Sewe Wangala (A Kalenda)

- first part -


Sewe wangala bondye ba-mwen, woy
(God, hide the wanga[1] for me)


robber man don’t get me
don’t blow me out down
town
down shantytown
ravine
wey they beat silver fish
and wabeen[2]
on the riverbank
on the riverbank.

we come like ripe
guava when it season
full it ripe
and it drop like
a 12 gauge shot that shatt-
er the rain soaked wings
of our mountain gods


young blood seep up on the sea and float foam
where my brother reel
reel so reel that the paddle broke
and tumble down
cliff and stony crocus bound
with the snakeskin mask and the kid-
nap bush hid in Orinoco navel string
robber man don’t lock my neck round
Piarco
airport roundabout.


island
is my
in-
stance
geographical
silence of my innermost

hide
the
ma
gic
for
me

Robber boy don’t make mud clog the tracks I cross river bank
don’t sell my eyes for sand puppet teeth
don’t seed my seppy for ransom
don’t brug my neck with fisherman’s twine
don’t scope my ruse with barbed river time
don’t fix my suffer with jumbie symposium
don’t grief my root with rumours of wounds

comecomecome
le we pounce on wild quenk and gouti
make we shuffle in the jungles
of port
of spain
le we
lime

spic and span a comin
spic and span mama
hide the magic
form.
e.


______________________
[1] magical fighting stick of a stickfighter
[2] a small ravine fish