Character (Election '10)

Life theatrical
Plat-forms a world of actors
Campaign now playing

And you, Trinbagonian…what are you looking for?
Entertainment? You’ve got it
Excitement? You’ve got it
Bacchanal? You’ve got it
An experience of a lifetime you’ll never forget? You’ll get it.
The election campaign is geared to meeting our whims and fancies
And we are a people of festivals and fantasies
Of J’ouvert mud stain melodies
Of Tuesday masquerades
And of Ash
Wednesday Mass
Of Dimanche Gras
And grandeur
Of costuming kings and queens of carnival parades
Of reigning monarchs of steel and soca
And calypso fiestas
So we swallow theatre, and force characters down to the pits of our stomach
Digesting bacchanal as crab and callaloo
It’s almost culturally fit that our politics preaches
Of playwrights we’ve all seen before
Actors on platforms who pass through a different door
To take the same mic-
Stand
Gesturing crossed hands to cross out villains
Of heroes born and bred to save us
Of a dawn of motherhood, to rising “girl power”
Of an abusive father
Who repeatedly raped his daughter
Then lay her festering corpse in bondage
Beside her love and his bleeding
Hart
Pillow of thorns and dollars and cents
Do So to ex-it
To scene of shredding a scarlet promise
Lyricist begins to juggle his vowels
Bending words to shift their spaces
From truth
So we never discern that the jargon had its root
Set deep into this fruit of lies
We’ve all seen these actors die
Only to rebirth as magicians of another kind
But still of the very same mango
Seed
A play on diversities
Beggin you to either switch over to curry
Or simply keep suckin red pulp
Till dry
Stain teeth if you may
Both are lies
Artificially flavored themselves to entice you
Sweet talk served with an ounce of honey
Anchard masseured in thyme or shado beni
To leave us a people in drooling tongues
Twisting deep in this irony of culture
My only fear is the poisoning of theatre
By politics
Or rather is it
Of politics by theatre?
That we have grown so deep into their characters
That we don’t speak issues
Anymore