Serenoa repens

2nd generation afro Caribbean
1st world isolation
3rd world starvation

My community stripped and dis-joint-ed
Looking for salvation

1 parent family
2 siblings screaming mercy
Scanning streets from a 15th storey
Carbon fumed bed-sit window

For a father,
Abandoned, idle
On corners devoid of dreams
And lost in translation

3 squares
A gourmet feast
Cockroach starter
The fatted rat, main course
And a pissed up mattress to wash it down

When we grew
Those same streets is what we knew

Hanging in the park
Soaked in pollen sun
We would beat out our intoxicating rhythms
As we palmed our basket balls
Making us drunk with the sound

Smoking to the heavens, are opponents,
Shooting them down like antelopes in the bush
We played, dancing synchroni-city,
As we strove for the hoop

The needle was damaging
As our veins filled with
An adulterous cocktail of testosterone
And wild youth

Adult games we’re enlisted
To an adolescent naivety
Our aim to be accepted
By the crew

Now Palm Sunday
Another brother decays
Putrid, like rotting meat

A slab of ebony
Laid to rest amongst fresh cut orchids
Soon to droop
Emulates the heads of my people

My mind tells a story
Of a mother
Jesus lover
Lost her son
Survived by sister
And streets destined to kill another

And a tomb stone which reads,

“He never knew his father"

Serenoa repens wastes in urban heat
Rest in peace

Sean Benjamin 2007