ballade of victory

 who wants to echo the most moral sigh
of those who in the morning fade away
without a chance of hearing the reply
as all the darkness slowly becomes grey
another silence earns its proper pay
in shaping what we do not care to know
of all the forms that nature might bestow
upon the places where we might reside
whether from high above or down below
this world is where we bury all our pride

too many fools have listened to the lie
and thought the hardest task was simple play
their faces now are hidden from the sky
and they cannot their horror now betray
who have been taken out of human way
we in our turn have many miles to go
beside the river that won't cease its flow
there is no place to run and none to hide
we have no chance to escape hungry crow
this world is where we bury all our pride

an idiot might sometime dignify
all means by which the many go astray
but such things do not please the aging eye
of those who have seen many a bitter day
and understand the meaning of each ray
of failing light which no one could forgo
as dying millions wait the killing blow
and high above the lazy vultures glide
no footprints are left in the sand or snow
this world is where we bury all our pride

prince in your face we've seen the final glow
of nuclear light and seen the dead chateaux
palaces barracks cities none abide
all order now has met its overthrow
the highest honour has fallen most low
this world is where we bury all our pride

A Sense that the World is Mad

 

A Sense that the World is Mad

John Maxwell

I am beginning to feel more and more like Scaramouche, who if I remember correctly, was born with a smile on his lips and a sense that the world was mad.
The problem is that it is getting harder and harder to smile when   confronted by the pipe dreams of   ‘Developers’ who seem intent on piling carastrophe on top of disaster on top of débåcle..
What can they be smoking?
Two weeks ago,  having conceded that the Port Antonio Marina was a misconceived white elephant, the developers unleashed their brand new plan to add to that disaster by building another – an  airport on farmland  in St Thomas. And then, to add catastrophic lunacy to that inanity, Mr Darryl Vaz, a self-confessed American of Jamaican parentage  who claims to be a Member of the Jamaican parliament, unburdened himself of what must be the craziest idea of the century – so far.Observer Business section, Mr Vaz is reported to have uncorked plans to steal for ‘development’ the coastline of Portland to indulge the recherche tastes of other people with more money than sense.
The story was headlined
“Portland Roads to be reclaimed for development” and said, inter alia
“SOME major roads running along the East Portland coastline will soon be reclaimed to allow for development of waterfront properties by both government and private investors, as part of the big tourism plan for that parish.
This was disclosed by state minister in the office of the Prime Minister Daryl Vaz, who said a meeting will be held shortly with the National Works Agency (NWA) to finetune the plans.”
I cannot imagine why these momentous lunacies have yet not managed to hit the front pages of our newspapers. Perhaps the intention is, as Patterson did with the Doomsday Highway, to spring this idiocy on the population when our minds are occupied with other things, to produce a fait accompli, putting facts on the ground befoire we poor Philistines have woken up to the fact that we have been defrauded, honswoggled and bound hand, foot and pension fund..
Roads to be ‘reclaimed’! 
Reclaimed from what? or reclaimed from whom?

( read more after the cut )

 
Deep inside last Sunday’s

No, Woman! No Cry!

The ancestors of most Jamaicans shed gallons  of blood, sweat and tears to arrive at a halfway decent, if somewhat ramshackle democracy.
While some of us died or otherwise suffered  for the freedom to control our affairs, we were warned by no less a National Hero than Bustamante that ‘Independence is worse than slavery”
For the Haitians, Bustamante’s apothegm is clearly relevant. The Americans, aided and abetted by the oh-so-civilised French and the Canadians, among others, are busy making sure that if the Haitians won’t eat excrement, they can at least be forced to eat dirt.
Our turn seems to be fast approaching with enormous help from such as  Percival James Patterson – the last – who declared that the law is not a shackle.
And if the law is not a shackle, why, public opniion and human rights must be  equally dispensable!
Development is not for the poor, as the United Nations and its nearly 200 members declared in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Redefined by Thatcher, Reagan and their disciples, ‘Development’ is for the rich. They have the right to impose –  in the sacred  name of ‘Development’  – any gimmick they can dream up  (or find in Architectural Digest)  to make as much ‘wealth’ as they can mismanage in the stated  hope that some of the crumbs will – in due time – trickle down to the rest of us.
I want to tell them a secret: Privilege and wealth are even better served  in Dubai. Go Deh!

Rebel Music

       As we celebrate Bob Marley’s sixtieth birthday and his music is the obbligato to all Jamaica’s tourism publicity, the culture from which Marley sprang is increasingly sequestered behind high walls protecting us from our landscapes, our sea, our beaches  and our dreams.
Increasingly, development is a gimmick – aka ‘attraction’ – built on land captured from the people and gated off from them – as in Cartade’s Long Mountain favelas for the rich. The beaches on which I sported as a child,  in Duncans, Montego Bay Ocho Rios and Portland are increasingly being captured, illegally and without compensation much less consent, and barred to any who does not possess US dollars or a credit card denominated in a foreign currency.
Last week the Gleaner and its radio outlet, Power 106, regaled us with happy stories of the architectural and environmental delights of that kitcshy excrescence known as Bahia Principe – a concrete statement of the contempt in which developers hold the people of Jamaica.
There, at a captured  officially designated  Public Beach called Pear Tree Bottom, the tourists disport themselves on sand illegally imported from ‘God Knows Where’ underlain by concrete . Meanwhile what’s left of the old beach receives the full complement of the bowels of the European bourgeoisie who fondly imagine that they are in Jamaica. Their excrement is all they leave behind. The regulations and demands of Jamaican Law are ignored
Journalism is a public trust they say – and the Gleaner is more fond of saying it than most. .As I understand it,  that means that journalists and the people who own them are expected to respect the Public Interest, that curious abstraction  in the name of which public amenity is destroyed in order to save it from the negligent multitude. One would have imagined that a respect for the public trust would have impelled the Gleaner and its minions to go further than the PR tour and cocktails, down to the beach, behind the unsightly and illegal  black plastic fence and into the wetlands beside the hotel. At least they could ask about the noxious odours emanating from the western side of the hotel.
The beauty about the trade winds is that on Jamaica’s north coast one does not smell the sewage if one is to the east (windward) of it. at least during the day. And at night you are protected by air-conditioning. When the wind changes during the day, the foreign guests are, no doubt, informed that the smell comes from the natives next door.
 Soon enough however, if the developers have their way, no one can be windward of the stench of one-eyed, harebrained, self-aggrandizing and unsustainable development. Then,  they   will not only be able to smell the fruits of their labours but they will also be able to understand the culture of Bob Marley.
Bon Appetit.
COPYRIGHT©2008 JOHN MAXWELL
jankunnu@gmail.com