CHANGE

There was a time when we felt that change was relative. One hundred days after taking office the media is still enamoured of the new President. The campaign slogan, "change" seems to have a new meaning. A recent note on the CBC's "The Next Chapter" lamented the lack of engagement in the political by poets. Poets depend on patronage. Poets are not political, or...

ONE HUNDRED AND CHANGE

There has never been
A half-white Commander-in-C
A half-black in the oval's crest.
You think! You need nothing

Else—this is change, I bring you
$20 billion for Bank of America
$20 billion for C—B gave you
TARP, I give you TALF—change
Much more than It-Wasn't-Me
Gave Chase a fire-free bargain
Bears—another $24 billion for C

Another bailout For BAC, another
Bailout for Wall Street feasting
on the backs of your children.
Change! Mine are taken care of
From these hallowed lawns
to college and beyond. The big thing:

What dog to select. We'll change
To the Portuguese. There are pups
And pups—man you no Shakespeare!
But a promise is, well, you know
A valentine thing. Your health
Care cost has gone up, you didn't
Get a raise? Your bosses did.

After billions to the billionaires
Ah! Some change from the Bush
Who gave you $1,000 or $2,000
In-the-Bush-years-rebates—
A democratic republican!

Here, take $20.00 per paycheck—
If you have one. Yes, we can!
Change! Cut $100 million—
not from Wall Street—
I promise you: one cent, five cents,
Ten cents change—one cent,
five cents, Ten cents change

© Sasenarine Persaud

Summit of the Americas

A China-Cuba fable: different palms and, yet, the same

Elephants in the Room

When did the Great Wall slip
into our dining room? Perhaps an Italian's
journey to the Emperor's court thirsting

the art of papermaking, a British eye
for fine teacups and dinnerware—
cheap-in-Wal-Mart, or not, in Staples

forget the Long March, manufactured hunger
in the Cultural Revolution. It is too late.
Tanks snake on caked red and separated flesh

in Tiananmen Square the cleaners scrubbed
all night: the new proletariat cheering their first
astronaut in space. No elections in 100 years

or was that 1000? From panty to scissors
clipping private hair—made in C-thanks
the boys in Havana brandish hand-me-downs

Stalin era Kalashnikovs and tanks running
on water. An arrow in his throat or thigh
Ponce lay dying in Havana the cigar "rogue"

can't lift a wiry beard. Turning his tail
to the tiger, Jumbo swats a flea with his trunk
and takes off for Trinidad. In his quest

for El Dorado, Raleigh landed near Piarco
according to fables penned in the tower
before the executioner blind men from states

in the Americas line up in Port-of-Spain
to feel the trunk of an elephant—
a golden arch, Sir Walter's untouchable

not like Clinton in Miami—I'm smarter—
an Americas Summit with Cuba in abstentia!
I bring you change from DC—all that's left

From the billions to Wall Street
We are not Islam's enemy, we are Havana's
We are not China's enemy, we are Cuba's

© Sasenarine Persaud