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(no subject)
Apr. 4th, 2011 08:00 amWe all saw how the pages yellowed slowly,
the ink not as dark, not as true, we doubted
like all things material.
She made a paper plane out of it
because the structure becomes stronger when more convoluted
and sailed it into the sky
where it remains,
upheld by the winds and rains
and the clarity of blue.
the ink not as dark, not as true, we doubted
like all things material.
She made a paper plane out of it
because the structure becomes stronger when more convoluted
and sailed it into the sky
where it remains,
upheld by the winds and rains
and the clarity of blue.
(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2010 08:15 amThe avocado tree has termites, mom said. These were what she called subterranean termites, burrowing deep underground, eating at everything, even concrete. At least in my young mind I envisioned them as millions of tiny nanobot destroyers, and I would wake up one day with an arm or leg chewed off. I remember accidentally knocking the top of my closet and it caved right in; hollow. Inside were the creatures, nondescript, lightly coloured things, fat, with a sheen. They had found their way from hell right into my bedroom. Nothing was safe. I became obsessed and followed the termite trail along the cupboard corners, the wall, down to the floor and out the back window where it wound away to a nest I imagined, under the house. I took mom's termite spray and doused the cupboard, the walls, the corners and ceilings. I was 10. I imagined them on my body and had trouble sleeping.
(no subject)
Aug. 25th, 2010 10:03 amThe old lighthouse stands at the border between the civilised and wild in the island. It marks the southern border of the little dusty capital, looking over a dark and muddy bay, with the poor mired along the coast in huts, clothes on lines dancing. The lighthouse is painted white and red, small, with claustrophobic and winding stairs. After the lighthouse there were no country clubs or yacht clubs, no cocktail evenings or company barbeques. Although at most a 2-hour drive, going past the lighthouse was an excursion. You announced that you were "Going South", and you prepared as for a long journey. Past the lighthouse were the cane fields and houses of poor people, labourers. And also the rich whose ancestors employed them and now they were making money from oil. Now, south of the island are miles of hot dusty roads and dirty hot roadside cafes. From a journey south you are always drained and tired. Southerners are cheaper and the beers from south are cheaper. People are murdered there, girls are kidnapped there. They take them into the cane fields and leave them there. No sugar production now but the cane remains.
Immediately after the lighthouse is the dirty fishy market on the left where I was almost lost as a child once when I let go of my mother's hand. On the right are the business headquarters for our local oil company, and the mud huts and storage warehouses. After that is just the ghetto, which was hidden behind a high wall for the Commonwealth convention when Obama visited. As if no one knew they were there. And after that, nothing, nothing, nothing. Bush and farms, and bush, and small roti shops, rum shops. Rank vegetating nothing. Along the highway are the villages, the Bamboo where stolen car parts are sold and the markets with root provisions and strange vegetables. Further east is the University and a different aristocracy, an East Indian one.
South of the lighthouse are the three hills Columbus saw when he sailed into view and brought death to the Amerindians, and seeing them, with the certainty of a European he named us, La Trinidad.
Immediately after the lighthouse is the dirty fishy market on the left where I was almost lost as a child once when I let go of my mother's hand. On the right are the business headquarters for our local oil company, and the mud huts and storage warehouses. After that is just the ghetto, which was hidden behind a high wall for the Commonwealth convention when Obama visited. As if no one knew they were there. And after that, nothing, nothing, nothing. Bush and farms, and bush, and small roti shops, rum shops. Rank vegetating nothing. Along the highway are the villages, the Bamboo where stolen car parts are sold and the markets with root provisions and strange vegetables. Further east is the University and a different aristocracy, an East Indian one.
South of the lighthouse are the three hills Columbus saw when he sailed into view and brought death to the Amerindians, and seeing them, with the certainty of a European he named us, La Trinidad.
(no subject)
Feb. 16th, 2010 10:41 pmMy grandfather is
part Amerindian, part Spanish, part Portuguese,
made of the blood of sailors and farmers.
He drinks strong coffee every morning
and rum on weekends.
He wears a cheap shirt and knitted cap
in the picture. He is pointing
away across a vale of forest
and sunlight falls on him and his outstretched arm,
illuminating his dingy shirt and cap and
the machete strapped to his shoulder
his face, I know, is brown and lined
he is looking away across the forest
but I can see him.
part Amerindian, part Spanish, part Portuguese,
made of the blood of sailors and farmers.
He drinks strong coffee every morning
and rum on weekends.
He wears a cheap shirt and knitted cap
in the picture. He is pointing
away across a vale of forest
and sunlight falls on him and his outstretched arm,
illuminating his dingy shirt and cap and
the machete strapped to his shoulder
his face, I know, is brown and lined
he is looking away across the forest
but I can see him.
(no subject)
Feb. 14th, 2010 11:33 amI know what it is now. I know why people age. You’re 17 right, you’re sitting on your porch step, doing nothing special, talking on the phone with your girl about the party later that night. You’re talking about what you’ll wear because you don’t have a job, you’re still in school, you don’t even know if your mother will let you go and you may have to sneak out. Those things are inconsequential, the key things here are:
- You’re not aware, as you sit, of your knees smooth and tanned, and legs all curvy lines and fresh skin, perched over dirt and grass by the back step
- or your tattered shirt, arms and shoulders poking out like smooth young twigs
- You’re not thinking about the future, at all
You don’t think about it because you just know it will be glorious, it is written, it is a given. You are aware of your body young and lithe and powerful, you stare back at a face smooth and seamless in the mirror, you apply shimmer over your face and neck and gleam in the light like a goddess. The sun shines only for you and the wind blows over you just so, and when you’re hungover the next day it’s just part of it.
And slowly as years pass you’re aware of some kind of waxing and waning, some kind of build up, like a clogged sink. You’re the same as you always were but somehow things aren’t so pretty, including you. You look the same but you feel different. You begin to look backward instead of pacing forward. You’re afraid of looking at yourself because you can’t see beyond but you have a feeling it might be dark.
Here is where you become, instead of thinking of things to come. Here is where you stand. Instead of rushing forward or looking back assume yourself and, so positioned, survey your surroundings from this summit because this is where you have been heading all along. Believe.
- You’re not aware, as you sit, of your knees smooth and tanned, and legs all curvy lines and fresh skin, perched over dirt and grass by the back step
- or your tattered shirt, arms and shoulders poking out like smooth young twigs
- You’re not thinking about the future, at all
You don’t think about it because you just know it will be glorious, it is written, it is a given. You are aware of your body young and lithe and powerful, you stare back at a face smooth and seamless in the mirror, you apply shimmer over your face and neck and gleam in the light like a goddess. The sun shines only for you and the wind blows over you just so, and when you’re hungover the next day it’s just part of it.
And slowly as years pass you’re aware of some kind of waxing and waning, some kind of build up, like a clogged sink. You’re the same as you always were but somehow things aren’t so pretty, including you. You look the same but you feel different. You begin to look backward instead of pacing forward. You’re afraid of looking at yourself because you can’t see beyond but you have a feeling it might be dark.
Here is where you become, instead of thinking of things to come. Here is where you stand. Instead of rushing forward or looking back assume yourself and, so positioned, survey your surroundings from this summit because this is where you have been heading all along. Believe.
(no subject)
Feb. 1st, 2010 10:48 amMaracas Beach stretched out like it does, powdered white sand, green waves, midnight blue in the distance. In the summer of that year I went with Keith to the annual swim meet across the bay. He wore his bright green Speedos and I went over to the shark-and-bake huts quickly to escape him. The event was one the upper echelons attended and in which their children competed. In this you saw how separate we were from the rest of the island. I came with my friends; we didn’t come with parents. Instead Laura made her boyfriend drive us and we watched the swimmers come ashore dripping in the sun, embarrassed, tired. Parents threw towels on them and they stood around with fellow swimmers, touching the numbers on their chests, looking at the water with respect. The winners would be the ones chosen for the national teams. They all went hand in hand here; the school, the scholarships, the national teams, the prominence, the networking. Most times they just left for other places and never returned. I stood there with Laura and Shara, feeling the sun on my bony 15-year-old back, staring at the water. It looked cold but I waded slowly in, allowing bits to acclimatise, gasping as it touched between thighs, continuing until I was drifting, fighting currents and diving under curling green monster waves. Swimming out further beyond the breakers we rose on bright green swells, young legs suspended, looking down on the stretch of beach in the sunlight as we laughed and laughed.
Under a wave there is silence and noise all at once, tossed in swirling sand and pushing you down. Once I was pummeled by a wave and dashed chin first onto the sea floor, grazing chin and tumbling into a foaming churning mass, not knowing which way was up and running out of air as my body was curled and shoved. You rise, gasping, to see another merciless wave crashing over you and sometimes there is real fear that there in the ocean, standing next to friends in the sun, you could drown, it could happen. From where you are the shore looks so far away and danger so close to you. Sometimes you can’t think about retreat, surrounded by currents you daren’t turn your back on them; all you can do is face wave after wave, diving deep under the trouble, below where all is dark and quiet, cloudy, holding breaths until there is a lull and you retreat, quickly in jumps, and safe on the sand you forget how bad it was, how scared you were, and you laugh. Maracas is known as the most popular beach in Trinidad. It is the Sunday hangout for Trinidad’s suburbia, along with the other north coast beaches. As a child when returning from a day at the beach I would lie motionless on my bed and still feel the swell of the ocean, still surging with some imaginary tide. I would empty the sand from my swimsuit, powdery white, and wriggle toes into them gleefully as evidence I hadn’t imagined it.
Under a wave there is silence and noise all at once, tossed in swirling sand and pushing you down. Once I was pummeled by a wave and dashed chin first onto the sea floor, grazing chin and tumbling into a foaming churning mass, not knowing which way was up and running out of air as my body was curled and shoved. You rise, gasping, to see another merciless wave crashing over you and sometimes there is real fear that there in the ocean, standing next to friends in the sun, you could drown, it could happen. From where you are the shore looks so far away and danger so close to you. Sometimes you can’t think about retreat, surrounded by currents you daren’t turn your back on them; all you can do is face wave after wave, diving deep under the trouble, below where all is dark and quiet, cloudy, holding breaths until there is a lull and you retreat, quickly in jumps, and safe on the sand you forget how bad it was, how scared you were, and you laugh. Maracas is known as the most popular beach in Trinidad. It is the Sunday hangout for Trinidad’s suburbia, along with the other north coast beaches. As a child when returning from a day at the beach I would lie motionless on my bed and still feel the swell of the ocean, still surging with some imaginary tide. I would empty the sand from my swimsuit, powdery white, and wriggle toes into them gleefully as evidence I hadn’t imagined it.
(no subject)
Jan. 28th, 2010 05:41 pmThere was one big thing that happened to our island in the old days before cell phones and cable TV, before the recession, before the Third War. We had a coup d’état, I use the French to sound savvy but really what it was was a Muslim sect called Muslimeen, run by a shrewd man called Mohammed, who used his name to sound more powerful than he really was. The Muslimeen attacked our Parliament and our only television station and we all hid in our homes until the Americans came and freed us. I remember watching the movie The Little Mermaid over and over, intermittently interrupted by this man in a skull cap who talked about things like freedom and rights. I’d enjoyed the movie but wondered what it was about. My parents talked about queuing outside Santa Anna’s grocery store in Woodbrook and having to lie flat on the pavement after hearing gunshots but they sounded excited and only a little scared. Anyway Mohammed was caught but pardoned because he’d allowed Members of Parliament to escape unharmed. His sect still lives now in some reconstructed marshlands just outside the city.
This year of even numbers says all will be reconciled
Yet today there is a north-easterly wind;
the trades blow south
into palm trees and rum and blinding sun.
Years ago pirates moved for good,
they forgot the cold cities and chose
hot flesh and madness and disappeared but
there in the islands
you’ll find someone, brown skin and eyes
like oceans and you’ll see
how like the wind we are.
(no subject)
Dec. 22nd, 2009 04:51 pmSo much snow falling in pillowy cold piles everywhere. The birds have stopped screeching, I suppose they are sheltering somewhere. I'm going out like an Eskimo in my snow boots later and puffy coat to plunge through snow drifts and press snowball-shapes into my hands and throw them at nothing, because there's no one here. D is offshore for Christmas.
