Sunday, March 07, 2010

Barbados

Bougainvillea’s pink crumpled stars

Supernova all around,

Retinal detonations flaunting ethereal fire...

Wild windwards and calm leewards

Are my interdependent extremes.

How can I learn the orchids’ dialect?

Golden masqueraders of Crop Over,

Parading under the stilt-walking sun!

A Seventh Day Adventist,baptised

In the sea,I come all white-drenched

And hungry,prayer-fires in my hands

To worship the naked brown bodies

Of the drowning and soon-to-be drowned.

Calypso birds of paradise,take the pirates’

Scattered gold and blow it to the winds,

On lifetimes of nonchalant splendour!

The earth is an effigy set on fire.

Love, we shall be swimming horses,

Weightless and tameless in the blue...

Teacher,preacher,policeman of desire,

The girl from summer’s edge comes,

Proffering breadfruit,her smile reefed

With secrets,holed with limestone caves.

No comments: