Indigenous Uprising—Rex Lassalle

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The Alphabet Ones
By Rex Lassalle
They project history and April 70 narratives
Based on dumb, idiotic soldiers
Just there to be given orders
They then follow
Never was in a barrack room.
Never knew Teteron barrack rooms.
Where Fanon & Debray were discussed
Giap & Ho Chi Minh were heroes
Never knew they knew Dien Bien Phu
As was Lumumba and his fate
These things were known
Plus, many relatives suffered racism abroad.
Read Soul On Ice
Read The Wretched of the Earth
Read Black Skin White Mask
Read Che Guevara
Those dumb soldiers will just follow orders
From their officers In the Colonial narrative
Wishful thinking
Officers & Senior NCOs would fall into such a horror movie.
O, you exaggerator!
Really?
Dumb Teteron soldiers refused 1969 Christmas lunch
A battalion of private soldiers said “No.”
Sarge faced a bullpistle on back.
As he sought to impose a colonial order on January 70.
Soldier draws cutlass for senior officer also January 70
Camp Ogden Barracks burnt down April 21, 70
Officers with Colonial script will restore order on April 21, 70
Such historical fairy tales
From those Alphabet ones with BA and MA
Along with the many other A’s and B’s
Those social projections are neo-colonial ones
They are not Teteron Barrack room ones.
Rodney Groundings was read.
Plus, Friday’s Vanguard paper was in the barrack room
Not forgetting CLR’s Black Jacobins
Forget those intellectual stories.
They are fabrics of their imagination.
Many soldiers went to QRC, CIC & Fatima.
Few senior officers went there.
Pulling Rank Be dismissed!

Indigenous Uprising

By Rex Lassalle

Am I not allowed to ask about my past?
Am I not allowed to embrace other possibilities?
Than the one that my education gave me

That Columbus discovered Trinidad in 1498

Am I not allowed to ask what happened before?

Are you going to dismiss me and demonise me?

Well aware my questions are awkward

As they could create other narratives

That shake the foundations of power.

Along with who you are as a person

Am I not allowed to own my authentic humanity?

Rather than the one created by Colonised lenses

Can I not share my personal experiences?

As awkward and different from the norm

From how your Colonised eyes see me.

“Mutiny had nothing to do with Black Power.”
This is a falsehood that seeks to perpetuate the colonized mindset
This is what I am now hearing
It was about a promotion grouse.
That never came out of my mouth
At the Commonwealth Court Martial.
That disowning and dismissing
Of the idealism of a generation
It has to be challenged.
Yes, I hear you loud and clear
You identify with the “colonized.”
That is your choice.
You embrace it wholeheartedly.
You like to be treated as a dog
You like to be there as a servant
Yes, I know you have status.
You display much pride in your “achievement.”
You want to climb in life and if needed
You will bend to achieve
There is nothing in your ancestry that challenges that.
This is where the narrative changes for me
My light skin and middle-class ancestry
Although viewed as part of the colonial hierarchy
Simply does not accept that dehumanizing role.
Intergenerational Indigenous trauma resides in my DNA…

SPACE & ITS OCCURRENCE

By Rex Lassalle

Space brings many messages

Many blessings bring 

Painful initiations which were never requested 

Yet imposed upon me

All a shock

Beyond that

A Trauma

Pierced my being

As an order

A request for peace and calm

In their sacred domain

I dutifully respect

Yet the order is to Space 

For me to shift the experience 

In their Space

As my Ancestors are disturbing the Space

A plague that disrupts their Space

Send them to the Light

I am ordered

Stop being attached to them

No questions about who I am?

How come, Ancestors, are in my aura?

Could it be that I am an Indigenous man?

Finding his way on the plantation

Can that be possible with him?

Yes I am

What a blessed initiation this is

Denigrating my ancestors in public

So I can FEEL the pain they have carried

From the Patriarchal impositions

They have faced over millennia

Now granting me the sacredness of their presence

From Your denigration

Send them to the Light

Let me welcome that darkness

As I have no need for that Light

What you praise

Alienation is present for me

As genocide becomes present

When they are sent to the Light

What a sacred blessing you gave me

Thank you for confirming my authenticity

Sacred Space

Rex and Granny.

 

ANCESTRAL DISRUPTOR   

Had to embrace alienation

Saw it in other places

Decades-long practice

Going back many decades

Informing the client

Leave the tidying up to me

This is part of my treatment.

Arrogance arises with I am not one of those

Whatever those meant

Destroys a four-decade practice

She “tidies up.”

After the treatment

Pulled it up in front of me

Shaking my ancestral bones to the burial ground

Heartbeat in shock

Trembling in my bones

Ancestral gift given to me 

By Granma Julia, the traditional indigenous healer

Where surrender to Space after her efforts

Was at the core of her healing

Given to me in embryonic development

No words, yet that knowledge I knew

Felt and embraced over the decades

In my classes and treatments

Now this ancestral disruptor

Seeks to destroy that guidance 

Dismissing it to the burial ground

No such dismissal occurred

As short white mini skirt felt my shaking bones 

Heard it in my voice

Yet pursued her manipulative skills 

Suggesting the disruptor bribe me after her consultation

To come for dinner for me to be chef that evening.

Shocked, I turned it down

As short white mini skirt hustler projection 

Dissolved in front of her

Rejecting bribe left her puzzled

Embracing alienation arose

In that hostile environment.

From the Ancestral burial ground 

 

 

ACCOMMODATING SOCIAL EXPERIENCES

By Rex Lassalle

At dinner, having a meal together

Mutual respect is normally a given

In a relaxed, pleasant environment 

Yet accommodating other ways 

Are sometimes asked of you

What a stretch that can be.

When you find yourself at dinner

With a performing monkey

In front of you

Though bananas are not on the menu

Anyhow this was not one of those times

Yet the person in front of me

Her antics and flirtatious intentions

With husband present

Was one I only see in movies

As my solar plexus howled with tension

From concerted efforts to be civil and polite 

As colossus’s ego engaged the space, however, she could

These righteous ones 

Concocting nuances of dysfunctional sophistication

Somehow I missed what the performance was about

Twisted about to vomit belly 

Greeted this display

Short white mini skirt ever-present.

SKETCHES OF AFRICA**

 

WHERE I CAME FROM

This was always of more interest.
Than those with whom they have been
What accolades they got
With those alphabet letters behind their name
Standing as having made it on the plantation
Yet for me, the Reservation had more knowledge
Which grabbed my curiosity
By its ways of communicating
How that triggers the DNA
Obviously, being aware of the Reservation
Is surely needed
Otherwise, it is thrown in the coincidence bin
No such luxury was granted to me
Nailed in blood was how it was and is for me
That prison release with bloodletting
Poured out from my left nipple
Onto my white T-Shirt
There for the world to see
In the prison yard
Victory arrived
Announcing release the next day
Can I ignore that?
Did they teach that in school?
Did the plantation prepare me for this?
Search began, but where to search?
Had to get on with living on the plantation
Finding ways to earn a living
Healing was my calling
As that was in the DNA line
Granma Julia carried that
From her Indigenous roots
Traditional Mayan healer
Can’t say, Mayan
As that does not exist on the shores of Trinidad
Yet 13 is a lucky number
My mother kept repeating to me
Father dressed in black.
Those afternoons to the endless
Funerals he attended
Yet not a religious man.
Never went to church.
What did he know?
What was he about?
Then his knowledge of flora
Those trees and plant
Called the Latin name
So yes, he did read books about that
Studied Botany in school
Never saw him with any Botany book
At home though
Yet hundred percent accuracy is given for them
This surrounds my being
How come in school hundred percent is not how it is
Close but never a hundred percent
Do I throw away that way of being
To embrace the plantation
To get some trinkets by being first in something
That is the smart thing to do
For many people
Keep your mouth shut and watch from the side
Where smart is not the theme
Knowing some things
Only come
Through the oral tradition
Keep quiet till permission is granted.
Is the calling here
Listening is asked of me
So poems occur
As my mind rests in the Reservation

This is asked of me.

Nyasaye, by Greg Lassalle***

“*Native Spirit.”

10,059 views Premiered Oct 27, 2022:10,059 views •

“Native Spirit” is a celebration of the music of Native American cultures. The sounds of Nature are interwoven with enchanting flute melodies along with Native drum, percussion, and vocal sounds and performances to create a meditative environment of peace and harmony. A very special thank to Orange Fox from Pixabay for the amazing photographic artwork used on this cover. Recorded, mixed, and mastered at G-Lab by Greg Lassalle for Ana Marie Inter, Brazil. Promotional use only. Not for sale. 0:00 Skan Song 6:52 Beringia 12:17 Ageless Spirit 18:22 Journey By Water 25:55 Lone Wolf Watching 32:55 Gathering Of Souls 39:22 Raven Melody 44:37 Into The Wind 49:00 The Vanishing 53:45 New World Coming

“**Sketches Of Africa.”
Arguably the most influential ethnic music of the last century, the music of Africa casts a powerful and indisputably large shadow on the landscape of contemporary music. With over 700 languages, myriad musical styles, and a stunning array of vocal and instrumental textures, the African continent is an inexhaustible resource for musical beauty and cultural richness.
“Sketches” takes us on a journey through sub-Saharan Africa, where music accompanies virtually all rites of passage – from birth through initiation into adulthood, marriage, hunting, and death. The variety of musical textures on this CD reflects the diversity of cultures and seeks to capture and communicate the sound at the heart of Africa.

Greg was born in Trinidad and Tobago and has had a lifelong passion for the African culture. He wrote and produced these pieces built around samples of African choirs and musicians. His love for this music is evident in this collection of impressions of the mystical and wondrous side of the Dark Continent.

***NAYSAYE

Inspired by the poem heard at the beginning and end of this piece, the music was built around acoustic piano, cello lead, ngoni, balafon, and percussion. There is a majesty about Africa that moves me. From the gorgeous expanses of natural beauty to the animals and the amazing people, the sounds and imagery never cease to move me. A very special thank you to the video and photographic artists for their amazing work, from Pexels: Riccardo Parretti, Julia Volk, Curtis Loy, Harvey Sapir, Kureng Workx, Rodnae Productions, Craig Adderley, Lagos Food Bank Initiative. This music was recorded, mixed, and mastered at G-Lab Canada.

 

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