Stay There
Child, as I throw you high up in the air I wish you remain suspended there like Trishanku* pinned to the heavens because the moment you fall down you shall become a boy then a man and both you and the...
View ArticleNames of Plants
I do not know the name of most of these plants and flowers growing here; but I know the croton sitting broad atop time-rusted branches lining the yard like a border. I know the Leaf of Life hidden in...
View ArticleThe Shell Collector
He comes to secluded rock pools and leaps from stone to stone with the poise of a rock wallaby. A shell sparkles from the seafloor, sending forth a beam of light, in a trice he dives into the deep, and...
View ArticleWatching & Waiting
Obedient daughters. Patient women. Compliant wives. Loving mothers. But see them alone: Their eyes Steal out to sea Dreaming the dreams They dare not speak, Whispering the hope They pray for their...
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Drown
. ••• Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné is a poet and artist from Trinidad. Her poetry has been featured in Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, The Caribbean Writer, Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, tongues...
View ArticleAt Grande Rivière
It’s been said the world rests on a turtle’s back. At Grande Rivière, sea opens under stillborn moon, the burden of creation shifts inside scarred casing. Dark eyes leak nebulae breath rasps with the...
View ArticleDevelopment
There’s a part of her that wants to keep it just so, Even as the sound of rushing water Competes with the groan of the backhoe Hard-hat at the controls, cutting A swath through the coast And the gate...
View ArticleEtiquette for Fine Young Cannibals
A woman walks into a bar and says What’s for dinner? The bartender says Ma’am, we don’t sell food here She kicks off her high heels and sits on a stool What about that bowl of cherries? You think I’m a...
View ArticleNear a Municipal Colony
The buildings seem to cough. The river is a single black lung. Shirtless men haul slabs of ice— I’m not sure if they are for the melon vendors down the road or for the bodies in the mortuary. A leper...
View ArticleThe Mirror Sea
The mirror sea that imitates our insides, sprays and froths, canine, rabies-shaken. In the cathedrals, churches, and temples, people pray, “Oh give us glass calm, glass calm and cool heads layered over...
View ArticleOrange
I’m a toddler in my favourite photo-morning sun splashes fair flying hair, I lean forward into camera’s eye, face a squinting grin, hold a fresh-picked orange in both hands as if it forms the center of...
View ArticleSnail Shell
I am the tough brittle outside and the soft missing inside….the shell’s eye where spiral begins its exuberant spin out to the world’s lip….foot….beach contained it stops…..opens to possibility, the...
View ArticleThe Ark
I never thought I’d be raped on New Year’s Day Least of all by you There’d only been one sparkly glass of wine A sad offering to the gods of bacchanal, but Entirely appropriate given our lengthy,...
View ArticleBraces
Orthodontist tightens bands that cinch your teeth, substitutes taut pink elastics for wilted green ones, your jaw remembers another hand clamped there, screams obliterated inside the clench of fingers...
View ArticleThe Goodbye
I am going where you cannot follow My thoughts have grown wings and burst from me in a flurry of unmanageable delight I am fat with eating ice cream I made only for me and happy to pay the piper with...
View ArticleEvent Horizon
Even when the ground seems steady, there is always a farewell in movement I know this because I know the landscape of my island And I have never been its cedar forest My rootedness tangles the soil...
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Happy Banana Tree
“Happy Banana Tree” by James Cooper ••• James Cooper: I am a maker more than I am a taker. I create or stage all of my images. This can range from subtle re-adjustments to made from scratch...
View ArticleSea Change
When did the blue sea creep into their veins and the distances stretch their ambition? Did they feel the ocean breathing for them under the murmur of their English rites? A slow shift and pull at the...
View ArticleThe Stream
Particles in a stream of consciousness Absorbent conductors infused as I float As it flows inside me and flows around me Animated only through the resistance of being Compelled at birth by the law of...
View ArticleUntitled (Bury me under a cedar tree…)
Bury me under a cedar tree On a rain swept winter’s day By the steps to the old church Where the living sing songs To the bones of the dead Have the young men carry My casket and lower it down But...
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