Choices - Edward Baugh

You chose to leave; that's fine by me.
"One's country," John Milton said, "is wherever
it is well with one." You're still my friend.
Is true, poor people catching hell
and the middle class sleeping
with panic button under their pillow;
but when you fly down to visit
and enjoying the old veranda lime
after dinner, don't spend the time
trying so hard to get me to say
you did right, only a loser would stay.
I wouldn't say I would never leave,
but if that's what they call ambition,
then right now I sticking with love.
River mullet still running in Grandy water,
and the busu soup simmering, keeping warm till you come.

Friday Night - Sally Henzell

love
why don't you come to me
gently
persistently
as calculated as the regulated ticking
of a clock
the love of a quiet man
a weekday man
a man that brings me roses
but not orchids
a kind man with friendly eyes
and regimental habits
but I have been seduced
by Friday Night
neon lights
and muted jazz seeping up
from dingy doorways
car horns
and lovers quarreling
loud and unashamed
a streetbulb reflected in a puddle
garbage cans
and yesterday's newspapers
and love
given widely
chance meetings
and flirtations of the night
asking nothing more
than that Friday night may end
as Friday night began
taking with her
all she gave
and leaving nothing
for tomorrow

Taken from So Much Things to Say - 100 Calabash Poets

Breakfast - Makesha Evans

With you I'm over easy
sliding down
spreading sunshine
for sticks of toast
golden then gooey
on a protracted Sunday morning.
You are chef and connoisseur
preparing and consuming
because you can
because I let you
because I want you to.
See, I was scrambled before
adulterated by other than
what I am,
confused by complex recipes
for what-should be
on rye
drawn to exotic and farwaway flavors
that dont quite fit
with eggs.
But you
break me open
see me as I am
and love with me
a little heat
so that I can simply be myself
over easy
and with you.

Taken from So Much Things to Say - 100 Calabash Poets

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Jeans and Ethics

In recent years two trends in male fashion have been very troubling for some sectors of our societies. Call them fitted jeans, pencil pants or skinny jeans they have some people uncomfortable. The other is the low waist style which allows varying degree of underwear to show. I find them troubling because they always draw my attention. The problem is a little graver for others. The former is a perceived threat to masculinity and consequently the domain of women and the latter speaks to this sense of decency that black men must subscribe to as they must do nothing to further their marginalization in societies that have more reasons to deny them work, respect, love and acceptance than not.

I remember after my trip to Suriname in about 2004 someone explained the slim fitting pants that were everywhere there then, as the Dutch influence, it was an expression of the liberal male found in all of Europe least so England. Holland is known for its liberal attitudes, in France the men kiss, in Italy they walk down the streets hugging each other. The closer silhouette naturally followed the flat-front pant, just as a point of interest. In Suriname, though, the young men were all wearing close fitting pants. It stood in stark contrast to the still pervasive baggy finish associated with the global Hip Hop image elsewhere, it was therefore not American.

After Suriname I spent three years in Jamaica. The fitted silhouette was there before it was in Trinidad and Tobago by my observation. One of the things that I believe influences Jamaican trends is its proximity to Miami. Many boutique owners shop in Miami.

By now the L.A. punk style that really some say ushered in the age of skinny jeans, had reached New York, Miami and London. They were no longer in types of denim but now bright colors in the these places. It was around then too that metrosexuals went mainstream, a characteristic of this being a new masculinity that put taste before allegiance to norms of accepted men’s attire.

I see less of them being used to “dress up” as we say here, and more so casually, it suggests that the trend is running its course. One person even commented to me last weekend that skinny jeans were out of fashion. This despite another person recently complaining about men wearing a women’s brand, PJ’s which seem to be made of stretch denim, giving an even closer fit.

Emerging trends in jeans seem to be the stone- washed grey which is more a color statement than one of fit and partially bleached blue denim. It must be also noted that some high end brands post True Religion and Evisu have also been capturing a market that is loyal and visible.

The other trend of the sagging pants speaks to values. Some are to a degree repulsed on one level to be seeing a man’s underwear. He is said to have no self-respect, no ambition, be appropriating a foreign culture with roots in the jails where belts are taken away and so pants sag. I even saw a campaign by an U.S. politician to have it banned. President Barack Obama has spoken against it. I heard, too, that male some tourists disembarking a cruise ship in Grenada were sent back on board by Prime Ministerial decree because their underwear was showing. I can’t confirm it but I took no time to doubt it.

From as far back as the 90’s Mark Whalberg, then Marky Mark modeled Calvin Klein in magazines with his underwear showing. I can’t say I remember the response of the politically correct but fact is that that was over 20 years ago, we don’t yet accept it and still make it a problem.

Perhaps even earlier male Rock musicians and Punk stars were wearing skin fitting jeans.

I read in a historical account of “gayness” in Trinidad and Tobago of some of the ways the community existed. It described same sex sexual relations among men as “a gentleman’s vice”. The term "gentleman" was reserved for certain members of the society, we know we were not all considered gentlemen. It speaks of a man of stature, a man with a lady, a man of society. So in examining the history of homosexuality in Trinidad and Tobago some are outside the notes of history. Even if those interactions were between “gentlemen’ and those of a lower class the article does not mention any other sector of Trinidad and Tobago in that period.

Its Carnival and Singing Francine has a song I’m sure we’ll hear at Calypso Fiesta warning about the societal ill that wining is when done by children. Ok, not sure what my position is on that. One Red Cross official has also been known to admonish against lewd behavior by children at the junior parades of the bands.
Yes it is a disturbing sight for me to see young girls, particularly, gyrating as they parade. However, there is a part of me that doesn’t see wining as vulgar, despite how it looks. The fact is it feels good to do it. What it connotes is really imaginary to the person doing it almost. Too, most times I have seen a young girl wining a female guardian was close by. I may protest too much but while I don’t think it something to encourage I’m not sure the reasons why it should not be encouraged should be encouraged either, as silently articulated as they are or may be.

For me this Carnival I’d like to wine. I have tried to “wuk up” as the men do in Barbados and realized how bound I was by the Trinidad and Tobago limitation on how much a man can wine before becoming suspect of partaking in the vices of gentlemen. I don’t need anyone’s permission but I would say that I too find myself trapped by ideas about how I should behave. I’m not sure though if how I wine and wear my jeans are not in fact genetics.

A Losing Game by Amy Whiner

There is no point in playing a game you know you’ll win, it’s part of the thrill of the thing. Amy Winehouse said Love is a Losing Game yet we play it over and over. I agree with her but that is based on my experiences at least in romantic love, its not a department I’d say I have had success in. There are other games we play, though, even if we don’t want to it seems that we have to.

I got an invitation to a party today from a friend. I immediately responded and said I wont be attending then I thought to myself that he invited me because he wanted me to come so I then sent another message saying I may come.

Now I have been accused of making much ado about nothing as a rule but I respond by saying who feels it knows.

This is Trinidad and Tobago where the nation trumps all. As a small country every birth counts and so procreation is revered above all else. It has implications for the future labor force, attendances at fetes and numbers in carnival bands and pan sides. Most of us accept this and so the national dialogue has little room for anything else.

How then do I explain to my friend that…you know…straight fetes cause problems for people who are not straight not exactly in the same way that not straight fetes only attract not straight people but akin.

So here I go agreeing to play that game that always sees me losing. The game of silence when so much has to be said, like “wow he's fine”, “did she really wear that” and other things that only non-straight men say.

This in no way really gets to the depth of the hegemony of which I speak but it does suggest that in the interest of nation many compromises are made.

The funny thing is that my friend, like many who may be at the fete, knows that not all of us are straight and to an extent the attendance of non-straights at straight events is a but of an endorsement as non-straights are thought to be of discerning taste on one level and too such a rarity that they can also be seen as an attraction. You’re allowed to disagree with that last statement.

So in deciding to go out in a country where for the most part the heterosexual hegemonic are only second to the closeted cartel it is with the knowledge that we are engaging in the game, one I don’t feel that I win. Maybe, just maybe it’s the game of love.

The Queen's English

I remember in the 80’s, while still a teenager, they’d speak of the “royal lisp”. It was a condition thought to afflict gay men where a slight tied-tongue would give a quality to your speech that the likes of the late Stephanie Hospedales would be happy to help you with. Everything was to be corrected, buck teeth, riders, bandy legs anything that was not a feature the majority of us shared. Before I lose my point though, the “royal lisp” was considered a sure sign that one was ac/dc, a popular euphemism for gay back in the day.

I moved to New York and it was there that the queen’s English became more significant. It was a code amongst a downtown set that does what all language does, it unites as much as it gives color to the expression of a sub-culture. One popular House song would later ask Do you Know the Queen’s English?

In Trinidad and Tobago we can still say that the Queen’s English is the preferred mode of communication. Some eschew it all together and speak dialect. I practise what Linguists call, code-switching. It’s characteristic of many Caribbean people, to flow seamlessly from Standard or Queen’s English to dialect in one sentence or depending on the circumstance. Like when a neighbor approached me last night and asked how I was the only answer to give was “normal” as opposed to my usual “I’m alright thanks.”

It was at my home in Brooklyn one day many years ago that my brother, Kevin, questioned me after he heard an exchange between me and a friend where we repeatedly referred to each other as “bitch” as in: “bitch please I never told you that”. He found the use of the term unnatural between men and at that moment began another level of disassociation with a life style or culture if you will which I had found my self a part of quite comfortably.

If a queen says to you “you’re tired!” it has nothing to do with you being exhausted well not directly. It’s a statement about an action or position they don’t approve of. Example: a: I just bought a WonkaDonka shirt. Cost me a thousand dollar but its fierce! B: Miss thing that’s not fierce that’s really tired, why would pay that for a shirt? This example carries many examples of queen’s English but also shows that not all queens are willing to shell out the asking price for fashion, that would require a blog entry all its own.

It would be some years before I left New York and while Kevin takes a lot of licks as my older sometimes domineering brother, I want to say the loss of that learned tongue, queen’s English helped dislocate me in a sense and in part facilitated my leaving New York. I was no longer speaking the same language as my tribe, the values of the tribe questioned, I was moved to a no man’s land in some senses. The implications have been heavy. It was akin to the loss of a mother tongue. It has possibly led to a stasis on many fronts.

I have been accused of not living my life fully in the past ten years by some who know me. Part of the problem is that there are aspects of my past that I don’t care to relive and having changed I feel estranged from a world I wonder was ever for me.

I’ve been reading up on ethnography for a workshop I have to do this trimester and it speaks of the elements of culture, cultural knowledge, cultural behavior and cultural artifacts. When an observed group agrees on these or exhibits them routinely enough they are believed to share a culture. It doesn’t take an anthropologist to know what happens when an individual is removed from a culture.

Part of the struggle for me in being back in Trinidad and Tobago is which cultural grouping do I belong to? My best friends have for the most part all become parents. We share knowledge, behavior and artifacts. I cant say that it doesn’t still leave me sometimes lost for a sense of identity. Last Carnival I was a Wotless Trini, this year I find myself sometimes a Bacchanalist, A Baddess and in a chorus singing Mr Fete? I want to leave myself with options for my Carnival Tuesday portrayal but I’ll most likely be found in the Vulgar Fraction, a bit poetic if you ask me. These are all partial representations, though, as the vernacular of Carnival is seasonal.

Migration and repatriation are not without their issues for me. The process of cultural assimilation following migration and then disengagement can leave one feeling like many. The point may not be clear but suffice it to say we are united by intangibles, language among them, as well values. Both of which are inconsistent in my expression. I just wish there was a place like a dictionary or grammar book to help me know what is standard, as when one speaks the Queen’s English.