Sunday 31 March 2024

But, dusk...

 The slave

a true

 truly bad  poem.


The shortcut,  

 my rattly old honda 125

Back home....

Just once, risking life and limb

I had to

" Kathleen... listen, its late... maybe tonight he wont come back... 

something at home, or broken truck?

...can i give you a lift?" 


As dark  and  perfectly still

as the receding dusk

as, her holding on to me  as if

for her life,

or maybe a teddy bear she never had

As we rattled through the sugar cane fields, my old 

motorbike

Had at last,  the   perfect, delicate as bambi, black beauty  of the whole isle 

abord

Two humans, seperated by nothing

Me laughing at the divit ups and downs

As we scuttled 

the boat of everyone else

abandoned 

across the furrowed fields

the high walls of cane 

our perfect bordello screen, privacy

as impenetrable to gaze as if brick and mortar; immune to jealousy

And at last, even if i couldnt see her face

burrowed into my neck as  

vicegrip

her arms around my stomach 

i knew

 she was smiling


Months i had noticed, her curated gaze

only for him

day after, every day's

work

Into his waggon.

I couldnt say, of course

Him Rambo chested and 250 pounds

" its not slavery,  

in grained

even lack of money, whiteman boss

. ...as office manager hes quite  well paid...

 nothing from the 'intergeneratiomal trauma' past

...that makes him dress you in only his coquettery

his property

and ' one glance at her....shes mine! '

(as well as the wife)

and one word to  hertoo

you're dead, not just to me"

Never mind, on the wireless even at work,  every day

from a few Islands down, the splendid modern humanist  preacher,  Bob .. the  Marley

I did say, 

" thanks for letting me help...  ..long walk home,

and at last we speak, you are so lovely,  warm...months i knew that

but dont worry, i wont even remember, 

i know the score, he's dangerous and brutal

so you tell him, you got home,

 just fine, all alone"