It was not something well foreseen
nor thought delivered when with
the contents of this message
came the delayed reprisal
of a ghost, stating:
Please. Return. To sender.
Nobody thinks with their liver.
Any organ would feign disease
or adopt suitable stomach
to tout the claims of such
miscommunication.
A laugh is best met unexpected.
The peak of a haunted mouth
seething
from behind
clouded nightly libation.
The work of ungodly spirits
whisked away by rum distant ships.
The short end of her untimely esophagus
bled my beheaded name
on the master’s sordid whip.
The vestigial intoxication
of overture;
they forgot me
in the drunk bowels of the dead
risked with
long pale turgid dilemma
in coherence of breath, and love, and ribs, and lungs and noses.
Memory was tended to our skeletal curricula.
We who were always possessed
upon the indignancy of foreseen insolvency.
The ghastly clandestine
of the missing negro birth.
Alawo na, ne te femi. Alas,
nobody hires ghosts.
Kwasi Shade is an Auteur Sociologist interested in representing the true myriad of Caribbean dichotomies in their stories and testing the parameters of Creole dialect vernacular. They are interested in communicating the Carnival Aesthetic.
Their poetry, short stories and drawings have appeared in Pree Lit, Moko Magazine, Enby Magazine, Tamarind, Pinkwashed zine, Prismatica, and Culturego Magazine.
They were a 2010 Trinidad and Tobago film festival Ident award recipient. In their spare time they sell pelau crackers, mango chips and RumChow. They are also known as 'A Rainy Weather' the Jab Griot, a carnival character who sings House Rapso and New Wave Kaiso.