William Alexander Bustamante (From Pages)

Now let us forget foreign captains And Conquistadores myth That colors the morning exuberantly With exotics wars and phony fathers Like a fine lady strolling along a rotten street I have tasted lemon And though I wince at my tongue's Sharp reaction I value the tart worthiness of vitamins And the aroma of the blossoms And the bee like workers singing While the flowers fall Like stars littering my eyes. I cannot see again Your extroverted flair flashing By the country paths Where the horse yield to your mastery What else was a boy to do Tired of the Irish legacy Tired of plantation life Tired of the little elementary school That made Britannia into another Bible For the masses of the suffering world What else was there in a small island To hold twenty one years of restlessness I can see why the waves Washed you onto other friendly shores The Pan Amanian dandy The tongue upon the Cuban candy And then there you are Staring at Wall Street shriveling pain Licking the candy out of the store again Your tall mane of hair Billowing the against the Blue Mountain The man has returned Captain of the storm in nineteen thirty eight And there they were The Harts, the Hills, Henrys, Coombs Isaacs ... the whole plethora of our light Shining at the edge of night But not you, dietician, Hunger was no miracle here No you, money changer, lender and userer Good interest is taken from the bank of fear Not you, tired of the Irish despair You knew Denham had no purpose here Your were the voice the workers would hear You were the hero with chest bared My father felt the system's rock And felt wounded and scared The hand of change was on history's clock You who dreamed Federation first And then destroyed it for the gravy pot Was too small to staunch The empire's collective curse You cave from dungeon and cage singing Winging from Ward To chief among the murder of crows And when you flew away from it From the by-election to the Federal Parliament And when we were dvided You rose on it We are just a lonely island in a crowded sea The rivers vomit mud Red with bauxite, and the Prime Minister Rose like an eagle And we love you still today For it seemed you were not made of common clay You were the noblest of the Clarkes Ovations feathered you to fly Blinding the sun's blinded eye The greatest of the stars Inventor of self, en-nobler of dust.