A House in Aurora, Essequibo

There is a house in Aurora, Essequibo that cries. Quietly. Without drama. Barely standing, she writhes in the fearsome hot of day; in the face of mocking verdure; ‘gainst swathes of unembellished blue. Passersby stare ahead; rejoice in the lull of narcotic breeze. Disregard her quizzical lamentations: “Who built me, when, how, with what and why? Who and who lived in me; made me their home? Who abandoned me, why? Who are you that sees without seeing that things are falling apart? Are your children to clench their stomaches in a hunger for roots? To hold in their palms a history, ancient scripts without parts; to wonder at the handicap of broken spine; the meaninglessness of the twisting textless 'burrowings' and paling unintelligible ink. Good for the roach. Good for the worm. And to whose benefit, at what cost and to what end, this wilful, withering love of romantic suicide?"

Mittelholzer: the Standard-Bearer for Guyanese and West Indian Literature

Click below for the link to Al Creighton's article:

Article by Al Creighton

The Graveyard of Anna Regina

Rain,

And the
Trenches
Spilling over
Drown the dead.

A wading cow grazes
Eats at the cad of grass
Crowding around the edges
Of those concrete blue Tombs

The barely living marshall meagre
Belongings in search of somewhere dry.

Two days after writing this poem, I discovered that Anna Regina was named after Anna and Regina, the two daughters of a Dutch plantation owner.  His daughters drowned in a punt trench by the town's High Bridge. 

Pomeroon Chips: "Duh Clean-Up Lady"

The heat of the day ran down her face; harassed her. She grimaced, her eyes wide, wide open and reddish from the dust. She hollered: "All a' ya dirty skunts!" All the while trudging through the mound of styrofoam boxes, plastic bottles, discarded food and miscellaneous trash that flanked huge empty industrial bins. Her feet bare, her heels cracked, her skin dry, greyish, spoke of hardship. Spoke of hardiness. Spoke of sheer grit. And while she divided her energies between the hawking of abuse and the scooping up of rubbish, her bright yellow T-shirt bellowed: "My God is an awesome God!"

When I turn to pay Ms Welville G$400 for two bunches of ginep, I am quickly apprised: "Don't mind duh 'clean-up' lady, she mad. Plenty, plenty of dem mad in Charity-Amazonia." I smile, thank her, head toward 'duh clean-up lady', lean left, then right to avoid the darts of yuh-modda's-dis and yuh-modda's-dat. Hand her G$500. See a brief gasp of surprise quick-step into raw indignation. "Yuh got anoda G$500? Is duh all yuh gun give me fuh cleaning dis modda skunt dirty market, is duh all?" And while she bends over to scoop up more rubbish, I briskly sidle away. Scuttle off to my waiting boat, find the first blank page in my little black book and start to scribble: "The heat of the day harassed, ran rivulets down her face..."

Pomeroon Chips: The Water-Drummer

A gaggle of startled gaulins soar of a sudden. Distance themselves from the undulating line of Mucca-Mucca. The ordinarily still water becomes choppy; warns of impending rain. No more sibilant sssssshhhhhhing of water parting ways with the sides of our boat, but a drummer's shlap-shlap, tup-tup, shlash-shlash, pap-pap, as though some ancestor with large hands was shaping music-words on the underside of the fibre-glass bow.