Mervyn Taylor: The Mentor
Posted: August 31, 2012 Filed under: 7 GUEST EDITORS, Andre Bagoo, English, Mervyn Taylor | Tags: Poets from Trinidad and Tobago Comments Off on Mervyn Taylor: The Mentor
Mervyn Taylor
The Mentor
I.
In this dream there were
cows in every field,
breaths rising to create
clouds floating above
an island so green,
it seemed made of gases.
And out of this arose the
poet, in a grey suit,
as spry as I’ve ever
seen him, dancing his
mischievous meaning,
tieless, sparkling with
metaphor, asking his trick
question- are you going
with me, are we going
to look for reasons?
In this place I answered,
no one should ever starve,
or complain about things
other than an open gate
through which a stray might
wander lost and unmarked,
ending in dispute settled now
in such devious ways.
II.
You might remember Lena.
In the dream she too
was present, wearing
a hat like a teakettle cover,
remarking those boys who
now live where she grew up,
tattoos marking their bodies,
and a young girl hosting
a perfume sale every Friday,
advertised under
a Digicel sign and one
for computer repairs.
It is rumored this is the
house a mental outpatient
was looking for, when he
smashed the gate
at a wrong address,
took a wheelbarrow handle
and beat a bedridden
90 yr. old to death, those
who harbored the fugitive
he was seeking crouching
next door, saying
not a word, their weapons
like marshmallows in their
pockets, hands over their
ears, blocking the sound of
breaking bones, and screams.
III.
Cows crop the grass,
brown and white backs
seen from above, the land
in undulating waves below.
Out of the few houses,
people in black follow
funerals, fathers refusing
to accept each other’s
apologies, watching their sons
lowered, earth tamped,
they remain, conversing
with the dead. Ah, the poet
smiles his ineffable smile,
those adverbs he warned
against, they shuffle up.
What will we do with them,
now that he is going, trailing
long verses, joining the islands
like cans behind a wedding,
bells pealing in chapels
whose stone walls he worked
hard to capture, inside the
host on Sunday morning,
blood in silver chalices,
the priest’s voice intoning
from memory- sunlight,
stained glass, sin, all in
four-by-four refrain.
IV.
This is where they’ve
chosen to reenact the story
of sacrifice, with animals,
gold and greed,
where the washing of hands
goes on every day, governors
and guards swearing
each other away, poets
in corners swearing out
long poems like warrants,
lists of charges read aloud
in a difficult language,
the one in grey asking,
are you going with me, are
we going to understand
what it is we do, and why?
. . .
ABOUT THE POET
Mervyn Taylor is a Trinidad-born poet who divides his time between Brooklyn and his native island. He has taught in the New York City public school system, at Bronx Community College and The New School, and is the author of four books of poetry, namely, An Island of His Own (1992), The Goat (1999), Gone Away (2006), and No Back Door (2010, Shearsman Books). He can be heard on an audio collection, Road Clear, accompanied by bassist David Williams.
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