Drum 1

Bula

On May 22, 1938, the British House of Commons passed a resolution 1839 putting a stop to the system of apprenticed labourers, and on the memorable First of August that year the stain of slavery on the British escutcheon was wiped away by the proclamation of complete emancipation of all of the enslaved subjets of the Queen in the West Indies. The conduct of the liberated people in Grenada on that day was exemplary. They spent the early part of the day in their several churches, and then united in festive gathering, but there was no drunkenness or disorderly conduct.

SUNDAYS, CIRCA 1980's


B

There was Sunday mornings
Fireside, wood fire smoking
Yard fowl overnight in the pot cooking
Sunday morning
Cousin Veda dressing
Pulling up her stockings
The radio, Joseph Niles singing
Gospel music people tuned in

After the Revolution
Evolution slowly come in
The faithful stop church-going
Unfaithful, but still wanting a blessing
Waiting, demanding
Now the days are not the same again

Nah

Can't hear Cousin Dear Me
under the mango tree
So much love, so many darlings
The place overgrown
Now cows on the loose are the ones camping
Is a new- ism
Wireless express
Religion advertising
Catch Jesus on the wire
To wash away your sins
Log on
Log in
Ride the board bus
Or just walking

Father Anglican giving confirmation lessons and communion
New dispensation for the slave children
Take up the practice in profusion in the West by adoption
Not inheritance
Too late now to take the opposite stance
Sunday mornings are not the same
Again


U


DIS GENERATION
A livication to "Nyah Keith"

'Dis generation is one of scorch and burn
Fire!
When they done everything brown down
Give dem a few and then look back to see the mark
Ashes and stubble, no road, no track
Dis generation of millennials from the millennium
They don't care about knowledge or old time wisdom
Who is prime minister of St.Kitts and Nevis?
How and when did the breadfruit reach Kingstown?
Make it worse, they don't teach the revolution- Haitian or Grenadian.
Just cash and flash, give them in hand
They despise the land; they'll weed the grass with dot.com

Dis generation
Interested in wholesale of land
Don't care for grandparents; forget great, great, and if they eat their
spit to keep intact the bound stone. 'For sale. For sale. Come one. All
come.'

They come and meet it; it's not ours to keep. Just ah gift. Why you
selling it?
Wah man! Is a conflagration. Sweeping heat. Arson. Arsonists in
spirit. Ah look. Ah see it. You can't talk. You can't speak, to them.
Everything. They already know it. When? How could you learn as a
child if all your friend is children? Face de book. Read a new anthem.

"Cut yuh nails. Wash you hand. Grate the coconut. Wash you hands
again. Squeeze it. Three times darling. We want to get everything.
Come on. Wash you hand again. Burn you onion and garlic before
you put in de peas and let it simmer. When de pot done you food go
taste sweet." But you must be humble to learn. Respectful to older
ones and you will profit.

They want money in a hurry
Instant is instantly
But what you expect really?
Born under electric light is electricity
Ladjablès nuh dey; and no fear of de Almighty
Dis generation done reach way dey going ahready
Buy de board, get some nails, build de coffin; when they dead they
must get bury.

"I can't sell it, it doesn't belong to me. It's part of my heritage." The 6th
Duke of Westminster


L

'Welcome home Wimpey'
Was introduced to Jeffrey on a yellow tee
Somewhere in the region of a year after 1983

He thought it was a story of a pussy;
Not a mascot or letterhead for some company

The things we see, the things we think
The things we imagine, assume we know
While totally disconnected on a far-shore

Can wash up a beach we translate
Near us with a message not really meant for us

Like a cat on a yellow t-shirt
'Welcome home Wimpey'


A

I

If OUR society can be so petty, so narrow
To blossom OUR sorrow
WE end up like WE don't know
WE are related to the people
Who auctioned off St.Louis and portions of Bogles

Conversation in the cemetery
Can be like standing in a market beside the seashore
Oiled for sale like chattel
Depending on your point of view;
Don't be righteous, overly, like the ancient Pharisee
Do you know the pain of Dorothy
To see her three pickney sold like birds in one day?

'Sorry.
Your history lessons won't do
If WE sell what we inherit
And return to work for the people we sell to,
What business is it to you!
You have a different idea?
Who are you lecturing to?
Boy, you too little
A! A!'

Big men travel to the Big Apple
Yet still talking trifle
The longer WE are confined to 13 Square Mile mentality
The more WE get stifle
Not enough time the answers to know
Before WE resemble the ground we walking on and turn to nutton.


D

II

In the cemetery to bid another valediction-
When you dead ahready, you done
One thing left is get bury
You hear me?
Ah say,
'The sepulcher four feet deep instead of six!
And what of all the families scattered in it?'

You can cup a hand of sensimilli
Or ride high on stupidity
One man talking control trying to convince me
While Donny reasoning on life and its mystery
Job a pawn in a Universal game-play
We know so much yet steeped in superstition and ignore-apathy
We better find answers before we dead anyway
But if you been dead before, you just have to return to bury

Cousin of mine say I look like Sir Eric Gairy
Means nothing to me
A compliment? Maybe. As if I care?
If you have nothing to say then why go there?
Leh we enjoy mutton soup wid dumpling and drink some beer
Look at each other until we meet again in the cemetery
Next year?


R

I

So now that you know my history
Is the despisation tangible retribution
A symbol of the repay?

EH?

Now that you know my first dwelling was a shack
(In Sierra Leone what was the Hut Tax?)
Do you feel confident I don't deserve all that?
So you think it is ok
And then you spat!

WHAT?

But I'm not in shock
After I gave you the right of away
To come here,
Roam free from Tiboud to Tiblee
So you can tell me the trails you know intimately-
I have no idea;
Now you've acquired your desired
From me through familiarity
Your contempt
I reap every day?

YEAH!

I just wish I could say
It was that way in Philly
Atlanta, Minnesota, Chicago,
Your big cities
Or France, Italy and Germany

'Migrants' who discover
Land of Coo-coo and Okro
The...