Willow Walk

lacking all ease

we're faced with everything but honest grief

hard lies are shouted in the open street

and pleasant words recited in retreat

by both the kind physician and the thief

until we think the harsh venom is sweet

we're faced with everything but honest grief

so we resile still there's no real relief

for either broken hearts or weary feet

since life itself turns out to be a cheat

we're faced with everything but honest grief

swallows

no grieving then but seize the darting joys

that pass like summer birds above the lake

enjoy the time and all the things you make

 

ignore the pain avoid the childish noise

see how the breezes still the reeds do shake

no grieving then but seize the darting joys

 

before they pass on to new girls and boys

as life requires since every reed must break

eternity's the dream that we mistake

no grieving then but seize the darting joys

melted type

the message failed it was not sent

our golden gospel dies unheard

another paradise deferred

 

on other missions we are bent

for stranger purposes conferred

the message failed it was not sent

 

to where we wanted where we meant

the sign to go each silver word

fell into silence was deterred

the message failed it was not sent

on the black road

we catch the crabs at night on the black road

just shovel them into the waiting bag

until the sweat pools and your spirits flag

 

above the stars signal in arcane code

while you wipe down with an old smelly rag

we catch the crabs at night on the black road

 

that leads us back to where the waters flowed

past all the places where we let hope sag

back into swamp where memories might nag

we catch the crabs at night on the black road

foul parliament

this is the place where pigeons play their games

untroubled by the large ungainly folk

who never have been seen to get the joke

 

birds shit on heroes and on noble dames

that's not a fact that we want to evoke

this is the place where pigeons play their games

 

here where our leaders make their sordid claims

upon our hearts and liars go for broke

old beggars note again the stinking smoke

this is the place where pigeons play their games

close reading

we scour the marrow of each holy text

to find the hidden meaning but there's none

we want so much to bring into the sun

 

the matters that so many folk perplexed

to hear the shouts of thank you and well-done

we scour the marrow of each holy text

 

expecting that we'll know what will come next

the secrets that the wisest shall have won

beyond the place there normal law can run

we scour the marrow of each holy text

Stealing from our Children

John Maxwell

I was a reporter in parliament half a century ago when Norman Manley shepherded through the House, the bill to create the College of Arts, Science and Technology. CAST, now the University of Technology (UTECH) was the intellectual godchild of people as various as Manley, members of the Legislative Council including my own father, and before them Marcus Garvey and others who had for years agitated for a University of Jamaica. The university was a plank in the first PNP Plan for Progress in 1958, At the time the CAST was being debated, the Opposition JLP was waging a campaign which proclaimed: "Saltfish better than education."

The Opposition opposed among other things, the government's secondary scholarship programme allowing thousands of poor children to go to places like Jamaica College and Munro. The money would have better been spent on food subsidies, they said. A few years later the same arguments were used to oppose the building of the National Stadium. This opposition was given a macabre twist on the first Independence Day when one Edward Seaga, then minister in charge of the celebrations, attempted to eject Norman Manley from the Royal Box in the Stadium he built.

"What is that man doing here?" he shouted, only to be slapped down by the new Prime Minister, Alexander Bustamante, who had a somewhat clearer idea of Jamaican history than Seaga. With all this in the background you may imagine my shock at the attempt this week by the UTECH to capture the Trelawny stadium for its campus. 'If we don't get the stadium, UTECH whines piteously, you will be denying 5,000 children the chance to get an MBA or some other meaningless decoration stamped out by the academic mill. I don't mean that degrees are meaningless, simply that bean-counters in academe have no more right to design the future of this country than anyone else. We can be sure of one thing: of the 5,000 new graduates few if any will have degrees in agronomy, nursing, or any of the practical skills we most urgently require for real development rather than the construction of elegant Ponzi schemes and other scams.

semester’s end

once more the effort brings with it much dread

to read these words and see how little sense

has been made here but i cannot dispense

 

with justice and the kindness in me bred

by hungry years and so i will commence

once more the effort brings with it much dread

 

of all the ancient horrors i have read

here in this room at least there's no pretense

that there's much here that merits defence

once more the effort brings with it much dread

a matter of choices

in all the time we take to sit and talk

not one of us has gotten up to look

at what is in the woods just past the brook

 

it's very simple if only we would walk

out through the gate we would not be mistook

in all the time we take to sit and talk

 

but then we'd miss the play of mouse and hawk

which is not written down in any book

nor see the creature hiding in her nook

in all the time we take to sit and talk

this sudden silence

this sudden silence comes to us as pain

no one is present who can see each turn

take note of anger watch the spirit burn

 

there's nothing left that we need to retain

of these old lessons yet we have to learn

this sudden silence comes to us as pain

 

year after year just so the sight is plain

and no old memories are left to churn

in empty hearts that do not cease to yearn

this sudden silence comes to us as pain