Best Guyana Poems
I reckon you'll find this tale of romance less fact than fiction,
But please bear with me as I try to give it plausible depiction.
I was about half asleep, musin' on the patio the other day,
When my gaze settled on my ornamental iguana on display.
It reposes on a stump in my rock garden starin' back at me.
It looks so real you'd think it could scamper up my apple tree!
Nearby is a birdbath that caters to squirrels now and again.
(Those dudes have taken over my yard by eminent domain!)
A squirrel dropped by for a snort and after much twitchin' of tail,
Leapt to the stump from the bath, that innocent iguana to assail!
And I'll swear this to be true, he hopped on the iguana's back,
Assumin' a very romantic position that really took me aback!
He lay there awhile claspin' the iguana with his quiverin' feet.
(Peerin' with half-closed eyes I tried to appear discreet!)
Strangely, he glanced at me as if to say, "What shall I do?"
I thought, "Son, I'm not in a position to offer advice to you!"
That lothario fell asleep atop the iguana soakin' up the sun.
In that little tryst, 'twas obvious that the inanimate iguana won!
I pondered, "Should squirrels actually mate with iguanas,
Would not the jungles of Guyana be teeming with squanas?"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
In San Francisco, he started his crusade
to teach the word of God and all good He made.
His followers, even though penurious,
gave him all they had; they were oblivious.
He taught them how to atone for sins and pray.
To a much better life, Jones would show the way.
To South America, they followed Jim down.
In the thick hot jungle, they built their Jonestown.
Soon, there was no love, peace, and no sanctity.
Instead, there was pain, deceit, and cruelty.
A California congressman arrived there
to alleviate the relatives’ despair.
However, his findings would not be revealed.
He and his party met their deaths on the field.
Jones tested his children’s loyalty later.
By drinking poison, they met their Creator
Ubiquitous death with not a single sound;
over nine hundred lifeless bodies were found!
He was once a shepherd purveying God’s grace,
leading most of his flock to death and disgrace.
small islands surround by the caribbean sea
from the greater and lesser antilles
Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Guyana just to name a few
the place where tourist comes to see the caribbean view
music, beaches, sports our culture they come to see
from that hard labour they want to be free.
Demeter Edwards
I rather watch a kestrel to see
Her swoop and swirl
The skies invisible maze
To feed the inhabitants of her nest
Her milk of gratitude
Morning begins with a bright darkness
And the beckoning beaks for food
There is a wind ruffled mood
Yawing the feathers of the breast
Dawn is a ransom for the truth
Her flight negotiates
The billowing whirlwind
Of dust
Settled in the bowl of expectation
It is the African way.
Courage cannot wear shackles
When the protest comes
This transition
Have shaken superstructures
Not roots, but leaves
Any grafted branch can bear
We did not invent this way
This democracy
Churning chaos out of selfishness
This way of bridging men's hope
This inclusion that is exclusive
This decomposition of old bargaining
Of parables under ancient trees
Strange shifts happen
When we disrobe our cloth
Baring ourselves of familiar primitives
Was not the old ways good enough
Why did we not transform it
While the time was transforming us
Into spectacles
Since we did not want to be invisible still
Will we transform what we
Have borrowed
Into a resemblance of our sense
Of equality, belonging and value?
The base fumbles into sectors
Carved by streets intersecting villages
Divided by self interests
More than any division of our origin
We who came from Jamaica
Barbadoes, Trinidad
And Guyana
Leaving Elmina, Shama, and Sekondi behind
Cattled in the coral that was not pearl
Permitted by a sympathy of the Unites states
Came here forming a new state
Out of forgotten memories
Of lost addresses and broken grief
Of kinship disillusionment
Called this Liberia
Clothing the construction of autonomy
With the identity of freedom.
Is it surprising then this tension
This fractious existence
In a dark forest of genocide
That each sit not well with self as stranger
For this group have no social memory
Beyond the coming of the ships
Until a common bond is forged
From the sorrow of years of fire
To form a new collective identity
Nothing speaks to the deep insecurity
Where there is a need for belonging
Like the suckle of the milking breast
Soft on the flesh of the tongue
With kindness
Telling us our faults
Teaching us to be brothers again
Telling us how to feel the humanity
In our forgotten hearts
Straining to build out of the pain.
I
heard
and pledged,
that one day
this natural wonder,
will be experienced by me.
Thunderous, Roaring from afar.
A narrow mountain stream meandering down the steep side, into a beautiful Falls!
O
no
I won’t
rest a bit,
for “Itanamee”
folk-lored and worshipped by ancestors,
I was told, angrily swallowed many Porknockers!
From the Potaro River below they cried: “Captain put me ashore”!
This
high
rock mountain,
Mount Rorima, that is it’s name
does rise majestically into the sky!
Shared among neighboring countries, this mountain top - Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela.
A
sight,
beauty!
beheld in
every beholder
who sets eyes upon this ancient god;
that replenishes plants and small creatures above;
Kaiture! Mightily and powerfully pours below!
EVIL Exists; Utopia Does Not
You may remember them--
a wildly-diverse band of individuals--
a strange ensemble comprised of
various races, age brackets,
backgrounds, and philosophies.
By the mid-seventies the philosophies
had been replaced with one mindset, that
of a leader with irresistible power
who compared himself to Jesus Christ.
He banished societal norms some followers
had brought with them, replacing them
with his own. Many in this insulated
community didn't seem to realize they
were not in the utopia they'd been promised.
Now, close your eyes and try to see them--
hundreds of them--parents, their many
children, friends, and lovers--lying close together,
some with their arms around each other,
looking so peaceful after partaking of
Jim Jones's cyanide-laced fruit juice.
Guyana, South America, 1978, the Jonestown compound
909 dead--about one-third of them children
Jim Jones, one of the most notorious cult leaders of all times
written June 27, 2016, for Brian Davey's Evil Is Everywhere Contest
ANCESTORS
Lady Liberty
And the Lady cries:
"Bring me your lame, maime,
Your poor, your Refugees."
Came by the Mayflower
And others like her,
The first Settlers came
from near and far;
Men, women, children,
old and young.
Bellowing sails flapping
in tempestuous winds,
People courageously sailed,
Getting wet by the rough rolling
waves,
Going to America ahoy!
From these ones a great nation
arose
Hard work and toil, felling trees,
Planting crops, shearing sheep,
raising cattle,
On large expanses of land.
Now descendants benefit,
Flying a Star-spangled Banner.
Crying out with the Lady,
"God Bless America."
(Ellis Island is where the Statue of Liberty is. I was the harborr where persons disembarked from ships to pass through Customs before entering America.)
Land Of Six Peoples
"One People, one Nation with one Destiny";
The voices of six peoples ring out!
A heritage of great repute,
Customs, traditions and cultures so rich,
The Almighty allowed six peoples to evolve!
Six peoples evolved from a
Mixture of cultures enmeshing
The diverse traditions from the diaspora,
Across many seas.
Passed down from the hands of
The Spanish, French, Dutch and British,
The country's heritage is compacted
With lusty multi-ethnic views!
Put together over time, we get -
Art, craft, dance, music sculpting, basket
-weaving and more.
When meshed, these are all showy displays
Of inner passions, interwoven by an
ancestral mix.
Food umbrellas the crave for eating -
Aloo, buns, cassava bread, curry, dahl,
Dumplng, fishcake, foo foo, greens
(vegetables),
Garlic pork,homemade bread, kanki,
Methai, roti, sweetbread, souse,
Black and white pudding.
Music itself is a fanfare for creative artistry,
In dance, theatrical shows, lyrics
and composing songs.
These echo on mountains, bellow in valleys,
and cause feet to stamp
From the Pakarimas to the Rorrhimas.
(These are the mountain ranges of Guyana. The Palarimas is where the longest One Drop Falls the world can be found.)
Evil Prophet
There was a megalomaniacal man,
his ministry in Indiana began,
a man whose heart was not so pure
and lead a most tragic event to occur.
His narcissistic personality,
hid many dark demons no-one could see,
he preached his followers to repent,
conned them out of money with evil intent.
He promised a tropical paradise
in a new country, without thinking twice
no-body labeled this preacher a fraud
believing he was a prophet of God.
The U.S. congress decided they would
follow-up rumors as best as they could
hearing of armed guards, beatings galore
attempts to escape and so much more.
An official committee was put into place
to observe the compound just in case
but they were gunned down beside their plane
this cult leader was truly insane
Arsenic in Kool-Aid or needle by choice,
"self-inflict", commanded his voice,
some tried to escape to the jungle in dread
either way they would wind up dead.
Jonestown, November ‘78
900 dead bodies were found on that date
the largest mass suicide to occur
The Jim Jones Guyana massacre.
Contest: Evil is Everywhere
July 1, 2016
I
retired from education, sharing with (not scaring)
OUR YOUTH
oblivious of persistent prejudice, labor migrant past piercing
the present
until i left America for South Africa, returning to Natal nativity,
COMPLEX TRUTH
missionary in Eastern Cape province, an elder of Newtown blurted:
"coolie man"
Yes, siblings, labels like "Hotnot, Coolie, kaffir" are rife, despite
LEGISLATION
II
A missionary, absent from South Africa for 15 years straight, no
VISITS
My life, wife, and children lived on America's East Coast then:
PROVIDENTIAL
Now, with a new family in my native land, I am stunned I'm The
"COOLIE"
Yes, it hurts. My ancestors came as virtual slaves on British ships:
LABOR MIGRATION
They may have worked as porters, "coolies" in India and China then:
PAST SINS
Continue in Nelson Mandela's South Africa, against "Hotnot and Coolie,"
STILL
Who made these words commonplace in so many places:
TRINIDAD, Jamaica, Guyana, Africa?
TRANSPORTATION, A POETRY LESSON OF HISTORY
Transplanted, unwittingly, an invasive plant
Transported – the ship itself – to foreign port
Far, far away from welcome, the known –
So far and foreign, I’d never own a home
Volunteering because tears are jeweled nothings
Often teaching, as I did in my own land; not reaching
Those infatuated with fears, violence, violenteering –
When not teaching, I land at a Crisis Center
Reaching now the people without face and place
Helping by using my ears twice as much
As my mouth. “I am here. What made you call tonight?”
No,not long-lost love line: best practice to break the ice!
Yes, making a difference, myself homeless and shiftless
A transplant, neither black, white, nor female – categories liked and known
Those like me, BEIC victim, “To Company’s tea plantations in Bengal,”
Was the lie unveiled in South Africa, Guyana, Fiji.Freedom Lover
still?
Congo man from Jamaica, deviant slave
Rudeboy, fall out of an Atlantic disaster
Imminent giver fruting the amber wave
Sometimes I see you at the Boston harbor
Pining at the shipless sea, it's an African agony.
Ultimately history tells your whipless role
Sweet like jazz and trumpet's symphony.
America heard the first shot echoed, the bold
Thundering around the world. It was a nervous act.
Truly defensive, based on a brutal fact
Unjust conditions would not bring you back
Calmly to plantations you bought your freedom from
Kings should kill for greater than a sip of rum
So fire your shot, follow old Bookman brave in the track.
Bookman too, with Accompong Maroon blood
Over the British slavemasters wield his wrath
Odious to them was shipped across the flood
Kingly to Guyana to carve black freedom's path.
Mentor of Touissant when shipped again
Away from his revolution to cut Haiti's cane
Native, Afro-Jamaican, he changed world history.
Cudjoe missed you bookman when you were gone
Unto him my grandfather great swam back again
Diving overboard, hands carving in water of dawn
Jubilee on a machete through the Cockpit terrain
O Cudjoe, the bushes still whisper sweetly your name
Eternal freedom giver from whom Crispus came