hearing (for Amyrl Johnson-late Poet)

hearing

for Amyrl johnson ( 1946-2001)


"can you hear me?
big big commess in town"

Amyrl Johnson 2000 "..Calling"

hearing
yes hearing
the calling
your proclamation
so silent and carefully
the way you courageously
advised some
to tread in paradise.

i have buried too many
not only
little islands kill

hearing this calling. Emergency !
the cathedral on fire
strange metallic plants have sprouted
behind lady herbert's garden
an' naked godiva's ass-u-me grave
disturbed by tourism. Unrepentant

secrets no more you share.Anxiously

it was an email from london
hotspotwriters
alerting me to your
departure
not by train as always our
chance meetings no more
at larkin's hated destination

it was a fellow writer
nevertheless a black female scribe..

hearing quarry stones being
blasted ears ringing
trying to understand
this message. Blunt

torn in flesh
for sucking kiskadee
nestled on lagley, gathering
many ways. Coven-

-try
spirit undaunted
towering
fluttering before
like them blue-genes
on aripo plains...your
return home privately remains
good anytime
to pass away..as predicted..
today might not be a good day...

dead house silence unlike
humid nights at lookout from
lady chancellor's hill pass saint clair
your spoken-written lavway
nourishing inspired readers,
rapsoians will offer
deafening voices trembling
real orisha spirits
possessing temples...
inducing a call
to hear your calling

understand their own calling

for fresh fish price
hasn't changed; the little things
gorgons bol'faced gossip:
targarigua savannah
orange grove sugarcane
five rivers arouca mango
still falling baptist woman
praying manicoo still runnin';
macocious bad tongue geh mal yeux
humming birds contemplating
your eternal call. Geezan ages

cunumunu etal appreciating
ah good kankalang
dese days gyul... Tonnay !
born cobeaux to fight over carcass
though la basse privatised

tell Claudia jones now
i contradict als 'cause
nah only we uncaring islands
kill dem poets. Callin'

we still hearin'
your
calling

never to give in
forsakin'
we tongue

our heritage

●

© Roi Kwabena