does she persist
In accompanying me?

You really should
Leave me alone.
You're not my shadow.
Wherever I go
Do you need to follow?

Etwaria R. Singh
New York


The Sea

Thalassa! Thalassa!
The Sea! The Sea!
Anabasis (Xenophon)

Thalassa! Thalassa!
The Sea! The Sea!
Afloat in the amniotic sea
From whence my life arose
A being visible,
And the face of the Great Mother limned
In the face of my mother.

Thalassa! Thalassa!
The Sea! The Sea!
The Sea of Life
Where on the rocks my bark shattered,
And the face of the Great Mother
The face of my mermaid, Ariel.

Thalassa! Thalassa!
The Sea! The Sea!
By Corentyne strand or Huron sand,
Where Earth and Sky horizon
And matter and spirit one fluid sea,
Rise many faces
And yet but only one,
The face of the mother.

Thalassa! Thalassa!
The Sea! The Sea!
The Cosmic Sea,
From whence my soul arose
In which I live and move and have my being.
I stand on the shore of this dream called Life
Awaiting the Face of the Beyond to emerge
For my merging.
– Joseph Drepaul


Maybe
You go about singing your song
You know something is a miss
You know something is wrong
But you don’t know what it is
Maybe you had a breath! Oh!
Of the air President Kennedy
Breathed in 1963 with Castro
Over the Cuban missile crisis tes’
Nearly ending in a bloody mess

So you got that urge that rush
Maybe you’re breathing the bad air
As President George W. Bush
You are feeling good eh! Beware!
The last time he did after 911 attacks
And he went to Iraq hunting
With his Chiney and other contacts
They found no weapons to kill the mass
But a people fighting and kicking ass
The coughs you’re having here
Nasty coughs making you ill
Maybe belonged yesteryear
To Sir Winston Churchill
Who coughed his way too
In World War II got his fill
And it’s now affecting you
You will pass it on too soon
Just before the next full moon

Maybe that soothing feeling
Came from the great Mahatma
Mohandas Gandhi’s fasting
For 40 days stuck to satyagraha
The vicious Salt Act couldn’t break
The poor backs of the whole of India
The British way of eating their cake
And still having it all
Their ultimate downfall

That evil in your veins is no news
Maybe it came from Adolph Hitler
After he murdered six million Jews
He tried to conquer Europe & Africa
Spent his life to annihilate
Anyone who apt to choose
Doomed was their fate
But the lurking evil in his genes
Is still around in various means

And hey you! what about
On your neck see that gold chain
It’s too weighty you lout
It is mixed full of blood stain
With the ill-gotten share
Now it will take a dozer or crane
To return it to the coffers so bare
Stolen by racial corruptive pranks
Lodged by Burnham in Swiss banks
The wrath instilled in you means
Since you’re born one of a dozen
Maybe it’s your convoluted genes
Because you marry your cousin
Now using that as a bloody tool
Spreading evil in your denizen
To the elders and kids in school
To the third and fourth generation
Camouflaged as sacred creation

The diseases affecting you today
Maybe it’s the payment pardner
For the many lives you took once
For according to the Holy Gita
You have to pay for your sins
And you would never get better
Not even now if you grow fins
Many Holy Marys or sacred beads
Cannot wash away your evil seeds
– Naraine Datt


This Land of Plenty (1998)

They come in hundreds of thousands
To this acclaimed land of plenty – and cold
Backs to the walls, with fiery tears
Motivated – and bold
To catch up for lost years.

At first excited, playing out the stories told, when
Stretched by colorful imagination
Then...
Society takes control
of you
your routine
your food
your dress
your speech

of your work
in New York

Aye! your culture
Until you’re consumed by the demanding vulture.

Then…
One day, haunted by internalization
Like a divine inspiration
Questioning your existence in the constricting web
Remembering the umbilicus in a land distant, and forsaken
Regretting the cracked linkages, often broken…

Your forerunners told you so
You did not believe – did not want to believe
Now, you tell them – not to deceive
They do not believe
They still come in hundreds of thousands
To this land with uncompromising commands.

– Gary Girdhari


restorations

lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of israel
the book of the acts

churchill looked at saint peter and said
we have got to rebuild the british empire
what good is a churchill without the empire
saint peter glaring at churchill replied
the restoration of israel comes first
the british empire must wait till after

the amazon queen did not request
peters book she said was wrong
she funded herself for herself then claimed
foul is fair and fair is foul
in racial warfare and tribal hate
besides i need a palace by the sea
so newspaperhistory again wrote her name

tommy he goes to peter and says
at this time we should restore the fortunes of tom
after all you let my fortunes slide
like melting salt on the beach ate ebb tide
just let me have a lottery size three
i assure you i don’t need it for me
but to lighten the darkness all around
for sure this will give me the purpose i lack
and give my life the meaning that went
and then i will leave depression street

peter says to tom take a look out there
tom looked saw nothing ego melting nothing
a void a nothingness a nothingizer
his heart sank into his gut he passed it out
then peter continuing to tommy said
take a hike into that nowhere
if after you nothingize you are still there
humankind in your track will move to somewhere
– Joseph Drepaul
Stratford, Ontario

WRITING LESSONS: LIBERTY AVENUE
Poetry is perfection’s sweat...
fresh as raindrops on a statue’s brow.
– Derek Walcott

How well I know
and do not know,
the images wrought,
metaphorically,
if you catch...
my drift

How well...my spirit
at the core of being,
the Muse’s own,
nothing less–
my northern
landscape

The South, too,
if you must really know,
we know--
I come to grips with–
this simplicity
I yearn for most of all

Not giving advice,
but taking advice–
from you–
the images...
coming to me
at a glance

Solid as diamond,
I daresay–
telling you
again and again–
with an honesty
I can only muster

From the core
of my being–
the senses most of all,
what’s truly felt...
freedom’s sweat

You’re bound to
know really know–
this instant,
I guarantee you...only–
if from a distance.
– Cyril Dabydeen
Ottawa


quid est casus belli?

Tiger! Tiger!
… Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
William Blake.
I
as i tiptoed along the right side
of the public thoroughfare
on the old railway embankment through buxghanistan
so renamed by its new masters
not as a symbol of liberation of any kind but a gesture
of don’t-care-a-damn insolence and belligerence
presenting a narrow sideways silhouette
not to call undue sight
to my transit
a necessity between point A and point C
which same is deemed trespass
here
for which when captured
reparation is exacted and extracted
by bludgeonings ransoms rapes and hideous deaths
and was almost out of the war zone
when i am intercepted by a young man
AK-47 in hand
and him still juvenile i thought
as if that should make him less lethal
idiotically for this is no boyish game
but war of the worst kind
(not that any warfare is ever of a good kind)
it being domestic and devoid of conventions for its conduct
its atrocities even though inherently compounded
of betrayals are never brutal enough
this amalgam of anarchy and depravity
that unrestrained one-sided and thus far invincible
ominously portends progression to pogrom
in which the sons of cain are blood-hungry predators
the guns are real
the bullets kill
the killed don’t get up
and reverse roles with the killers for the next round
visage vacuous of empathy
for another life that he intends to destroy
red and wild his eyes
spit hate at me
hate for which i have given reason none
and i proclaim now
and again
and again
i! i! i!
have given him reason none
him
this one
with gun at my guts
this young man
my countryman fellow human my brother
to hate me
who is not my enemy –
down any village road i go
school door i stand outside of
alongside a playground
at a cricket match
wherever young people assemble
dozens his age including my son i see there
pursuing adolescent affairs –
what is my enemy
and likewise enemy of all men
is the demon he has grown within himself
as part and parcel of the evil
that has descended deep into the dark caverns
of men’s souls in this land
how ubiquitous its hydra-headed occupation
suspicioned from unrelenting daily demands
bound by no barriers for blood and betrayals as bittle

to hate me
because my eyes are blue green or brown
or focus along diverging lines of vision
my birth hair is kinky straight or non-existent
my skin color is of a different tone
my physical features are moviesque mongoloid or neanderthalian
or for my ancestral origins
i concede albeit from distance
and not without trepidation
lest it is taken for leeway
into one square inch of which we humans can insert
any number of excesses and abuses
your right as a person
to have so chosen
(if cross is by your conscience constructed
and on your back will be carried)
in none of which matters is choice allowed any man anywhere
nor does he have a hand in arrogating to his being any of those features
and my right too most categorically never to condone any as ground
for anyone to go out and obliterate another human
as has repeated horrendous holocausts over and over in our time
in Rwanda Bosnia Kosovo Darfur and elsewhere …

©Balwant Bhagwandin
(Wednesday, October 26, 2005, 10:20 AM)

II
quid est casus belli?

Tiger! Tiger!
… Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
William Blake.

of history too young to be so aggrieved
he cannot see clearly
death is the cruelest of all cruelties visited upon man
deceased and survivors alike
and so much more so when sudden and malevolent
for he has seen the tears
he has heard the wails
he knows the grief and disarray death brings at first hand
the absolute cessation of a life
a loved one’s presence – a relationship – happiness
and what tragedy to be so immersed in death
when life is
for living/for making/for moving onwards and upwards
for creating/for playing/for growing
for loving ourselves and each other and our world
and too far overboard gone
to design as defence for his ire on his own
some ancient tribal wrong
but so much so
for him and his criminal cabal to conclude the scores
of rapes robberies rampages
abductions bludgeonings and murders
without reason across the board and in all seasons
are not yet enough to avenge whatever is the grievance
perceived by brains driven insane
by resentment and crack-cocaine
for these cubs sweetened by the richness of human blood
its copiousness and the ease of the kill
have become maneaters
nor have i response but of wretched prey
with hands paralyzed and tongue tied
by the fatal stare of this time’s hatchling of the basilisk
and the gun jabbing into my abdomen
and similar advancing like riled-up soldier ants
out of stronghold safehaven and bolthole
killer sharks base in the compel of a feeding frenzy
emasculated commanded to chary judgement
lest i be consumed
by the fires of any response of my own
albeit warranted
as will this enfant terrible of this town
renowned in history’s account under its revered name
who will not learn before his road reaches its inevitable and invited end
and fortunately for him lest he be born truly of the devil’s loin
how unlivable what is left of a life disgraced by deeds
too brutal and final for him to redress
too horrendous to be forgotten or forgiven
and in the moments of his distraction by the hails of his posse
to wait up for them to join the party
i ran!
i ran!
not as for meal or medal
not for an el dorado of bullion
nor to catch a last train!
i ran!
i ran
for my very existence!
i ran to save myself from extermination
by a child-killer!
dignity and self-respect shed as encumbrances
as well guilt for those – all those – who did not leave this road
walking or running – even crawling …

©Balwant Bhagwandin
NYC 7/28/2006

III
quid est casus belli?

Tiger! Tiger!
… Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
William Blake.

saved not by a sudden reversion to humanity
nor by divine or any other intervention
but by the unsteadiness of his hands and eyes and mind
and blessed to be breathing easier and moreso still
in the bordering village not on war-footing i presume
until startled by the wails
of another child
another brother
another mother
another wife
of another canecutter and his workmate vanished
two months this day
from site of where they humbly toiled
clearing a canal that provided service for all
presumed murdered and disappeared
anthropophagy whispered as cynical explanation
too horrifying a fate to contemplate for what had been
muscles sinews skin and bones
with beating hearts breathing lungs streaming blood
the only property truly possessed by the poor
each a man as good as any other
and far better than many where it matters most
with hopes and dreams
emotions of anger and love kindness and unkindness
each a man
with a story of his own thoughts and opinions
a song of his own
each a poem
each a human
each effaced
without a trace
always poor and now what was most precious
to them and their familes and their only true treasure
has been viciously and irretrievably obliterated
with le coup de (dis)grâce to their existence:
denial of the one final little bit of dignity no man deserves
to depart without
all because they were too trusting to heed the old adage
that if you live nextdoor to the territory of a maneating tiger
you are advised best to know when he goes out for the kill
lest you become his meal

Ooh Gawd! Oww mi Gawd!
Wheh meh husban? wha dem doh wid am?
Wheh meh son? Gawd wha wraang e doh?
Wha mo Gawd? how much mo?
Gaawd! ansah noh!

widow or no?
desperately hoping and praying frenziedly
it is no
and down the road
the screams of another daughter
another son
another sister
another wife
another brother
another father
another mother
of another son
robbed
murdered
and incinerated
in his hire-car his tool of trade his pyre
his crematorium
his personal Babu John
on the same road i had just run ...

Gawd if yuh nah bline
yuh gat foh bloh dung dem dawg dis!
God what wrong my Dad do to end like this?

©Balwant Bhagwandin
NYC 8/28/2006


IV
quid est casus belli?

Tiger! Tiger!
… Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
William Blake.
i remember when
for weeks even months
the newspapers and radio did not report
a single murder in the entire country
and when they did we were shocked and saddened
even though we did not know the victim
but now
in this time
in this place
there have been single days of murders upon murders
day after day of murders
making murder so humdrum
discovery of the corpse of another murdered person by the wayside
elicits just about as much distress and outrage from the public
as for the nightly carnage of crapauds
by passing traffic on the roads
albeit worse may be happening elsewhere
and has since our appearance on this planet
but before it was given over to the care of its children
who had not enough of a clue about how
to keep the flowering shrubs along main street alive
prologues their stewardship of a nation born colicky
and like all who come suddenly into riches or power
made pompous by the omnipotence of their elevation
scornful of skills and short of sight
rapacious of appetite
promptly drove it down deep into the retromidas filth
of turd world typicality
this place was pristine and innocent
where men’s honor needed no other bulwark
than their words and good names
which to bring shame upon was a kind of death
and any adult would be commended in no uncertain manner
by the parents of a youth such as this for dealing soundly with him
for nothing more delinquent than use
in youthful brashness or by drive of hormones
of a word or phrase considered inappropriate for his age
and who would again be taught at home the error
of letting his lips loose
in a manner that would most times make repeat unlikely
here
not a breakaway state within a state
neither a rebellious petty pashalik
or insurgent fiefdom within a dissolute kingdom
nor territory liberated from tyranny
nothing but a half-mile militarized zone of iniquitous enclave
labeled by itself taliban
not out of feelings of fraternity or shared faith
but for the bigotry and brutality therein
warlike and bristling with hostility towards all without
the boundaries physical and otherwise
it has demarcated with blood
and with no regard for any niceties of neighborliness
and within a strutting intolerant quick-to-rage warlord
its only response ruthless to any questioning of its domination
and quite apart from the immediate intents
of garnering profits and pillage settling scores and satisfying its bloodlusts
its frequent eruptions of violence and depredations are also meant
to an equal if not greater extent and in a not inoblique way
to remind the rulers of the nation
how emasculated is their rule
how tenuous their hold on power
none of whom are possessed of more
than rudimentary matadorial skills
and to a man (and woman) lacking los cojones
to take a mad bull headon by the horns and bring it down...

Ooh Gawd! Oww Gawd!
Seh something noh Gawd!

©Balwant Bhagwandin. NYC 9/27/2006

wetlands

i move in silence
and longing with you
as you embark from
dry parched ache,
to wetlands of
fervent hope,
even while trickling
fear becomes a
thundering falls,
and you feel you
will drown.

(you will not drown)

your journey, if you
desire, does not ever
have to be taken alone.
there where water
bubbles from below
raw earthy swelling,
the soggy shame you
feel you must wear
transforms to
soothing liquid
that will quench your
intense thirsting.
but you must want
to drink. you must
want to heal your
parched spirit,
body, mind with moist
pleasure, with overflowing
trust.
irrigate your too-dry
field of vision.
soak your skin as
you search for
what already knows you.

become the sea.
become the river.

hammer down the
dam that is feeding
your precarious drought.
drink your voice in
full fragrant knowledge
that life and death
are kindred mirrored
ponds, in which beauty
forms, and decay
writhes, side by side.
you are of both.
and beauty speaks here still.

– margot van sluytman


Good Morning

Good Morning! How do you do?
Some bark What's so good about it?
Some snarl and ready to chew
Your head off as if you're a dim wit

This is heard many a day
The answer to a daily greeting
When others try to say
A simple cheerful Good Morning

What does good morning mean today
Is it a way of saying hello
It’s the first greeting of the day
To give every-one as you go

It is more than that I think
It means it’s nice to be alive
To anyone in rags or in mink
It’s the same as a high five

The people who detest Good Morning
Are silly, selfish and shows no emotion
Have an attitude which needs fixing
Their mind and body are out of relation

They are afraid and need love
Too proud to show or ask for it
They need some help from above
In society they are a misfit

They want their way with everything
They never look out for another
They are forever too busy babbling
And never 1isten to the other

Only pessimists hate good morning
These people had a rotten childhood
Maybe were abused or are abusing
They can't decipher bad from good

Such people are a wet blanket
They are party poopers, a waste
Folks you wish you never met
And they always leave a bad taste

Good Morning means I love you
I love life which is so short, yea!
I want to wish you a nice day too
For I am going to have a good day.

– Naraine Datt  

Biting The Hands That Feed Them

“Yes, Uncle David.”
Arti, my niece responded.
“My dad was robbed at gunpoint
On Monday at break of day,
At Plaisance over the line.
While earning his bread, selling bread
To feed them nemak-haram.
He was robbed of all the money.
His own and that from sales.
But that was not enough.
They beat him with the gun
Until blood gushed out his ears,
And his mouth a bloodied pulp.
Then they broke his knee
And he fell…
It is true what you said,
Uncle David,
It’s not just biting the hands that feed them,
It’s a racial Russian roulette
To everyone who earns his bread
The bitter old-fashioned way.”

– Gokarran Sukhdeo
03/01/06

The Unrepentant Killer

I feel the knife arc through my heart
In payment for my deeds.
From its pith gushes a bitter taste,
A latent magma that fills my throat –
I close my eyes to hold it back,
And infinite lights flash
Like dying stars afar.
And reminds me suddenly
That only one moment is left,
Out of a billion moments of existence,
One moment only
To say the greatest unsaid words –
I’m sorry,
I love you, my brother.
But my eyelids close
And the dying thought swallowed in extinction.

– Gokarran Sukhdeo
03/01/06

Broken People

They splay, they spat

bang, butt, bust
hidden broken glass
one step on
slide… slip… slash…

Lure to catch
with the promise of cure

prod… probe
horrendous foray!

Broken people cannot see whole

their lives a twisted role
so must scar and char
fuss… muss and combust.

– Leni (Naleni) Singh
01-13-06 @ 6:04am
Aliens
This creature is not human
For like her counterpart man
A killer, a maniac and a destroyer
This alien is a gracious, sweet, soft lover
It’s said God made her from Adam's rib
But we now know that is a real fib
A fallacy and an ancient sham
She could never come from Adam
She's a sweet flower and a gem
No man is qualified to touch her hem
And boy when she climbs on heels
It makes men wild, like cartwheels
They’re worthless, without competition
To her, God's own beautiful creation
This petal of man's mercy it seems
Is really man's nectar of dreams
When she bats an eye
Can make you so shy
And a smile even so little
Can make a man so belittle
She's a perfumed flower
And she has all the power
Yet man treat her so inhuman
Surely she has to be an alien
No human can stand such maltreatment
And still comes out smiling and content
For one so sweet and beautiful
Can't come from earth so cruel
Just like how the plants love the earth
She's a jasmine, her every worth
This creature of beauty and perfection
If not protected would be man's extinction
– Norman Datt