Poetry of Kamau Brathwaite: Calypso-gctid29062

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Calypso
 
     from "Islands and Exiles"
 
 1
 The stone had skidded arc'd and bloomed into islands:
 Cuba and San Domingo
 Jamaica and Puerto Rico
 Grenada Guadeloupe Bonaire
 
 curved stone hissed into reef
 wave teeth fanged into clay
 white splash flashed into spray
 Bathsheba Montego Bay
 
 bloom of the arcing summers...
 
 2
 The islands roared into green plantations
 ruled by silver sugar cane
 sweat and profit
 cutlass profit
 islands ruled by sugar cane
 
 And of course it was a wonderful time
 a profitable hospitable well-worth-you-time
 when captains carried receipts for rices
 letters spices wigs
 opera glasses swaggering asses
 debtors vices pigs
 
 O it was a wonderful time
 an elegant benevolent redolent time--
 and young Mrs. P.'s quick irrelevant crine
 at four o'clock in the morning...
 
 3
 But what of black Sam
 with the big splayed toes
 and the shoe black shiny skin?
 
 He carries bucketfulls of water
 'cause his Ma's just had another daughter.
 
 And what of John with the eureurasiaan name
 who went to school and dreamt of fame
 his boss one day called him a fool
 and the boss hadn't even been to school...
 
 4
 Steel drum steel drum
 hit the hot calypso dancing
 hot rum hot rum
 who goin' stop this bacchanalling?
 
 For we glance the banjoy
 dance the limbo
 grow our crops by maljo
 
 have loose morals
 gather corals
 father out neighbour's quarrels
 
 perhaps when they come
 with their cameras and straw
 hats:  sacred pink tourists from the frozen Nawth
 
 we should get down to those
 white beaches
 where if we don't wear breeches
 
 it becomes an island dance
 Some people doin' well
 while others are catchin' hell
 
 o the boss gave our Johnny the sack
 though we beg him please
 please to take 'im back
 
 so now the boy nigratin' overseas...
 
     from The Arrivants:  A New World Trilogy  (48-50)