Geoffrey Philp

Blind in Saint Thomas

Unable to read my own handwriting, frustrated,
I leave my friends, David, Vince, Marvin, Patricia, Cathy,
Gene, on the deck of the Willie Mac II, and dive
Into the immaculate blue water off the coast of Botany
Bay, hillsides littered with tile, zinc, wood, the wake
Of Marilyn's passage through the Caribbean—stories
That follow me to the seabed like Cathy's eyes, reddened
By her dead father's love for Beethoven's thunder—
Where leathernecks, (in a moment as brief as the froth
That surrounds my body, yet constant as Glenworth's love
Songs to Patricia, It’s You That I Love) rise out of the sea
Like the mountains over Gallows’s Bay, the caves of maritime
Maroons that braved the ocean over to Haiti, Guyana, Vieques…
Warriors who drowned themselves rather than be recaptured
By the massa's old lies, subtle as the wind from the south,
From George’s home, where due east, dust from the harmattan
Disturbs the curtains in his apartment, then heading north,
Curls blades of grass on the mountains of Jacmel,
And even further north to Havana into Beatriz's childhood
Home, to Miami to interfere with my wife's skirt.

I turn away from the jagged face of the cliff, bruised by salt,
Wind and sand, and go deeper until my lungs and heart,
Barely able to hold the strain, shudder against my rib cage,
And I surface again--my legs weakened by the days’
And nights' trek along the back streets of Charlotte
Amalie lined with rum-heads and crack fiends sleeping
In the doorways and swales, to hands pulling me up
From the sea, back into the boat, back into their lives.

Baptism @ St. John's
(For Pastor Annette Jones)

Inside the polished pews,
surrounded by sin that I've fed
for so many years, my blood
sweetened by the rum of dead-end
bars, we are summoned to communion.
Under a stained glass window,
the spirit enveloped in a child's cry
descends through the light
and startles the pastor in the middle
of her sermon about God’s love
putting to shame the wisdom
of the world--yet I hesitate,
for in the charred chamber
of my heart there is a stranger
whose reflection I've avoided.
There is a man whose face
I've forgotten., and I turn away
only to meet your eyes,
and your hands, in the small
of my back, lift me.
So I rise and break the bread
drink the wine and become
one with this body,
become one with this life

Democracy Blues

Angry and tipsy, haunting bus stops on Biscayne and Seventy-ninth last night
Checked out an old friend, for my wife and me had been in a fight.
“Democracy," I screamed, "Girl, where've you been? I've been searching all over
The city for you." "None of your damn business," she barked and tried to cover
Her head from the drizzle coming down. "I go wherever I want cause I'm free.
And I do whatever I please-that's why they call me Democracy."
“That's not what I heard," I snickered. "Word is you're hard up for Benjamins.
You're on the prowl with your skirt between your knees. They say you've been
Slumming, taking on help--that's why you and your sister went down on Iraq."
That's when her eyes flared. She spat on the sidewalk and arched her back.
“What's going on down there has nothing to do with my sister, Freedom or me!
We may be party girls, but there's some things we won't do, not even for money
Or oil. But these boys, Bush and Blair, they're so afraid; they're using our names
Like how their fathers wore out our backs! In old slavedom days, war wasn't a game.
Their fathers words meant something--everything was for the republic or empire.
And If you fucked with them, they’d sail across the ocean and set your country on fire,
I wouldn’t buy crack from these boys! They tell lies about me, like I can cure all
The trouble and misery that's happened in the world since Adam met his fall.
And I would say the same to you," she said. "So, please, go home now to your wife
And apologize. For what's out here on the road can cost you your life."
Then I sobered up. For Democracy always spoke the truth. So I forgot all my pain,
The little hurts she caused, forgave her, and drove home in the rain.

Cover Design: Joseph McNair