The tourist stops for uphill directions
Through British transplants
Strawberry Hill, Irish Town, NewcastleDon’t turn off, keep straight straight
The woman tells him
One hand a lateral plumbline
Along a road of 300 corners legend
Bob Marley took upwards, fleeing bullets
Descended with song to become both
– legend and fugitiveThey smile Jamaican
He aping comprehension
She in the local’s sheer satisfaction
Of setting foreigner on the narrow and windingFor straight only is not of sufficient rigidity
To channel these drivers from lands
Of broad tarmac with lanes enough
To be hell bent on destructionThey need a double
A repetition spell check would highlight for deletion
For Microsoft Word knows not our once
Much less twice spoken wayscabba cabba
chaka chaka
dibby dibby
goody goody
back back
lay lay
meke meke
placka placka
panka panka
sawka sawka
jukky jukky
pyay pyay
fee fee
weddy weddy
passa passa
fool fool
dege dege
I an I
blabba blabba
puny puny
good up good up
one one
kreng kreng
wetty wetty
pum pumFor we are a plural society
Literally, reading a dancehall posters
Achieving ignition with a matches
Nursing the ache of a back teeth
Soothing a bees bite
Begging a smalls
Claiming a customers
Declaring singular possession
Dis is minesWe do not imitate English
In descriptive degrees
Of very and extremely
But pronounce doublesslim slim
fat fat
white white
black black
reverse back
Loving bad bad
Even unto deathSo straight straight means
There are more temptations than accustomed
To turn aside
The traveller must be steadfast
An Argonaut, deaf to siren song
Looking neither left nor right
As would be sojourners inside the US Embassy are
Unlike Lot’s wife and her sodium ways
A pillar of salt looking back at SodomHigh blood pressure has long been our affliction
We learnt under hot tents, on open lands
With calves brushing hard pews
Hemlines swaying
To be steadfast
See and blind, hear and deaf
For it is easier for the camel
To go through the eye of the needle
Than a rich man to enter Zion
Yeah, wanty wanty cyaa get e
An getty getty no want eIf the tourist goes just straight
He might yield to temptation at the first left
And get to a US state, Maryland
Beyond that return to Britain at CambridgeFor the road into the hills doubles back onto itself
Like our colonial masters
And our tongues, interrupting our song
To forward it backAll this she tells the tourist
With a smile, traffic barrier of an arm
Emphasis on two words
In the same exact way
Her sharp mind tells him to mind sharp
And blesses in parting
Have a good good day
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones