SHORTLISTED
IDE THOMPSON
Ballad of St. Lazzar, Jonsa of Boyd Road and He Nine Angel
Take up your walking cane and follow St. Lazzy,
Oh take up your walking cane and come follow
Brother Lazzy, don’t mind what your preacher
say, if you hear him groaning, go and follow
St. Lazzy, e’ get you through.
Oh, old Lazzy, were it that you really
really dead, or just covered in sore,
covered in the grey-ash, a whiteness
covered over ya head where the shekinah was to be mounted
covered and unable to be enthroned
covered and unable to see for your voyage
Blessed Jonsa of Lazzar, oh Saint Resurrector
Shipwright of all these scuttle vessel
Master shipwright of this carenage
of islands, throne of the silver tongue,
beat a drum in these small hours,
beat your rhythm good.
Oh Brother Lazzy,
with your 9 divine
potcake that follow in your wake
we sing they name
Big Dog and Little Dog: that does lick we wounds for healing,
Blacky and White-White: who does scare the sickness from we door,
Milo and Dori: for remembering the dead,
Three leg and No-eye: they bless we broken body and
Precious: to guide us gently, on we last travel home.
this is how you teach us to live:
drinking from the pump by St. Francis & Joseph,
picking mango and seagrapes on Poitier Ave,
washing weself in the old gully in the bush,
begging alms from Dirties and the Bush Cook,
napping under the poinciana tree on the hill.
Oh my Lazzy, Sweet Brother Lazzy
patron of these road walkers
keepers of we bad-knee, stiff-leg, dim-eye people
Oh Holy Watcher over the infirm, Papa Lazzy,
Papa Leggba, silver on your head like rope
thick and hanging Old Man’s Beard
in the trees stretching to the everlasting
life of the resurrection in these bodies.
