After today how shall I speak with you?
–– Martin Carter
From Jail me Quickly (1964)
Reproduced by permission of the author
Guyana's great poet Martin Carter is this issue's contributor
After today how shall I speak with you?
Those miseries I know you cultivate
are mine as well as yours, or do you think
the impartial bullock cares whose land is ploughed?
I know this city much as well as you do,
the ways leading to brothels and those dooms
dwelling in them, as in our lives they dwell.
So jail me quickly, clang the illiterate door
if freedom writes no happier alphabet.
Old hanging ground is still green playing field.
Smooth cemetery proud garden of tall flowers.
But in your secret gables real bats fly
mocking great dreams that give the soul no peace,
and everywhere wrong deeds are being done.
Rude citizen! Think you I do not know
that love is stammered, hate is shouted out
in every human city in this world?
Men murder men, as men must murder men,
To build their shining governments of the damned
–– Martin Carter
From Jail me Quickly (1964)
Reproduced by permission of the author