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Yesterday
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of privation and poverty
Mortality
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on the tracks of
The tears in my skin and
Of my soul

Last night
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The unreality of free
In freedom
Illusions of independence
And the sweat
Tumbles free
Down
My worn body

Today
Still The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Differing rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The arrogance and dismissal
Of political complacence
Dilutions of competence
And the sweat
Tumbles trussed-up
Down
My worn body

Tonight I expect
The sounds of
Whips and chains
Times
Of hardship and poverty
Death
And periods of despair
Despairingly wide chasms
Of equality
Different rules of eligibility
In a world built
Largely on
The dementia and aimless
Wanderings of a time lost society
And the sweat
It stops
My body worn
Down

Tomorrow
Is another
Day
What will I anticipate?

A return
To the epochs
Of my past
Or
Will we face
A different fate?

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Lyrics submitted under the title “And tomorrow is another day”. Performance run on top of Ruff Kutz Kut “Don’t put nothin’ on it”

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Der drum’se a talkin’ to we
Der drum’se a talkin’ to we
Come chirren gadder roun’
The drum’se a talkin’
The drum a talkin’ ta all a we

What the drum say Mama
What it say
It say we mus’ dance chirren
It say we mus’ dance

Why we a dancin’ Mudda
Why we a dancin’
I don’ know no more chirren
I don’ know
All I’se know is we must dance
’cause der drum she a talkin’

Who name is dat der drum callin’ mudda
Who name is dat der drum callin’
Is yo name der drum is callin chile
Is yo name der drum callin’

Why der drum callin’ me by anudder name Mudda
Why der drum callin’ me by anudder name
Is callin’ you by da only name it know chile
Is callin’ you by da only name it know

Why it callin’ Mama
Why it callin’
It lonely chile
It lonely and tired
‘pears it bin callin’ a long time
an’ we aine never hear
‘pears we bin too far away too long
bin too far away too long

Where we bin mama
Where we bin

Lost chile
We bin lost

Now chile what you hear
What it callin’
Wh’as der name it sayin’
Soun’ like melination mama
Soun’ like it callin we
a mis-alligned-nation

Wha’s a mis-aligned-nation mama
Wha’s a mis-aligned-nation
Us chile
Us
We be the mis-aligned nation
Of melinated people
Who hidin out in de sapodilla garden

Der drum’se a callin’ chile
Der drum’se a callin’ chile

Why it callin’ ter me Mama
Why it callin’ ter me

Is a callin’ ter all a we
Callin’ fer we to acknowledge home
Live home
Be home
Be free

Ee-yah free I tell yer

•••

Lyrics submitted under the title “The Calling – Community”

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•••

(Performance Script)

A sex drive
Newly discovered
An inventive mind at play
Fed by radio and t.v.
Ready at all times to re-enact
What she has seen and heard

A little piece on the side
A little piece before lunch
A quickie after school
That’s what she is offering
And all it will cost is
A hot Guinness and a crack conch
Hell that’s cheaper
Than a corner motel
And a hooker for the night
Don’t think I won’t take it

She may not have
The refined intelligence of a woman
She may not have
Even have the allure of a woman
But her body
Shows no age
Her sexual drive
Shows no ending
Her inventive mind
Shows no apprehension
At the things I want to do

I mean
If that is what she wants
If she has been programmed to discount
the real value of her worth
and trade it for
a hookers girth
I am going to milk her
For all her discounted worth

It is no concern of mine
That the females in her life
Will not pull her aside and check her
It is no concern of mine
That mom and pop’s have to work three jobs
So she is living for herself
Doing what she wants to get what she wants
It is no concern of mine that
Church members and teachers
Hide behind the rhetoric of words
And their own mis-deeds
Won’t speak to her
Because of their own
Unjust seeds
It is no concern of mine that
The neighbourhood folks won’t
Report what’s going on
Because they have concerns of their own
It is no concern of mine that
The police will not appear
Because they are elsewhere
Some even getting
in some other little girls underwear

So what if she has the potential to be
More than I could ever be
It is not my concern
At least
Until Someone
Does the same thing to my own
I mean
All it will cost is
A hot Guinness and a crack conch
And that’s cheaper
Than a corner motel
And a hooker for the night
Don’t think I won’t take it

•••

Lyrics submitted under the title “A Hot Guinness and a Crack Conch”

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