Kei Miller
Here where blossom the orchids, two hundred
& twenty in variety. Some have adapted to bone
dry places, to being purple amongst the stone.
Monologue of a Garbage Heap in Havana
Jose Antonio Michelena
Today, I am 10 years old and I am still here, in the same place I was born and I continue with my life cycle: growing and shrinking, like almost all of my twin brothers and sisters in the city.
Continue reading “Monologue of a Garbage Heap in Havana”CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF OUTSIDE MEN
Amilcar Sanatan
We, the People of the Republic of Outside Men, observers of Nine Commandments, in Order to form a more perfect Union with another man’s wife, establish Just-us, insure domestic Bacchanal, provide for the common sense, promote the general Happiness and secure the Blessings of No One But Ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Republic of Outside Men.
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Gangster Paradise
Lisa-Anne Julien
I sure if I tell Mr and Mrs Honeyblossom ‘bout the time I find my mother hangin, them go think she swayin nice and easy from a hog mango tree in we front yard. In they mind, they seeing the cool Caribbean breeze causin the leaves — or as Mr Bethelmy, my English teacher at St Antony’s Junior Secondary used to say — the foliage, to brush she dark skin and get tangle up in she afro.
Continue reading “Gangster Paradise”Two Poems
Summer Edward
Gossip, from Albion Street
Continue reading “Two Poems”‘Gossip’ from the Old English godsibb, from God and sibb, meaning ‘relative.’ A godsibb was a godmother, godfather or sponsor; literally someone ‘related to one in God.’ In Middle English the term godsibb came to mean ‘any familiar acquaintance’, especially women invited to attend a birth. Later, during the sixteenth century the term changed to ‘gossip’ and took on the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, attending a birth, but also delighting in idle talk.
—Monica-Maria Stapelberg
From the Wilderness, with Love
Concerning Bucks and Bacchanal
Kei Miller
It was two weeks after Carnival was done and dusted away that the buck appeared. And I think that was bad manners. Or at least bad timing. But maybe good timing and manners is not something to be expected of ghoulish beings. The point is, Carnival was done and people say life had already come back to normal. Everything had come back, including the Christians who had gone to Tobago to hide out, and including Trinidad itself that had gone wherever it is that entire countries go – cause sometimes it could feel like that, like the island itself had just packed up and gone along with the Christians, and along with good behaviour, gone off somewhere to hunker down and keep safe during the Carnival week.
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