Willow Walk

age of war

we tell ourselves so many foolish lies

about the past and who and what we are

reducing every symbol to a scar

and so becoming what we most despise

our only truths appear in deep disguise

as if reality has turned bizarre

or we had lost sight of our guiding star

and all the world become strange to our eyes

vision's enhanced by what we seem to fear

as bearing us right past the edge of pain

as what we learn is given proper shape

so much we find when no one else will hear

the honest word nor see what seems most plain

instead they moan that life is one more rape

back to the sea

the ocean is a being with grey teeth

what it has eaten everyone must learn

we see the smile and know what hides beneath

 

each of us has to take a painful turn

upon the oars in honour of old grief

yet in that setting finding what we earn

 

is less than we deserve and that so brief

a pain may serve as well the mark to sear

into each skin before we find relief

 

from chore and duty and learn to adhere

not only to the plain but to the hard

since nothing of our world could be more dear

 

than the one place we claim to be our yard

a coral finger a turtle of stone

with horrid memories it has been marred

 

and yet it is the only place we own

where rage and hatred turn into desire

and light exposes every broken bone

 

to show each hero that he is a liar

when he has promised an ending to night

since even truth must perish in the fire

 

for in these islands nothing comes out right

except the jokes and bullets from each gun

we get the heat and never find the light

 

but still they call us children of the sun

Virtual Tourism in a Floating Paradise

 

John Maxwell

 

 

The Port Authority of Jamaica is clearly one of Jamaica’s most sophisticated public entities; they even appear to have a vice-president in charge of delivering bad news. This gentleman, Mr Pat Belinfanti was quoted round the world, according to Google, about 34,000 times two weeks ago as saying ‘Jamaica suspends port expansion, blames economy’.

Papers as diverse as the Seattle Times, the International Herald Tribune and the Taiwan News reported that “ Jamaica is suspending plans for a multimillion-dollar expansion of a popular tourist port in Kingston because no one wants to finance it.”

I was bemused by the mention of a ‘popular tourist port in Kingston’ since I couldn’t figure out where such a place might be.

Here is the core of the story:

”A spokesman for the island's port authority says the $122 million project at the Kingston Wharf will be pushed back one year. Pat Belinfanti says construction might start in 2011.

He said Friday that several international banks backed off, citing the global financial crisis after initially saying they might finance the project.

The development would include construction of duty-free shops and a renovation of the nearby Port Royal town as a cruise ship destination.”

The figure of US$122 million appeared to indicate that what might actually have been zapped was the monstrous Falmouth Cruise ship facility Phase One of the Human Zoo planned for Trelawny. The rest of the story appearing to be simply journalistic confetti, scattered to deflect the anti=spin missiles of the foreign press. No such luck.

What is admirable about the Port Authority is that, like their paragon, the UDC (Ultimate Devastation Conglomerate) they gallantly refuse to take no for an answer and like the Light Brigade, will continue charging into the jaws of death, into the gates of hell, if only to deliver their latest press release or to try to borrow even more money while they cannot service their current debt, incurred while no one was looking.

 What really seems to have happened is that the Port Authority has recently suffered some serious financial setbacks and is in the process of drawing in its horns.

In the Gleaner of Dec 11  a story written by Arthur Hall says “The worldwide financial meltdown has started to hit Jamaica's ports, delaying one major project and causing some international financiers to shy away from another.

In addition, there has been a 15 per cent decline in domestic cargo moving through the ports since August. A noisily trumpeted 5 year contract with Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line (2005) disintegrated before the contract was even halfway done.

Chairman of the Port Authority of Jamaica, Noel Hylton, said plans to begin the expansion of the transshipment port in the Fort Augusta area of St Catherine in 2010 have been shelved, with the project now slated to begin a year later.”

Reality is clearly setting in this area. In another area I am not so sure. Arthur Hall’s story says that the high cost of capital may also  be damaging the immediate prospects of the amazing proposed cruise shipping pier in Falmouth where the PA needs $US122 million to seal the deal

As the world’s risk takers sprint for the exits, Jamaica’s gallant Port Authority stands unfazed :  ”we have about eight banks which have indicated a willingness to offer financing," Hylton said; "The question of getting the financing is not the problem for us ... The problem is the cost of the financing and in today's world, financing costs can be very high," said Hylton.

You can say that again, but you shouldn’t need to. Jamaica has lots of experience with usury. (Eight banks!)

Why anyone should consider destroying Falmouth has never been clear to me, especially to replace it with the Disneyfied monstrosity proposed by the Port Authority in cahoots with Royal Caribbean. Everything is being done at a very high level of course and environmentally concerned people like us just need to shut up and take our medicine.

The medicine is going to be potent. While parliamentary committees gave been reassured that Falmouth will be no danger to the cruise shipping industry, no such guarantees have been given to the  Jamaican hoteliers whose customers regard Jamaica as the attraction.

patchy fog

enough to speak here of the patchy fog
in sheeplike huddles  moving by the coast
not like the tales in which we were engrossed

in which the princess kissed the urgent frog
and forced him to make good on his big boast
enough to speak here of the patchy fog

we're left to wonder why you need to flog
the dying sun to haste before the ghost
of pale remembrance has gone past the post
enough to speak here of the patchy fog

mid winter

no place to hide it seems from all this cold
just northern sun and wind without warm rain
to ease our judgment of the season's gain
or loss of simple sense in what was told
by no firm purpose or strong will to hold
as true or wise while light makes all so plain
under the grey that is not quite a bane
to our disloyal hearts that are not bold
justice requires that we add up the tale
of many ages in a small black book
in which clear note shall constantly be kept
while eyes examine all the facts that fail
to measure up as beauty when we look
and heart acknowledge that the world has slept

nothing but shipwreck

nothing but shipwreck is the complete tale
from sunrise to sunset and then again
we rise never to triumph but to fail

all humanity fits here in small scale
from the bahamas right down to cayenne
nothing but shipwreck is the complete tale

our story is the oldest human wail
our fate is limited by a hard pen
we rise never to triumph but to fail

you would not think any of us were frail
and yet we seem the weakest sort of men
nothing but shipwreck is the complete tale

set down in writing in such great detail
the complete record lies within our ken
we rise to never triumph but to fail

the hurricane will tear the largest sail
and end the voyage with a last amen
nothing but shipwreck is the complete tale
we rise never to triumph but to fail

what came

what came at the beginning was mistake
words uttered by a fool and said in haste
that altered nothing and were soon erased
the wisest turning swiftly to a flake
meanings unclear and symbols made opaque
by those whose urgencies had been debased
so early on now we think it bad taste
all that is left of truth a distant ache
only the wind recalls what might have passed
simple exposure to a world of joy
a door now closed forever to our thought
as into silences our hopes are cast
we watch as others the last goods destroy
and wish them happiness with what they've caught

a recollection

you think i have forgotten what was said
along the way and lost the count of years
in all our  rushing and from many cares

for work and needing daily to earn bread
loaded withal with more  than normal fears
you think i have forgotten what was said

enough to fill an ordinary head
with a full sense of what in truth appears
but not to give one what we might call airs
you think i have forgotten what was said

listening

this is the secret spoken into night

by children and old men so many times

watching as yellow moonbeam slowly climbs

along the wall and thinking chances slight

that in the morning matters will go right

each painful turn as distant town bell chimes

provides an early punishment for crimes

not yet committed now that is our plight

what we expect is some sort of return

to better understanding of our hearts

when the sun rises from the winter deep

with all the force with which a man might yearn

for kinder days and all our human arts

brought to effect these are the thoughts we keep

The Wealth of the Poor

 

John Maxwell

 

It starts, as everything does, in the slums. These are high-class English slums, though, where Mrs Thatcher and her acolytes have been able to prove that when the state abandons its responsibilities there is indeed, no such thing as ‘Society”

 Despite this, judges are still willing to sentence teenagers to jail sentences longer than they have been alive, and to denounce said teenagers for their “brutality and cowardice and lack of discipline, training and honour”. In an exquisitely oxymoronic Thatcherism, people deprived of their rights and their dignity by the state are to be punished by the state for their depravity.

In Britain, in Liverpool this week an 18 year old boy, disturbed, dysfunctional and the product of a dysfunctional social and economic background, was sentenced to 22 years in jail for murder. The teenager had been trying to shoot one of his teenage  enemies and hit an 11 year old innocent in error.

Fortunately, it was not Jamaica, or we would have had street-dancing to celebrate another death sentence.