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England, autumn, dusk –
so different from the quarter-hour
at home when darkness drops:
there’s no flamboyant fireball
laughing a promise to return;
only a muted, lingering farewell,
and day has passed to evening.
I been there, sort of: New and Selected Poems – Mervyn Morris
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The serengeti sleeps
harmony between predator and prey
except for the night prowlers, maw open
tip toeing through darkness
unseen, unheard, unknown
by the sleeping serengeti
-cocoatea.poetry
10.2.25
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Torn from the vine from another world
to tame the wildness of the juice, assigned
with bill and hoe to field or factory, chained
by the voracious hunger of the cane
the world’s rapacious appetite for sweetness
How place names of my servitude mock me:
Eden, Golden Vale, Friendship, Green Valley,
Hermitage, Lethe, Retreat, Retirement, Content,
Paradise, Phoenix, Hope, Prospect, Providence
Each with the Great House squatting
on the highest eminence
the Sugar Works overlooking
my master’s eye unyielding
the overseer unblinking
not seeing the black specks
floating across
their finely-crafted
landscape
At shell blow assembled the broken-down
bodies, the job-lots scrambled into gangs
like beads on a string O not pearls no just
unmatched pairings the random bindings
like cane trash no not like the cane pieces
laid out geometric and given names
and burning.
http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/0106/olive_senior.htm
Death must not find us thinking that we die
too soon, too soon
our banner draped for you
I would prefer
the banner in the wind
Not bound so tightly
in a scarlet fold
not sodden, sodden
with your people's tears
but flashing on the pole
we bear aloft
down and beyond this dark, dark lane of rags.
Now, from the mourning vanguard moving on
dear Comrade, I salute you and I say
Death will not find us thinking that we die.
-Martin Carter
http://silvertorch.com/c-poetry.html