That song I cannot sing
Hello and welcome to my Blog.
After my break to celebrate 25 years of marriage, I’m continuing this week the Reggae / Blues flavour with lyrics and poems taken from my 2011 collection “Reggae Riddeema”. Poem of the week on the homepage, “Love as”, is aspects of love.
Pulse
Threads tracked along old calendar pages,
Crossed off and discarded.
Weak or firm the flow and beat continue.
Streaming on into weirs and terraces
Where the cooling water foams fresh
To be aerated into life for Salmon in the pool.
History one could say has no over-arching evil or blessed intent;
Solely events interpreted by moralists and priests.
Yet some law unwritten, yet lodged within our hearts dictates,
The larger meaning and view on all events.
Co-incident with the urge to control, to make a change,
Reposes too the duty on the unseen mover to be
In feelings moved and judging, desiring the outcome good,
Wisdom lying in pre-knowledge of how things should.
That Song I Cannot Sing
Listening to Burning Spear
Do I remember the days of slavery?
Got this thought in my mind coming clear.
That song I cannot sing from my heart
With no history, no remembered fear.
Since all I could offer
Is working for the Man
In some satanic mill.
Hating the boss and that job
Escaping when and if you can.
Seems a meagre slim connection
For its not from the heart deep I could truly bring.
Not really the thing,
No.
So that song I cannot sing.
That song of burning
I cannot sing.
Listening to Burning Spear
Do I remember the days of slavery?
I’m closing my eyes, better visualise.
We’s in a deep dark well
Looking up to freedom skies.
Clouds passing free,
Unlike we.
Here at the bottom
Walls pressing in,
Trapped with no hope
Of getting out.
But this is only my imagined shout.
Not really the thing,
No.
So that song I cannot sing.
That song of burning
I cannot sing.
This is my white boy slavery song,
I can only imagine the suffer and wrong.
Not really the thing,
No.
So that song I cannot sing.
That song of burning
I cannot sing.
Some Sweet Comfort for My Soul
It was a long time coming
But for Daddy and me, the changes never came.
So we just kept passing down the ember
Of hope in our hearts
While we worked in the mud and the rain.
Just mud and rain
With some rest at night
Just enough to get up, so we could do it again.
I didn’t notice the years rolling
With my work and family, time has slipped on by.
Now I sit on the porch hearing young folks
Singing my old time blues.
Just happy they got an easier try.
Young folks, brightness and joy.
Just their brightness and joy.
Gives me some sweet comfort for my soul.
Young folks, brightness and joy.
Young folks, brightness and joy.
Just their brightness and joy.
Gives me some sweet comfort for my soul.
Young folks, brightness and joy.
The Accuser’s Answers:
Song of the Grumblebellies
Ecclesiastes and Job
The bellyachers confront, accusing:
“Show your face! Come here!
Why us and unrightness?”
Complaints and whiners met with silence
Not even presence to grapple with like Jacob.
Simply, simply, deep silence.
They look and wind moves leaves in trees
On sunlit leaves
Breezes around your faces and heads
Dust grains felt across toes of sandaled feet.
Simply, simply, wait.
He will answer yet perhaps
Through others, not today
In a different way expected or not foreseen.
When the crops of plans are failed
He’ll drop the forward growing seed.
Our causes plead, the accusers leave.
Still the gulf unbridged, paths and ways still blocked.
We will return to speak, though hurt yet
We will not abandon Him.
Simply, simply, believe.
I Was a Prisoner of Myself
I was a prisoner of myself,
Keys lost to the map of my mind.
Sunk there’s no trace;
But turn the corner four times
Any direction from where you start
The remedy to find again, regain,
Your thoughts, your place.
I was the prisoner of myself,
Unable to float serene,
Without hope’s corks plugging.
We sink aboard our ship of schemes
Defeated in our mind we splash and paddle,
While, in the distance, lies our land of dreams.
You simply have to keep on bailing and slugging.
I was the prisoner released,
From naysayers and various doubts.
With one resolve I slipped the chains,
And now see fortune’s grace blow free,
The fighter prevails in the end,
After several bouts.
Original poem (from: “Sharing a Soft Small Star”) The original poem and a reggae poem lyric version – who says you can’t re-mix poems like music?
Ebony Sweet
Against the fluted pillar she leans,
Classical and beauty meet and meld.
Her skin so black.
I see her eyes; she smiles,
Twin rows of pearls me greet.
Ebony girl so sweet.
“Riddim” version:-
Ebony Sweet
Ebony sweet, each day mi greet
So fine.
Ebony sweet, mek mi so complete
So fine.
Ebony sweet, in mi dreams your lips
‘Gainst mine.
’Gainst the pillar of the restaurant she lean,
Her beauty meet and meld,
wit the world, supreme.
Her skin so smooth an black.
Gimme heart attack.
I lost, I see her eyes;
She smiles,
Twin rows of pearls mi greet,
I know my heart’s complete,
Ebony girl so sweet,
So sweet.
Ebony sweet, each day mi greet
So fine.
Ebony sweet, mek mi so complete
So fine.
Ebony sweet, in mi dreams your lips
‘gainst mine.
Fickles fo tha Rhymin Man - a Warnin!
Sayin Reggaeliscious,
Rub a dubliscious,
Say I’s alway bit suspicious,
Of yo labels.
Cryin from tha left field no predicted,
I pleads total genius as indicted.
No rest from rhyming fo the wicked,
Flowin from tha mind,
Steeds of mi power,
Chargin from tha stables.
So rhymin man be bold,
See alls’ll turn to Gold.
Fortune beckon you in from tha cold.
Sit an eat all dem good tings,
From groaning tables.
Fickles fo tha Rhymin Man - a Warnin!
Folks changing wit tha breez,
Opinions on talent concernin.
Fickles fo tha Rhymin Man - a Warnin!
Big up riding on the high,
He’s no worry.
But dem easy change dem minds,
Tomorrow he be sorry!
Sayin Reggaeliscious,
Rub a dubliscious,
Say I’s alway bit suspicious,
Of yo labels.
Until my next Blog, as always have a good week and take care.
Best wishes,
Louis
This Blog and all contents, copyright Louis J. Casson 2017. All poems taken from the collection “Reggae Riddeema”, 2011
© Louis J. Casson 2017 all rights reserved.