Guyana Journal, June 2009
We know all would be well
Tomorrow would be swell
When the sun comes up
As we do work and shop
Our life depends on this planet
Yet can't live peacefully on it
We show our might
That we want to fight
We're not so barefaced now
But we do it any darn how
To invade another country
We do it very stealthily
And have sleepless nights
By showing all our rights
And our cockroach like conscience
By the experts and a lot of nonsense
Hoping we will come out on top
As tomorrow the sun comes up
Whether it's the Bay of Pigs invasion to get Castro
Shelling Phnom Peng or Hanoi with another blow
Destroying the farmers' lands of Vietnam
Crippling their rice yields by Uncle Sam
Slaughtering locals and others in friendly fire
Because of oil when it comes down to the wire
In Kuwait or in desert of Iraq
Hoping the rebels would crack
We send our youths to the frontlines
Facing Al Qaeda's deadly land mines
To die for good patriotism
In the name of Capitalism
The opposition does the same
For they are also in this game
Being fooled into getting 32 virgins
As others die without beads and sins
All watched by the warmongers
War veterans and paper shufflers
Behind steel barriers
And very high towers
They think they have the cure
For the sun comes up for sure
The same sun came up day after day
When Hitler put 6 million Jews away
For his two evil sons on Sadam's beat
As they turn Sunnis into mince meat
Burnham and his cronies in Guyana
Saw the same sun in South America
Idi Amin in Ghana also had sunshine
Because they were industrious and fine
Expelled millions of Indians from Ghana
And many had to come to North America
And as the sun came up also in Africa
As men murder and rape their own kind
Using bottles and anything they can find
To defile their female country women
Such evil never done since of Goshen
What evil lurks under the sun
When it's all said and done
The same hot and scorching sun
From which many hide and run
Like as in Africa still the wretched poor
Trying just to stay alive in dark Darfur
The same sun shining on the Indian Ocean
Another war is brewing in high motion
As the Shri Lankans in mass movement
Running away from their predicament
The Tigers and the Tamils demanding their wants
Still after fifty years they're doing the same dance
No one would ever or never won
Hope not when it's all sadly done
Many of us would never be caught dead
When the sun comes up and still in bed
It was drilled into us that the idle ones
Are just good for nothing lazy bones
But in this North American society
The land of the welfare and pogey
It's why new immigrants do better than the homegrown
Those who want to reap readily what were never sown.
Under the same very hot sun many millions toil
Breaking backs ploughing despite their turmoil
To feed their brood or better their education
As their forefathers did during their duration
As many governments suck them dry
Leaving them pay stubs taxed so high
Wasting it on many wars and reelections
Contracts for cronies despite rejections
For kith and kin men who are just mice
And the poor man eating salt and rice
Because his own father did the very same
And so did his grand father in his name
For it was a way of life in those days of yore
Not like today when asking for more and more
– Norman Datt
I see folks’ children demand every cent
And their parents always very hell bent
In giving them every new toy they want
Or appease them with a fancy restaurant
They feel they can always buy them
But that never solves the problem
As Churchill once said
Before he was put to bed
Even if you appease an alligator
He’ll eat you at last much later
Some prefer to buy the love of their children
They do the same when they become men
They will buy the whole shop
And even work until they drop
But would never spend quality times
To read them their nursery rhymes
They would buy the latest gadget
Selling million dollars of widget
They go to church pray to the one above
But too busy with golf to show some love
The may work for a salary or wage
Too busy working for the mortgage
Never have time to see their kids in a play
But always have some lame excuses to say
And the kids really got hurt
They feel they are not worth
The love of either parents
And they do rebel hence
More work for the experts of the mind
Psychiatrists, physicians who unwind
These poor souls into category
All in the name of psychology
They forget you can’t buy back your life
You have one life to live as man and wife
Every day counts live it forget the roaming
The buck stops here dummy stop passing
It on to the government or school
It is in your own backyard fool
Forget the daily highball and try to mend
For each day brings you near to your end
– Naraine Datt
Toronto
Considering “Empire”
Warm, always warm
every day, warm
not hot, never hot, warm
everyday, warm
every night
A bird, not an eagle
dozes on a railing,
a suspended railing
in danger of melting
into the smoky milk
of a triumphal arch
while smaller beings
too new to remember cold
poke, scamp about in yellow light,
and plot.
– ANGELA CONSOLO MANKIEWICZ
Los Angeles
Originally published by "Writing For Human Rights" at www.protestpoems.org, February, 2009.
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