Saturday, December 3, 2011

NIRVANA


Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Remembering fast words, dead dreams and slow crossings.
Regrets of signing, of boarding, of dreaming
Dreaming of a better life.

Life is British Guiana!  Great weather!  Fantastic conditions! Short working days!
Long nights to laze! 
Indenture-ship to heaven!  Nirvana!
Sign here and step aboard!

Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Looking into the morning light.  Remembering Hesperus. 
Awful ship, awful food, awful indignities, awful indicator of cruelties.
One hundred and fifty men, five women, ten children.

One hundred and seventy dreamers.
Dreamers of fair wages, moderate homes, decent schools.
Set sail for a dream.  And arrived as Property. 
The Property of Gladstone!

Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Flogged for wanting the promised dream,
Flogged for running away,
Away from home.  Vreed-en-Hoop.

Home of long days, short nights, incessant rain.
Disease and pain.
The whip, the cane, the cat.
Home to the unwitting, unwilling Coolies.
Home to robbers of wages, dreams, dignities.  Humanities.

Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Beneath the Manager’s house, amidst the dearth of hope and dreams.
Hungry, tired and bedraggled.
Covered in mud, sweat and filth.

Arms outstretched. Tethered with ropes of hemp defiled.
Breast to the post.  Back bared.
Heavy head, lifeless limb, ragged breath.
Happy eyes.

Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Flogged as though hell itself had risen up,
As though the end of time was neigh,
Flogged with the fury and avarice of a Master scorned.

Flogged to evoke regret, pain, fears.  Tears.
Tears for what was never to be,
Tears for the love that was never known,
The children that were never borne.

Slumped against a pillar.  Waiting to be flogged.
Waiting to draw the last breath.  A happy breath.
The breath that would take her sweet beautiful child
From this place of misery, shattered dreams and broken promises

The breath that would fulfil a soul’s longing,
Longing for the release from the bondage of this place of misery, broken bones, and desecrated dreams.
The breath that would deliver her child finally
Into the arms of Nirvana.