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AL Hendriks MADONNA Of ..• . -L - .. ..... .. .... -· ...-s .... • '"I. Harold Telemaque NOW 4/5 SPRING '74 Editor: Stewart Brown. Address: Box 225, St. Ann's Bay P.O., St. Ann. Redress Editor for future issues of NOW: Gloria Escoffery. The times come down like a shadow Address: P.O. Box 14, Brown's Town, St. Ann. And settles among the desolate towers. Let the scruple of all who see This magazine is produced with the assistance of the Institute of Ja­ Large as mountains, the dazzle of horror maica, whose generous support is gratefully acknowledged here. Standing armoured in many lands, Thanks also to Desnoes and Geddes Ltd. , without whose support the Carry their knowledge in a censer of prayer, magazine would not appear in its present format. And let vespers of love be sung among them, For love will be needed, Contents For love will be needed. A great wind plucked from the stems of stars Seeks out all breasts and speaks its cause. POETRY PROSE Vines cannot express good grapes Maria Arrillaga 22 Save with the dark earth's sympathy - Stewart Brown 42 Afterword 44 The harmony of roots and leaves and ground, Derrick Buttress 25 Maria A rrillaga 5 Black stem and seed, white sap and wood. Gloria Escoffery 24 Miles Buxton 31 Thus in the colourless air, good harvest Rudyard Fearon 9 Anson Gonzalez 10 And wine sparkling. David H. W. Grubb 21 Gil Tucker 43 A. L. Hendriks 26 We who are children of charity shall build _Patti Hinds 23 New foundations set in a new land. Edward Lucie-Smith 30 For we have suffered the manifestation Anthony McNeil 29 Of falling towers and barren trees. Mervyn Morris 28 We know now, castles whistle in the wind Victor Questa! 16 Their austerity and their dull vinyards die, Stanley Reid 2 Their wines, valueless in the cellars Philip Sherlock 7 Sour into vinegar. Dennis Scott 37 Harold Telemaque 1 For too long now have cries of agony Gil Tucker 21 Climbed and clashed in thunder overhead, Duncan Tweedale 19 Have send their thrusts of lightning to our hearts. And yet, and yet, Too long the lesson to be learnt has taken, And purity has passed the other side too long. A' review supplement with reviews by Stewart Brown, Peter Virgadamo Let redress be and let the people and Yorrick. And Notes on Contributors. The Cover qrawing is by Sing vespers of love solemnly among them. Lois Langenfeld. · Love will be needed. Page 1 A letter to my friends in the USA Across the vinyl counter, There is no doubt that hands outstretched your efficiency at creation sipping chlorinated water, was responsible for my believing one of the many isomers of our need, the moon at the top of your skyscrapers I fished three cents out was an electric light, at the airport in Miami your refineries refined well, to pay for the tainted liquid. construction plants constructed totally barges barged skillfully This was my homage paid and foundries founded the future to that myth, not yet myth of the many graves I saw in your I was to discover of my years. cemetery in New York, In the reassurance of Newsweek covers, It is now night, I may not write again, the New York Times, Wrigley's Spearmint It is so much easier to use Union Telegraph. chewing gum and good 'ole' "Guess who is coming to dinner" (1972) cherry pie the main course and turkey roast crisp as the Progress tarred blacks of your South, I looked for your conflicts, resolved WHEN YOU WALK SLOWLY the defiant black _gestures as DOWN A GREY WHITE STREET a more updated and with it IN THE MID A FI'ERNOON WITH Statue of Liberty. HOT FANGS BRANDING YOUR BACK .AND SPIT CAREFULLY COLLECTED No trespasser, just visitor, ·SALIVA INTO THE PAVEMENT Carnegie Hall, Radio City, White House and NEAR WHERE THE OLD WOMAN SAT YESTERDAY WITH HER OUTSTRETCHED anti-war demonstrations equally familiar, the signals covering the streets, HAND BEGGING A LIE FOR LIFE, YOU REPLY WITH THE ASSURANCE each stop halting the poor, OF A CHEQUING ACCOUNT AND each go, your machines speed along WELL FILLED STOMACH. circuitously and the amber glow YOU DO NOTHING NEW BUT I paused, PASS OVER THE FOOTSTEPS OF YOUR FATHER WHO WORE Even more sobered now we who have judged you THE SAME STIFF WHITE SlilRT AND TIE ONLY HE WAS WALKING become defendants. TO HIS BICYCLE, YOU TO YOUR CAR, Page 2 Page 3 ~ A boyhood Maria A rrillaga (excerpt from 'A Travelougue Recalls') You dead boy, I can shoot faster than you Lost baby I am faster on the trigger, Shooting a boy's innocence Lana was loony and I loved her. I found her on a street, home­ into the spattered cordite less, runaway, hair curly like waves of corn electric. She came into of the screen, my house and spread flowers everywhere. Circle of print expanding. new fantasies like derelicts I saw once in a luscious dream Japanese printlike sometimes most of dot this scene I stand. the time the unbound circle of interior garden design man made like A hand used to feeling when one is high flying energy COLOR. the harsh edge of cane eyes blinded by the soap­ Lana saw the cat get killed all the way down the air shaft down white glare of the sand, and did not bat an eye. The cat gave her his eyes before he said feet cracked by good-bye so she would not have to bat an eye. the gnarled roots which like tea-leaves dot Lana read F. Scott Fitzgerald while she was delivering quietly these paths I follow, read Gatsby my love to later go and fly frisbies near a tenement. skipping over the hills to the sea, choking ,l on the bite in the wind; Champagne bottles exploded corks high flying (repeat) while, it 'I these are the backdrops was New Year's Eve. Lana threw up she was in a strang-e country and I a childhood unearths. the food did not suit her. Many things, my closest kiss of death, Golly-gee-wow cliches are funny things sometimes as big bigge1- a newsprint memory, ' than reality not new always. the headlines unbelieved. Grief squeezed like toothpaste circled each corbeau's squall. Lana met a young ma..,painterwho smelled the flowers she scat­ This is the BBC calling • • • tered everywhere all around places and he painted her a flower. He magic whi~h placed in the was from a strange country too, he too was also a magician type fel­ evening's dinner Dien Bien phu low who when he painted her a flower he painted her a flower poor and other names recall flower Lanaforever framed as a flower but pretty always her painter Algiers, Goa, some mad magician friend loved her truly and came into the frame sometimes. pirate steals a Spanish ship They played frisbie. He brought her the Beautiful and the Damned. hi-jack, ship-jack my mind She read flower painted Lana inside frame while he painted more flo­ in a world confused wers around Japanese style like. with it's own hopes. Page 4 Page 5 JI Philip Sherlock Her cat like eyes yellow shone with delight watching him nice Middle passage young man painter paint the flowers around and aro W1d. 1 The lion that went down the shaft was called cat by Lana. He had 1-V-ziffrn fv-z 'J-zwik Coffymo-ze 012 hii Sotl'z. bi,thday stayed on with Lana her eyes that he gave her big yellow cat eyes and Lana loved the yoW1g man painter so she one day came out of the Cradled frame a painted flower to embrace him with roar and claws cat's eyes. On the lullaby sea The love was so great that there they lay dishevelled the two of them His black body starred among the flowers. With salt water, face downwards, free and at home in the gentle salt water COUNT DOWN he floats by the razor-sharp reef, looks down on gardens of branching coral, Riddle: What. happened to the baby that Lana bore? on living thickets of cup-shaped sponges , (Turn page upside down for answer) using the names the fishermen use, seafingers and horse sponge, elephants ears and mermaids gloves (puaµJ AW 'no.A s,n :.1a&suv) with jewelled fish at hide-and-seek, happy the world of sea and sW1, I his black body starred with salt sings its way to the waiting sand and the dancing leaves of the almond tree and the sea-grapes shade. A. L. Hendriks Free and at home He matches his mood II to the luck of the day I Black body cleaving MADONNA of the· UNKNOWN The green wave curling sending his laughter NATION aloft on the Trades flying feet weaving A new collection of poems from the well known a pattern of speed and much loved West Indian poet, continuing the sea crabs scuttling success ofONTlllS MOUNTAIN. THESE GREEN trade winds drumming, ISLANDS. and MUET. fierce waves pounding, THE WORKSHOP·PRESS LTD, 2 Culham Court, oh free, so free Granville Road, LONDON N4, 4 JB. UK. the little body sings its way through the ocean world, the storm and the thundering shore. Page 7 Page 6 ,. •• 1 i .-.*-• t a W h,(4, Pt.F•b,-~,_. R, ta c;:.u+ c ..,....,. __ ~ R. Fearon How can I tell f'/\axi I cannot come, Lawd me tired fe tan up a dis a bus' top My entry barred, An' it look like rain ago drop by fear bred deep within the bone.
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