the time to kill us is coming
the bitch of bloodlust is in the heat of its kind
to proof mark the territory line, to soak it fresh
[if it must be]:
red with out tearing blood
white with our ramming bones
blue black with our searing skin
this is a rule of invaders[dem all behave so]
to teach us a lesson
to sanitize its dividing line
to frighten us[like ethnic cleansing
of any kind is never far off, for rulers dem all behave so]
to push us back&turn us around, from passing free
in any which way to&from our living succession,
even when undeclared as we are
in our very own state of ways.
i mussa been stuttering foolishness all along,
courting ‘in the castle of your skin’
calling out our gale name&full claim
but what do i know ‘bout dis&how ‘t wuk—
while the beast of ways
assailing the borders of our fraternity,
since the partition signed us up
as property to be shared&breed with blows,
is getting hungry&hungrier for the sacrifice?
what ‘good trouble’ could come of this if it is bound
to keep up? to come from whenever,
from which ever side, from now on?
what to do
in these last few days of pandemic&protest where i find
myself in dread ... ?
what if my son-of-enough, refuses to yield under the eave
of Diamond Estate?
what if that spitfire-giol daughter-ah-moine ram ‘cross
the road?
ahl yo’ look meh chil’ren nah ... nailed&shreddedþ
pieces at the border, mined with historical intent&intently
occupied.
it is in these last few days i turn back from the outlandish
frontier of losing myself, from where i would not be in dread
of praying the old prayers:
“Functionnaire ouv’ve baye pou’ moin passe!”
(“jGuardia abre la verja y dejame entrar!”)
(“Guard, open the gate for me to enter!”) my sweet land,
come to me #borderless
from north to south i see no full compliment
no one-clasp of hands forming the fist of fusion
of all my voted emissaries; they’re not parting the pretext sea
with the science of the world
and the reason we have lived here
seasoned by this land of salt.
i see people gathering though, always in a trickle first some
marchers, fifteen doctors, a teacher or two, a mother, always
a mother because a mother is woman, children crying to go
school, a citizen journalist who is a father, because a father is
a man, a unionist who wears his boots just cause in case, a
pregnant poet wailing against walls the unity flag flying up
the other day winking in the wind like the charles borromeo
poem)
‘causin when you raise a flag like tha’ one you want your
land outta another man hand #borderless
we are left alone by we oan self.
who we voted in are not permitted to speak out.
not ever for us as one, not ever in the colonial keep.
and they are not all vetted to this battle of the bigger bram
but across the frontier divide,
under where our full name&navel string abide
a prickle of people take to hill trails
the shush of a child disturbs the bush that had been
beaten to a jumbie sleep by slave and smuggler)
so what else can we do?
stand shoulder-to-shoulder?
like a gum tree-line of sound silence soldering from cole bay to st. james?
[what if all we want is to pass in peace?]
how many will muster in fellowship now
to hold the line, open it each time ‘t come
when dem close it down our bawlin’ throat, again&again
to choke us off once&for all?
what else to do
as the pale pretext thing mounting how ‘t be mounting
since when the partition is a division? from south to
north, look how long ‘t mounting? as long a lingeh time
as we stay frayed&fretting, staying under the hand of
dem man dem who rule the borderlines[from near&far]
and we are forbidden to pass free any which way to be
left to we own one self
and the bitch of bloodlust
is in the heat of its kind
its gun-cock poking us
the compact is signed, unto its kind ...