Book Read Free

Peelin Orange

Page 7

by Mervyn; Morris


  In the bookshop

  and in his kitchen

  he seemed the same

  warm presence, quietly sharing

  data, recommending things

  to read, acknowledging

  so much that others did not

  deem progressive.

  His instinct to include

  attracted cultural allies

  whose revolutionary impulses

  they themselves disclaimed

  at first, before they understood.

  NURSERY

  Everyone suddenly burst out screaming

  and hurling plastic building-blocks;

  the room was a riot of colour.

  Did that autistic child have duller

  things in mind, hugging his little box

  of bricks and quietly beaming?

  CASE HISTORY, JAMAICA

  In 19-something X was born

  in Jubilee Hospital, howling, black.

  In 19- (any date plus four)

  X went out to school.

  They showed him pretty pictures

  of his Queen.

  When he was seven, in elementary school,

  he asked what naygas were.

  In secondary school he knew.

  He asked in History one day

  where slaves came from.

  ‘Oh, Africa,’ the master said.

  ‘Get on with your work.’

  Up at the university he didn’t find himself;

  and, months before he finally dropped out,

  would ramble round the campus late at night

  and daub his blackness on the walls.

  BRIEF

  Your dark eye is a prism

  to reflect

  the new world in its glass?

  Shatter that rass

  and roam

  the darker continent

  inside.

  CABAL

  Dem beg him, beg him, till dem sick

  an tired – him wouldn sign him name

  to what de most a dem waan lick

  de opposition with. Him seh, ‘Same

  knife stick sheep stick goat,’ an walk

  out of de room. De big-man bus

  a funny laugh. Nobody never talk

  to him like dat. Him seh, ‘Trust

  me, eediot mus learn.’ So, first of all,

  we kick de eediot out de group. An den

  we start de rumour seh him bawl

  fi mercy when we check de books again –

  yuh never know him tief? Yes, man, tief

  like puss, unless yuh watchin him! An now

  dat him expose, pure grief

  to get another job. Him shoulda bow!

  Me scratch your back, you scratch mine;

  but if yuh tun traitor yuh must pay.

  Dyamn fool! De eediot bwoy was tryin

  to block de road. We move him out de way.

  POLITICIAN NIGHTMARE

  I’m in a meeting

  sorting out

  an everlasting list

  of supplicants

  and suddenly

  I’m flying

  low

  above the city

  and a mob

  is reaching up

  trying to drag me down

  AFRO-SAXON

  I

  Another friend arraigns me:

  too detached, he says,

  absurdly free

  of all the ways of feeling

  true blacks, as a rule,

  now share: Be funky, brother,

  or be cool!

  Okay. Though blackness isn’t new

  to me: ten, fifteen years ago

  I didn’t need

  a uniform, my skin would do:

  but I am learning, brother;

  I’ll succeed …

  II

  He never made it. Thoughtinspectors,

  quivering at the sight

  of an Afro-Saxon on the road

  towards the border, caught

  him sneaking into

  Blackness, radioed:

  Don’t let that nigger fool you, he is White!

  THE HOUSE SLAVE

  A drum thumps, faraway;

  around the lamp my tribe of blood

  are singing brothers home.

  But soon that central fire will rage

  too harsh for relics of the whip:

  they’ll burn this building,

  fire these books, this art.

  And these are my rooms now:

  my pallid masters fled,

  fleeing the only home I knew.

  I’ll stay another night,

  sounding my tutored terror of the dark.

  I AM THE MAN

  I am the man that build his house on shit

  I am the man that watch you bulldoze it

  I am the man of no fixed address

  Follow me now

  I am the man that have no job

  I am the man that have no vote

  I am the man that have no voice

  Hear me now

  I am the man that have no name

  I am the man that have no home

  I am the man that have no hope

  Nothing is mine

  I am the man that file the knife

  I am the man that make the bomb

  I am the man that grab the gun

  Study me now

  FOR 1865

  We hear you

  bawling justice

  justice

  we want justice

  echoing

  a century

  and a half

  into the TV news

  The killing time

  has lingered

  like a dump on fire

  like the cries

  of grieving

  like the hegemonic

  stench

  of army

  and police

  destroying

  in the name

  of peace

  and order

  ADVISORY

  They praise you for commitment,

  your positive approach

  to the whole heap o’ problems

  people broach.

  Have fun being chatted-up,

  but don’t buy in-

  to any sweet-mouth programme.

  Do your own thing.

  Remind them you’re committed

  to the line

  that saying what you feel

  is fine,

  positive or negative

  or in-between.

  Don’t let anybody

  lock you in.

  CATCH A NIGGER

  At home with his creative curse

  he lived inside; and (what was worse)

  declined to share the public strain.

  His beat was individual pain.

  The censors grew more angry and more loud:

  how dare he set himself outside the crowd?

  ‘The times are critical. You’re either for

  or you’re against us. This is war!’

  And then a man with an enormous head

  assaulted him. The victim bled

  outside, in open view. Perhaps the pack

  would sniff his blood and classify it black?

  ‘Fee fi fo fum,

  When you perform, our god is dumb;

  Eeny meeny miney mo,

  You’re a Nigger Minstrel Show!’

  He stanched the public wound, and bled

  inside again. His blood was red.

  FOR CONSCIOUSNESS

  Ol’ plantation wither,

  factory close down,

  brothers of de country

  raisin’ Cain in town.

  An’ now dem in de city

  sweatin’ blood dem fin’

  is jus’ like de same system

  dem mean to lef’ behin’:

  but agents of de owners-dem

  is harder now to sight –

  plenty busha doan ride horse

  an’ some doan
t’ink dem white.

  In de new plantation story

  firs’ t’ing dat have to know

  is who an’ who to tackle

  when de call to battle blow.

  TO AN EXPATRIATE FRIEND

  Colour meant nothing. Anyone

  who wanted help, had humour or was kind

  was brother to you; categories of skin

  were foreign; you were colour-blind.

  And then the revolution. Black

  and loud the horns of anger blew

  against the long oppression; sufferers

  cast off the precious values of the few.

  New powers re-enslaved us all:

  each person manacled in skin, in race.

  You could not wear your paid-up dues;

  the keen discriminators typed your face.

  The future darkening, you thought it time

  to say goodbye. It may be you were right.

  It hurt to see you go; but, more,

  it hurt to see you slowly going white.

  TO THE UNKNOWN NON-COMBATANT

  When the battle started

  he was quick to duck.

  He lay on his face in the open street

  cursing his luck.

  ‘Come join us!’ (voices from the left).

  ‘Come help us in the fight!’

  ‘Be honest with yourself; you’re ours,’

  said voices from the right.

  Meanwhile the bullets overhead

  were troubling him somewhat

  and buildings burning either side

  had made the middle hot.

  He thought perhaps he’d better choose.

  He crawled to join a side.

  A bullet clapped him in the neck –

  of course he died.

  They left him face-down in the dust,

  carcass going rotten.

  Bullets whistled overhead.

  He was forgotten.

  A POET OF THE PEOPLE

  The pressure of the public made it smart

  to turn away from ‘self-indulgent Art’.

  He found immediate applause inviting,

  and gave himself wholeheartedly to writing

  poems for the people, loud and clear.

  When people didn’t seem to care

  much whether he wrote well or not –

  how was nothing, everything was what –

  he changed his mind again. And so,

  thinking to have another go

  at ‘self-indulgent Art’, he turned

  towards the woman he had spurned,

  his ever-loving personal Muse,

  believing she could not refuse

  him. But she did. She left him there,

  writing for the people, loud and clear.

  NARCISSUS

  They’re lying; lying, all of them:

  he never loved his shadow.

  He saw it was another self

  and tried to wring its neck.

  Not love but murder on his mind,

  he grappled with the other man

  inside the lucid stream.

  Only the surface broke.

  Unblinking eyes

  came swimming back in view.

  At last he knew

  he never would

  destroy that other self.

  And knowing made him shrink.

  He shrank into a yellow-bellied flower.

  OMENS

  last night

  a dream of feasting

  today at noon

  a green limb broken

  in the wind

  GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

  The Great Majumboes

  (to the noise of drums)

  feign danger every show:

  vivid above the safety nets

  they swing.

  The Mighty Marvo cracks the whip:

  well-drugged tigers lumber into line.

  Between the tigers and the acrobats

  I do my act I

  sit on chairs that aren’t there

  I play for time

  (between the tigers and the acrobats)

  a dwarf

  who owns no whip

  and will not leave this ground.

  BEHIND THE CURTAIN

  Behind the curtain, when we knew

  the audience hadn’t come,

  the ugly mood of histrionic sorrow

  was broken by an actor playing dumb

  patrician: ‘Will the damn fools come tomorrow?’

  LIVING NEAR THE ZOO

  resentfully awake

  inside our bungalows

  we hear

  the cinematic roar of lions

  in their cages

  FABLE

  The grey beast, smiling,

  stretched a claw

  to draw the artist in;

  red with rage

  the artist turned and spat.

  ‘I cannot stand

  the grey beast

  with its coat and tie.

  Leave me

  to rear my roses

  shape opinions

  suffer books

  paint pictures

  love the people

  choose true friends.’

  The grey beast, placid, smiled.

  The artist,

  red with rage,

  fired arrows

  at the huge grey gut.

  The grey beast, mocking, smiled.

  And when the artist had the nerve

  to turn and ask for help

  the grey beast muttered sadly,

  ‘You despise me. Help yourself.’

  SOMETIMES

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘when it was hot as hell

  we’d go and capture scorpions for laughs,

  and dig a trench around a little circle

  in which we dumped the heap of them,

  and pour in kerosene and light a fire.

  Was fun to watch the devils fight,

  and burn to death in trying to escape.

  Scorpions are such beasts.’

  MEETING THE MAGE

  Charming, malicious, brilliant,

  you posed your aching heart upon your sleeve

  (yet so discreetly), breathing warm

  to those who loved your sunshine humour,

  passionate contempt, your well-turned

  praises, witty mimicry –

  oh, you were quite a boy, without conceit.

  Yet, though so often self-deflating,

  you held court all day long. I loved it.

  While I was there I loved it; but,

  free from that bright ambience,

  irony took hold.

  SATIRIST

  Satirical vision:

  bloodshot eyes

  darting derision,

  laughing at lies.

  When the eyes turn in

  will the dry mind grin?

  If the eyes talk true

  will the heart laugh too?

  If the eyes don’t lie

  will the dry mind cry?

  If the eyes go deep

  will the cold heart weep?

  DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

  after Edvard Munch

  Her partner is a skeleton.

  Does the waltzing beauty know

  that he will never let her go?

  He’ll have her when the dance is done.

  He’s put a bone between her legs.

  Her fleshy body begs

  for love, she holds him tight,

  her gigolo, her slave tonight!

  PRE-CARNIVAL PARTY

  after Jules Romains

  One evening in another town

  – a little before Carnival –

  a funny man with flies around

  him crashed into a bar.

  ‘Beauty-queen an’ sagaboy,’ he said,

  ‘dey posin’, but dey ain’ fool me:

  de one sure t’ing is all-yuh dead

  dis time nex’ century:

  ‘yuh lookin’
vague an’ sad like when

  yuh ain’ know what to-duh.

  Look alive! Before ah sen’

  De side fo’ yuh!’

  Reminded of the loyal flies

  buzzing round his face,

  the people quickened into life –

  jumped up and shook the place.

  On what it was that made us jump,

  injecting life into the fête,

  the pundits waver or are dumb.

  Was it the fear of flies or death?

  A WORD

  please to

  burn the body

  when i die

  & scatter

  ashes in the wind

  so there is nothing

  physical to focus on

  when i am gone

 

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