Ghost

The deep end

 I gave in slowly - but fell in deep

Now you're the reason I cannot sleep

Dreaming of things past and future that cannot be

But tell me, why with you I feel so free

Society is sick

Time melts, stalls, blinks, and flashes
I am drawn to your soul
Magnetic and energising.

Society is sick -

It lost a tactile sense.

Touch is now discomfort 

Empathy withers away with comfort

Fear of viral connection -

Does not drive this sickness

It is rooted in individuality

Stripped of community -

Driven by insecurity,

Starved, longing souls remain.

I am drawn to your ease

The warmth of your way

The sense of rhythmic beating.

Society is sick -

It lost a sense of being

Obsessed with the cult of appearance

Awkward eyes meet - a moment

Then quick downcast,

A smile to a fellow human

Becomes a shameful thing.

This sense of being -

Stripped of human connection

Listless, unengaged eyes remain.

A Dry Season Rupununi Day

Slow, quickening brightness Damp, sweet dew dripping. Aerial orchestra as the sky yawns - Yellow, reaching through blue Blending light with earth colours. Blazing fury as time stands still Shaded conversations and gentle sips Cool breeze, like heaven's blessings The hum of heat's heartbeat Blending hazy rhythms of hammock swings. Silky silence settles On Rupununi sunsets Sun-kissed golden grass In that magic hour - Blending beauty and possibility. Slow, steady breeze Whispering through trees, Ruffling thatched roofs Promising a blanket of night Blending twinkling magic on black canvas

Hollow heart

I let it go –

All that hurt you caused me

I let the river,

Take it and finally I feel free

I let it go –

Those moments I felt small

I let the tree,

Dig in and finally I feel tall

I let it go –

The endless nights I cried

I let the rain,

Wash it and finally I feel clean inside

I let you go –

Because you needed me to follow

And my love,

You drank from my heart till it was hollow

Guyana Stories

Guyana –

A country born of their sacrifice

Heirs of their pain –

Where do I end, and you begin?

Why do we stand apart?

Can you not see our colourful threads?

A tapestry woven through time –

A million stories tightly bound

There is danger in a single story.

Can you not see our histories intertwined?
Written on the land

Control the narrative – control the nation.

Can you not see what the fear does to us?

Hacking at our tapestry –

Setting the threads ablaze

Distorting our woven story

So – that the main rhetoric remains

Telling us a single story –

Is this or that.

Well - my Guyana is not this or that.

My Guyana is choice.  My Guyana is everything.

My Guyana got nuff gaff and laugh

My Guyana is made of little stories

Of resilience,

Of joys,

Of pains,

Of freedom,

Of histories,

Of myths and legends,

Of nature,

Of dreams and hopes

My Guyana is not a single story

My Guyana is made of love

Of daily heroes unrecorded

Of invisible struggles

Of silent devotion

My Guyana is woven with –

rays of sunlight,

reflecting at sunrise and sunset

Woven with earth colours, blended.

My Guyana is not a single story

My Guyana is a living painting.

Attention to Intention

You knew I was wild
But you wanted to play
You liked my attention
When I started to dance
Only for you -
You had another intention

Danced with me for a while
Knowing I was wild
Pulled me down - fed me your dreams
Till I let my vision drift
But you liked to play
You liked my attention

I made you feel special
Cause I danced for you
You let me think it was real
When I helped you heal
But you liked to play
You liked my attention

You've broken my heart
Taken me apart -
I know it was not
Your intention -
But you liked to play
You just liked my attention

Gleaning meaning

Some like sanitised meaning
Never truly gleaning
The mystic soul-
They lock their beating hearts to ideals of cold and measured moments
Wildness without relent-
Torments the narrow mind
How can fire be kind?

Decisions based on proven facts-
Fear-driven tacts
And man's unnatural care -
Lacks courage of a soulful tear,
Two beats locked in arrythmic sway
Yearning to cut/ and break away
Tied in hypothetised metric steps
The cost to cut and run too steep

No hope, no witness, no reward

You've gotta love it through the grime-
Even when no glory is to be had
There are those who like to shine
When other lights are on
But those that twinkle-
When the darkness overwhelms
With no hope, with no witness, with no reward
Well-
They are the ones who love through time

You've gotta love it through the grime-
Even when no glory is to be had
There are those who love to boast
Only when they know they're heard
But those that whisper-
When the silence rings
With no hope, with no witness, with no reward
Well-
They are the ones who love through time

Easy Smile

You had that easy smile

Laid back style -

I seemed to think

You looked only at me

But if I did blink

My opened eyes would see

The easy way your glance

Moved with passing whisps'

Choreographed dance

Magic, mad man

Swirling Memories

It swirls within –

A bitter sweet mixing

Of memories I’d rather not recall

Here – comes night fall

Dark blanket of silence lays

Heavy upon the one who pays

The price of suffocated joy

Emotions raw – played like a toy

A weak rebellion squashed

As those who ‘know’ speak in hushed

Quick whispers of judgement

She turns her eye down again

In all that she found pain

What a fool to think

That one of her ilk

Would stand by her side 

In the upcoming storm to aide

How easy it is to claim bravery

In the shelter of your morality

Sunset fades

Sunset fades the light
The memory in my mind
Plays - again - on repeat
It too fades with passing time

Something about the night
Ceases to seem kind
And the tangled sheet
Mirror the knotted grime

That I follow - trying for right
But twisted, playing shadows blind
Render my soul obsolete
Try and I cannot climb

Exhausting, draining fight
I float to try unwind
The world is dead beat
No longer in it's prime

You hurt me, my friend

I think I know what gnaws at my heart
My friend - I  opened up a part
Of my soul, left closed for so long
Only for you to ask if I knew it was wrong

My friend -
You -
Who claim to be a defender of women
A counsellor of those in pain
I thought you'd react different
From all those others I told

You threw the guilt and shame I carried
Right back onto my burdened -
Anxiety ridden self - that little shadow
Of a scared little girl who still lives in fear

Unrelenting passive aggressive comments
Like a weight on my mind-
I am consumed once again by sadness
Over a battle I thought I had won

Rupununi tapestry for Chris and Fi

It was woven in Rupununi tapestry -
For worlds intertwined in history
To meet again -
Savannah heart and Scottish beat
Foreign lands for adventure seek
Carefree souls - Across distance found
Kindred spirits of a love thought
Could never be

They seemed like ying and yang
When he said 'gal i watch you lang'
Who could resist each others smile
Hearts that loved pure joy

He said she ah run he down
But watch who gone Sierra Leone
Bina catch he strong -
He end up in the motherland

Rupununi enchants and Scotland calls
The common spirits - for love of land
With an artists passion
A life of adventure fashioned

Why say no, when you can just go?
From just nows to coming deh
How we navigate and rate
And dem ones who always late


Those who stand with you today
Know your journey will never end
Wandering,  exploring souls
Like winding Rupununi and Scottish trails
We drink, we dance and we laugh with you this night.

Torn

Where does one end and the world begin?
Why do we stand apart and deny our hearts?

Can you not see threads woven through time?
Colourful and strong-

Can you not see that there is no beginning and no end?
Can you not see that we are one?
A tapestry woven through time-

Can you not see the histories intertwined?
Cultures mix, language change and tools exchange.

Can you not see what fear does to us?
Hacking at our tapestry-

Distorting the woven story-

Mirror image

She never wanted to be a reflection
A mirrored, painted copy of perfection

That tiny wrinkle and freckles on her face
She reveled in their mark.

That perfect life of calm, poise and beauty
Reminded her of calm sea with underlying fury

She chose that life like the thunder storm.
She rode it out with unbridled joy

She lived in quiet moments of raindrops
And glistening rays of sunshine

She smiled at the happiness of the world
She cried with the sadness of the world

She lived in any world -
And did not deny her inner beast

For she remembered -
Under the painted perfected reflection
Lay an unbridled fury

Water's might

Shadows dance on savannah land

As evening sun kiss

Tips of golden grass

Rupununi - my beauty

My love, of dark and light

savannah blends to jungle

Grass to swamp - to ponds

Creeks to rivers - to sea

I love you at your water's might

The beast of derision

I tie my self to history

Struggling to be free

My mind in a haze

Blurred from the smoke

The threads that tie me-

Have been set ablaze

Here I stand again

Always - an intersection

My heart becomes my chain

A pressured decision

Obscuring the inner vision

What does it mean to be free?

Colour me in as you will

Pick at the pieces that you see

Causing my soul to flee

Into the abyss of indecision

Where the beast of constant derision

Fights to pierce the things I hold dear

The ways and means

In moments - Inspiration comes -
Soundless - Dynamic.
And in laziness it passes-
in drunkeness, lost to the haze.
In moments- Life has meaning-
The depth is not identified
But in despair it is lost-
The mind, an abyss
In moments - Bursting love exists-
Showering - briefly like shooting stars
In betrayal-
it is squandered by greed
In the moments - we are rich
But what of it?
We lose the wealth of the land
We are poor in our souls-
For no true touch of those flashing moments -
Find those lost souls
In technology and progress-
Doesn't it seem?
That God takes back the knowledge-
Humanity stole?
In moments- we realize -
Beatniks were right/
Monster Manukind -
Progress is a comfortable disease

Young Riders - Into the Future

Here's to the youths who hear the call

For those not afraid to fall

Young Riders - Into the Future

For those with wicked humour

Rupununi born and bred - 

Farine and tasso fed

The cowboys who know - 

The joy of early morning flow

Sun-kissed dew drops on savannah land

Creaking leather saddles - riding in a band

Racing free under the blazing sun

Wait all year for Rodeo's fun

Rodeo 2018 - we heard you call

And here we stand - cowboys all

Here's to the youths who can see

A Rupununi way to be -

Here's to the young riders

Rodeo 2018's fun providers!