<< Issue 33
Monica Minott
Nanny Travels as a Suppliant Sister
Her mark in Argos predates her move to
Ghana, the mark in Nanny town “specterrific;”
always a freedom fighter, crisscrossing
oceans, moving swiftly across boundaries.
No bush nor fire can detain spirit, geography
is her way over, she fashions new pathways
mapped in her head. No scouting detail can
locate Nanny’s tracks when she decides to hide
herself in the bosom of “I-self.” She vanish!
The evidence resounding in the Pata Pata
of Makeba’s songs, in the touchdown on
guerrilla territory. British men would rather
be dead than to meet Nanny anywhere
along the “tracks of her traveled tears.”
The day Nanny turn-up in Cockpit Country
we who understand know that spirit
work must go on. Mek no mistake, woman
work nuh done till lioness heart of freedom
ketch and mek peace with the lion. I watch
Nanny’s love boomerang like bullets.
Patches of ground near each hut we
cultivate confirm survival as resistance.
A cycle of Nanny’s life leaves a mark, “Bump
Grave” on show; spirit work …just begun.
“Suppliant sisters consistently evoke Zeus and other gods to help them through their hardships and to protect them.” The sisters left Greece in search of freedom.
Sitting On Top Of A Pagoda
– After Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting titled “Pyro”
They create a frame called terror
I live here. I spray paint the frame,
light creeps in showcasing breakable
bones, bent out-of-shape bones. Taking
a step back, I examine a red rocket
where my heart socket should be.
A hungry lioness guards a ticking rock.
I find trees growing out of my breast
I hear birds nesting in-between leaves,
a red owl ready with songs of rain.
Yet, all around me lies mad weapons
of war. I hide a rocket inside the
frame, a stand-in-leg. My right leg
got hit in a drive-by. My friends died.
It was then I swallowed the pagoda.
I can’t understand schizophrenic English.
It had me on the run. Run I heard
the shout. “Run”. I ran into my shadow
leaving millions; I’m worth more dead.
Had I remained alive, I‘d tell you
“know your pills, never swallow a Pagoda.”
Defacement
– After Jean Michel’s painting with the same name, for Michael Stewart
Mama said, “if only walls could talk!”
I made it my business to speak for Mama.
The day I heard a name echoing, bouncing off
walls, “spray painter Michael Stewart dead…
guilty of defacing the underground,” the place
I spray-painted last week? Sticks, and stones
come break my bones, could have been me.
Mike’s face dark on newsstands, I paused,
guilty only by association…Mike my friend,
my voice trailing off. Looks of displeasure
stifling me. All he did was validate verse.
A violation. East-village-underground was
“home for all homies,” our intention to
educate never violate, he was the pulse
of our people, travelers, fortune tellers
coming or going, never sure who to tell.
Never knew he’d be going, ooh so soon.
Spray painters have no union, a guilty law
acquits men in blue. “In the line of duty;” “he
slipped and fell!” Toes unable to grip
ground? Dam them to the pages of hell!
“No excessive force?” Yet he is dead.
So it was in 1771, Collingswood shouting
“Men Overboard!” I watch you drown.
I tell you, brother, it could have been
me. Now they want me to beg for your
bones. But your bones are my bones. I
carry our loss, it could have been me!
The Petrologist – ABC Of Gendered Rocks
For you who say “the Caribbean is nothing but a bunch of Rocks”
Round the rugged road, the ragged rascal ran,
till she ran out on Caribbean lands, adopting
another unto self, to make her identity matter.
She leaves and grieves island rhythms behind.
“Which stone am I to become?” Mary Jane asks.
“A” I Abandon my shores of discontent.
“B” I Breathe easy, air saturating all cells.
“C” Cut to the core, pain smoldering deep,
igneous in composition, eroticized in gender.
“Rocks have no gender,” a rock’s quick retort.
I turn to view the critical onlooker, maybe
if he knew igneous rocks on the margins are
first to break free the power of containment;
no match for years of pressurized heat conflict,
no match for hybrid languages. Resistance is
culture, is woman reclaiming herself.
Round the rugged road, the ragged rascal ran,
till she ran out on Caribbean lands, adopting
another unto self to make her identity matter.
She leaves and grieves island people behind.
Which stones have I left unturned in a fluid
revolution? Watch me summon fire, watch my
arching back rally rocks deep within. Revelation.
The center neva ever meant to hold.*
*Allusion to “The center cannot hold”, a phrase from the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats.
Pesoneto – Net Weight
(after Basquiat’s painting titled The Guilt Of Gold Teeth)
“Nuh every kin teeth ah laugh,”
perhaps it is “lesson and verse” to
learn when young; prevent fraid fe
tek we wey between two signposts.
Perhaps Basquiat is Samo, maybe
Cadmus finds self in Baron Samedi,
planting dragon teeth as they travel.
Liberators fire up as doomsday ice
glaciers melt, ready to separate, to
sink the net weight of their existence,
arriving unbidden into coastal cities.
“Libérateurs,” they name themselves
ready to bite a silver bullet – history.
Basquiat looks to a line “as the crow
flies,” circumventing old pathways
identifying the guilty as Guilty.
He sees a lost shepherd herding
gilt-edged notes; goat skin caught
in the crosshairs. Samo desires to be
rich only in being free. Cadmus’ men,
mighty warriors stretch lips into a
smile, teeth invisible, walking the line
in Trench Town, sowing dragon teeth
deep in the soil, Bob, one free harvest.
They watch the skies for signs, dawn
breaks barriers down, a new day shines
till a crow appears high, hovering; men
in top hats now ponder the last flight.
It is then long memories return to
life in Jean-Michel, his paintbrush
unveiling Baron Samedi, an open mouth
gold teeth exposed, feet dressed in red
stretch leggings, he is ready to
walk the tunnel of absent words, with
anyone willing to pay for forgetfulness,
till they arrive where life meets death.
It is then Baron kin him teeth; a painter
captures de dead clinging to $$$ notes.
Money dripping blood. We are left to
deduce how Baron got his gold teeth.
References:
SAMO “Basquiat as a young artist was given his first one-man show under the name ‘SAMO’ at Emilio Mazzoli’s gallery.”
Cadmus – “Cadmus, in Greek mythology was the son of Phoenix or Agenor (king of Phoenicia) and brother of Europa. Cadmus sowed in the ground the teeth of a dragon he had killed. From these sprang a race of fierce armed men, called Sparti (meaning Sown).”
Baron Samedi. – “ a key figure in Haitian Vodou, this painting pays homage to Basquiat’s father’s heritage. The poem investigates African religious practices. Samedi is frequently depicted as a skeletal figure dressed in funeral attire, including his signature top hat. He is both a protective caretaker as well as a riotous trickster.”
Monica Minott is a Chartered Accountant. She received two awards in Jamaica’s National Book Development Council’s annual literary competitions for book-length collections of her poetry and was awarded first prize in the inaugural Small Axe poetry competition. Her poems have been published in The Caribbean Writer, Small Axe Caribbean Journal, Cultural Voice Magazine, SX Salon, Jubilation, The Squaw Valley Review, BIM magazine, and Coming Up Hot. Her entry entitled ‘Spirits’ was named in the top ten entries for the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers prize 2015. Her first collection, Kumina Queen, was published by Peepal Tree Press in the UK, (2016) and her second collection Zion Roses was published in April 2021 by Peepal Tree Press. In 2022 Zion Roses was Long Listed and was one of the top three collections for The Bocas Poetry prize