Best Placeschildren Poems
Our tree,
Just off the highway,
Where the children hid,
Was a happy place.
We ran. We sang.
We had games to play.
Our fortress,
Our tree,
Our hideout
From monsters and parents,
And sometimes, our friends.
But the children ran.
The monsters forcing them away.
So greed could take their place.
The liars and cheaters
On the left.
The crackheads and thieves
Below.
And me,
On my top right corner,
All alone.
It was never a haven.
Now, not even a home.
Memories soak the walls.
And the ghosts through me out.
Now I can sleep without
Fear of the screaming
And glass crashing, yet...
I miss the laughter.
And the games.
And the tree where
The children hid,
From the problems
And the thinking,
That the landlord took
Away.
Africa…. Just the mention of her name creates a range of mixed feelings
Feelings of joy, disappointment and rage, leave me baffled, exhausted!
So vast and beautiful is this land blessed with amazing contrasts
From her people that range in colors, blue black to creamy white
From the snow covered peaks of Mt Kilimanjaro
To the golden hued savannahs,
From the fertile valleys of her plains
To jungles and rivers teeming with life; her expanding desert devouring the land
You once were so full of promise, now you're like a left over meal
Best of which the masters have eaten, now only scraps and bones remain
Your children still go hungry and the strong fight over crumbs
The mighty rule with guns and tanks; the weak, out of fear, recoil
Incredibly, riches still abound, and yet, your children are denied
No longer by slave masters on ships from abroad
But by native sons dressed in military garb
Who will redeem you Mother Africa?
Will your sons ever put you first?
Perhaps it’s time you rewrite your history
Elevate your daughters instead?
*This dedication to Africa comes from my heart with love..the original birthplace of half my
ancestors.
Other children wanted to see
Kingston with its bright lights and teeming markets
The contentious noise of cars, and loud rackets
Of tongues tattlering their glee
To watch the shrewd bargains at the finger tips
The clever hands, and the lissom swaying hips
Not I, the wind across the lea
For each season was school was done, we blown
Like mangoes from the trees, had destiny our own
And I yearned for a city
Different, where the houses are perched on rocks
Like one legged cranes, and the banana ship docks
And mento music decree
The swagger and the mood. Like a vulture's flock
My mother's leaning, held sway with pile and stock
On cliff face beyond the sea
Across the nervous bridge and there the Chinese shop
My civilization's edge, and there all bondage stop
For we were poor and free
What knew my father, with all his fancy pedigree
Of this world, he would be too appalled for me
His ethics such a bore to me
This was my Canterbury, my boyhood freedom, my
Only place where children slept and never did sigh.
And there each summer I
Like the sea tides sigh
With my heart kept faith to see my mother, dear
The flower of my eye
My oasis in the dry
Under the toll of the city's awful wear
Other children did cry
But O never, not I
As long as mother climbed the hill, I's be there still
Her, black, and patient face
Above the rubble's waste
Modeling for me, the power of the human will.
Do the guns still stand there
Where my scout troupe met
Menacing the sea with old fear
Recalling an era of regret.
Do they still tell yarns of ships
Shooting stray canons wide
Over Lucea, and do the lips
Of children hunger at fireside
Where the canon knocks pot off
Expecting inocense to laugh.
Do children know the meaning yet
Of those guns, the history
Their presence through us beget
The dark trade of memory?
I use to ride them as a child
In fondness for their presence there
But now my soul sad recoiled
From the whipppng winds and tear
The children trembling on the deck
Before the cruel balls, a speck.
History ignites memory with grief
While the evening sun across the sea
In sleep alone promises relief
From the log armada of agony
Those guns are impotent today
And so is Africa, and so are we
No gall the sleep can wash away
Ten thousand voices crying in the sea
And the old Fort a tourist attraction
Stands innocent in their attention.