Grey Area for Tony Hall –Dawad Philip

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Your old neighbor, Mister Jay started jumping 
the fence when his family put a lock on the gate, 
stopped leaving change around the house. Nothing 
worked. He walks the four miles to Pointe-a-Pierre
brisk and worried the refinery whistle would blast,
the timekeeper blemish his proud and perfect record. 
The guard at the gate comes from his booth smiling: 
What you doing here, Mister Jay? So long you retired, 
so long this plant closed, points up at the chimney: 
not a flicker, not a flame. A full head of grey brushed 
neatly back, Mister Jay, easy as he came, would turn
and be on his way, till next day. When the family built 
a higher wall, Mister Jay jumped higher. They moved the lock 
altogether. His wife, Miss Sylvia wakes while it is still dark
to cook, pack his lunch in three carriers, begs him, be safe, 
watches as he heads out for Pointe-a-Pierre. He will greet 
the constable at the gate, and on a corner of the table,
set his tablecloth with parrots on mango trees, share a meal
with the sentry, break bread in silence, chew long, the fat. 

Lord Street Urinal (for Tony Hall)
-Dawad Philip

this street 

this town

these islands

these poems/

stories and 

voices raised

it’s sad     not

a moment’s silence 

not a bell

but soil and sun 

and rain are kind 

as dawn blossoms

over Manzanilla

      lifts the morning 

and tote it whole day 

till we reach to rest

here on Lord Street   where 

you embrace the wind 

the art of light coursing 

in verse  down down

to the sea    drowning

in half a bucket

You go after cob web with a long broom 

           where dust gathers to gossip 

eaves and louvres dreary and mundane 

             vistas of  light    stark and profane 

I have given this mas a name and built it to

to last    it name    Water always finds a way. 

*From City Twilight by Dawad Philip (Anaphora Literary Press Fall 2020)

Tags: #caribbean #soca #carnival #trinidad #caribbeanlife #trinidadandtobago #westindianculture #trinidadcarnival #caribbeanculture #culture #calypsoasteachingtool #caribbeanhistory #calypsohistory #caribbeanpoetry #TonyHall

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Dawad Philip is the author of Invocations (1980), A Mural by the Sea (2017) and Jayden and the King of the Brooklyn Carnival (co-authored with Yolanda Lezama-Clark, 2019). Dawad Philip’s poems have appeared in several anthologies including Steppingstones, Bomb, Caribbean Voices, Poetry International, past simple,  Voicing Our Vision and New Rain. A 1990 recipient of New York State Fellowship on the Arts (Poetry), he has performed his works in the Caribbean, U.S., Canada; Riga, Latvia; Moscow and St. Petersburg. Philip, who holds a Masters of Arts (Carnival Arts) degree from the University of Trinidad and Tobago, keeps an active hand in the annual Trinidad Carnival and further afield as a costume designer and masmaker. After living and working in Brooklyn for nearly four decades as a poet, journalist/editor and artist, Philip has since resettled in his hometown of San Fernando, Trinidad. A Mural by the Sea (2018), a film by the late playwright/filmmaker Tony Hall, is based on selected poems from the book of the same title.