In Paramaribo
I met a girl, half Indian and beautiful
there was a big church and a castle
to defend Dutch interest
A hot and swampy place, which I liked
coming from Norway, a cold country
with a poor working- class who sent
their sons to join the merchant marine
The housing estate in Paramaribo
consisted, mostly of shacks, among
romantic palms
Had I married the girl and settled
I would have been a beneficiary of
the promised oil wealth
As it is, as a Norwegian, I get a pension
so mean, I have to live in Portugal
because the rulers put the wealth in
sovereign fund for a future that
appears to be at the threshold of a war
Categories:
paramaribo, 3rd grade, beautiful, birth,
Form: Free verse
When still a child
I learned that plantation colony was belonging
to my father, the one who brought my mother
from the Dutch East Indies,
and the one whom he loved full in rage.
I was a small *****, beautiful, fat, and disabled,
helping her as far as the porch
along its edge where I now walk
what silence reigns among them!
I remember when slavery in Suriname was abolished
by the Netherlands in 1863, but my mother
was not fully released her love toward my father
until I grew as a star,
and I remember, back there, in Paramaribo,
along the its outskirt where I now walk
what silence reigns among them!
Still I remember.
Categories:
paramaribo, freedom,
Form: Free verse