Poems

 

The Jamaican child

Watch them all caught up in them politics!

Turn on the news another Jamaican child life has ended too quick

Busy making plans for the future they say

While every day the future is being taken away

How can you not cry out when you hear of the death of a child?

They drop by and offer words of assurance just for a little while

Our little girls are being taken advantage of yet elders continue lust

Every day we brace ourselves to hear about more pain reaching our children

Yet we remember for a while and we move on with our lives because it's not our child

It's so captivating to hear a child laugh yet these men find joy in taking their innocence

So young, filled with great potential yet at just 12, 13, 14, 15 they are killed before their time

More and more parents are burying their children

Our country is really in reverse

No matter how many developments take place in our country we continue to disregard our true worth

The most influential minds pretend as if they don't hear the cries

Yet they are vocal on the most trivial of matters

Our children continue to cry out to be protected but we are silent and tune out the cries

Let us think for a while, what would you do if your child was molested and found in a dirt pile?

May our hearts be more understanding so we can do something about the problem

2015 rolls on and we honestly have to wonder how many more times we will have to say goodbye

Goodbye to our loved ones who the gun and knives took away

Our youngest are leaving us yet Jamaica needs the youngest to build it up

- Saccheen Laing

 

Miss Jamaica Speaks

Miss Jamaica's home is in the Caribbean Sea.

Although single, she seems as happy as can be.

She's had several offers of marriage

But she boldly turned them down.

Her first was from an Indian who canoed into town.

He asked her hand in marriage

For he thought she was a beauty.

"Oh no!" She answered promptly.

"Go find another cutey!

"Xymaica," he persisted,

"You're so wondrously fair!"

But even so, she shook her head and said,

"I do not care."

Many years after, when she'd changed her mind,

Not a trace of this Indian she could ever find.

Some people still say

The loss of this Indian

She mourns to this day.

The second was a Spaniard.

He tried as hard as he could.

But she snickered, "Don't you bother.

My heart is made of wood."

"And furthermore," she mocked,

"You have a wicked streak.

I could never ever marry one

So ignorant and weak!

Did you say that you discovered me?

Ha! Ha! How did you arrive at that?

That shows, my dearest Spaniard,

That all you know is squat."

A handsome English man came

With a lovely English accent.

"I like your pretty blue eyes," she said,

But my parents won't consent."

Then she chuckled, oh so softly

For they had long passed away.

"Perhaps," she mused, "I'll reveal the truth

On another courting day."

I think that Ms Jamaica

Sometimes regrets not marrying

As single life, she smiles,

Is sometimes so unexciting.

"But I am too old to marry now,"

She chuckles, "way too old

Although some say my beauty

Is still a wonder to behold."

"I often interact with my neighbours," she said.

If I didn't have these friends,

From boredom, I'd be dead.

Mr Cuba, my buddy

Is only ninety miles away.

And I email Ms Haiti every other day.

Barbados and Guyana are my comrades too.

And so are Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela

My ally often comes to visit me

At my home in the heart of the Caribbean Sea.

- Cynthia Wilmot-Cox

 

Forget you

I want to forget you completely

I am sick and tired of how you mistreat me

Callously and without thinking

I feel so defeated

Because I am no longer

needed

I want to forget you and free my mind

But you are constantly there all the time

I want to forget you like you never existed

Yet you still haunt me

unexpectedly

You keep resisting

I want to forget you and ease my pain

I refuse to continue accepting the blame

I don't regret you

I need to repress you

Better yet

I want to forget you

 

 

My paint set

 

If the sky is grey, what colour should I paint the day?

Some may shout, 'Paint it grey! Paint it grey!'

I don't think so, though.

I don't have a grey paint in my set.

I have red or yellow, a bright pink or shocking purple.

Let me look some more ...

Sorry, I see a lush green, and a sky blue and a reddish orange.

Oho! I just found the canary yellow.

My paint set has only bright colours.

Who wants to paint with me?

Come, stand beside me and let us paint the world with bright colours.

It would look beautiful.

You would love it and I would love it, too.

- ImaiRose Nuako

 

 

Children are like flowers

Shower them with your love and attention

And see how well they bloom in your garden.

Their smiles are like the sun that brightens your world.

Don't abuse them or misuse them.

Don't you see how precious they are?

Be their protector and shield them from the dangers of this world.

Shower them with your love every day

And they will beautify your life in every way.

- Erika Heslop Martin