PORT-OF-SPAIN (poem from "Estado de Emergencia" translated into TRINI créole by Anastasia Ramjag)

Port-of-Spain

“Port of Spain, the sum of history, Froude´s non-people, a downtown babel of shop signs and streets,

mongrelized, polyglot, a ferment without history, like heaven”.

Derek Walcott, The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory

 Like a wave in d sky

But on lan’ an’ is not a wave but a dragon dancin’ soca an’ dat does move

D hip an’ give it to me gimme gi’ meh love dat temptress ass hot

Like muh princess here/ Mmm

An’ more still meh soul lookin’ fuh yuh in d forests an’ caves an’ rivers an’

Buttons shit enough remove everyting dat comes

Now comes d husband St. George he name From Great Britain

“Yuh know dahlin’ time

Time surroun’ we like wind

Undisciplined

An’ so

We dance in limbo”

“Sweet mama ah tellin’ yuh dat Borges

Dat St. Borges aim he African spear

At d neck an’

Is meh neck so

Stop screwin/ aroun’/Let meh screw/You/Meh love”

“We chirren go be damned a hundred times ovah

We parents damned a hundred times dey go be

Verse is d hidden rose

In d middle

Of a tornado of thorns”

But it eh d rose but words an’ is not St. Borges but Christopher    

Repsol who in d name of d King I declare I’s a slave to yuh dance a

Fricana meh sister come on mama gimme yuh tithe and yuh lil pearl oh how

Yuh excite meh / Mmm

An’ even more so in yuh seas ah fine yuh suddenly wet an’ suddenly a prick

Suddenly love comin’ like a wave yuh love arrive in meh life

Like a wave of uneven force

“Petals we goin’ to d sky

Fallin’dong

In circles lookin’ fuh d verb

Of a centre

Dat is silence an’ den”

“But dat verb is time an’ I is time an’

You also is time if yuh dance wit’ me meh love yuh won’t

Be worth flowers or roses or composures that thou wast used to

From me if thou couldst have left thou wouldst  have

But thou cannot leave because thou art mine wife”

“Yuh tie meh up tuh d sky by meh foot

Like a pendulum

D wind movin’ meh head

Denyin’sayin’ tuh d floor

Its memory:

Buh where d snow from afore an’ where d Caribs dat in d snow

Pile d Indians’ gold bodies high it was twelve

On d clock though it wasn’t clocks  it was

Peace in spite of war equality

Though the chief did come like he comin’ now

D Beloved hip movement takin’ me straight over

Head tuh d sky.