Anthony Joseph

my father has four flags planted at the side of his house.
secret colours.
he would not name them.
he say he been to china, see buddha sit on a throne,
he in a group looking up : at buddha.
he say buddha take a chillum from his waistband, lit it
and suckt it.
then the pipe pass around everyone in the circle.
buddha call - "al - bot!"
an' albert had to pass between guards on both sides had swords
and kneel down.
an' buddha put a bead necklace round his neck and say,
"i give you gift, you give no one."
he say in the spirit world everything have life,
he say he speaks to trees and animals,
say he seen jumbie with caduceus upon dem head,
say he been to the bottom of the sea/been standing on the guinea coast
and two african man come out of the sea and say,
"ai you, you eh see you naked?"
and they took him by both hands and into the water
and washed him.
then give him a gown - half yellow half brown - an' one say
"let this be your shield, this word be your sword"
and with this they transferred secret syllables to his ear.
he say then one take a dagger
an' chook 'im in he waist/but the blade
would not penetrate the gown. he say,
"boy sometimes I jus' drink two guinness,
go kick back an' meditate. when I ketch myself i find myself
in ethiopia someway."
and then he shows me the necklace
between his shirt.

my father stands, fixes his brim - pours cold coffee dripping in the calabash root
and leaves/uphill to bathe
in cold water
but falls asleep face down in his bachelor bed, still in his string vest,
drawers and argyle socks, cradling a bottle of duty free rum

and the sea blows up
from the horizon
...

Witness this pure liquid text
spun from fragments of genetic memory.
Earth long. Vintage Caribbean gold. Of ancient ïere
before the flood.
Remember when cocoa panyol grease was as thick as earwax?
And dead eye jumbies hung like mannequins
by strands of cobwebbed sadness
over negroes brisk grinnin', lindy hoppin' to naked island jazz
in tenement discoteks?
Busy rubbin' thigh to bone'n bonin' broko-foot mattress makers
in pumpenginejitneys.
'member when in seablast an' salty bars on the plaza marina
hairy toothed slum lizards washed their hands in turpentine?
And switched blades to bleed.
And pimps did bump all year but in February
They'd pawn their jewels for sailor mas or sequinned spears
to hunt Nile crocodile
on the sun bleached streets of old ïere city?
Rem'ber when mama wrapt navel string in Bacano leaf
and buried it under
a guava tree.
And sealed the belly
with a knot.
And sealed the knot
with crushed insect bone.
When al green shivered then moaned, 'cause Mr Champ
was on the deck.
Well was to see them spirit rise!
from the steaming bush to dance.
And more cousins keep comin' over the hills with flambeau blazing
for babash rum
and brown chicken rice.
Remember when scarfaced pan men carried machetes
under their fingernails and sharpened bones with quadraphonic steel. It was still tribe against tribe when the steelbands clasht -
and blood, bile, phlegm and rum
would run through alleys and gutters, through ravines steep with
pantywash and afterbirth tissue,
dragging trampled masks and broken headpieces, slits of glitter -
to the river.
And now only the river remembers when
Cariban Indian first cartographed this land
and called her

(((( ïeré ))))
...