Poetry

Today, I am giving you a
D A I L Y  S U R V I V A L  K I T
to help you each day…………

Toothpick … to remind you to pick the good qualities in everyone, including yourself.
Rubber band … to remind you to be flexible. Things might not always go the way you want, but it can be worked out.
Band-Aid … to remind you to heal hurt feelings, either yours or someone else’s.
Eraser … to remind you everyone makes mistakes. That’s okay, we learn by our errors.
Candy Kiss … to remind you everyone needs a hug or a compliment everyday.
Mint … to remind you that you are worth a mint to your family & friends.
Bubble Gum … to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything.
Pencil … to remind you to list your blessings every day.
Tea Bag … to remind you to take time to relax daily and go over that list of God’s blessings.
This is what makes life worth living every minute, every day
Wishing you love, gratitude, friends to cherish, caring, sharing, laughter, music, and warm feelings in your heart this year.

Don’t wait for time.. make it
Don’t wait for love.. feel it
Don’t wait for money.. earn it
Don’t wait for a path.. find it
Don’t wait for opportunity.. create it
Don’t go for less.. get the best
Don’t compare.. be unique
Don’t avoid failure.. use it!
Don’t dwell on the mistake . . . learn from it
Don’t back down.. go around
Don’t close your eyes.. open your mind
Don’t run from life.. embrace and enjoy it
Get healthy, give thanks, prosper, stay focused
And use your strengths more deliberately in 2012

Harriet

The year was 1820, the place was Maryland
Another slave was born, by the name Harriet Tubman
By the age of five she knew her mind
Being beaten by her master most of the time
At fifteen she was struck a blow, helping someone to escape
As she lay unconcious, she knew she would not suffer another rape
She was nursed by her mother with herbs and loving care
Which eventually delivered her, that coupled with prayers
From then on she knew what she had to do
Escape and free herself and everyone she knew
She had heard of the Underground Railway, her only way out
So she travelled overland by night and slept by day
The north star led her to freedom,her journey was complete
She had now found freedom, but somehow it was not as sweet
Harriet was a free woman, as free as they were at that time
Her mind wandered to other slaves, that she had left behind
So she commandeered the railway and made it as her own
Making twenty or so freedom trips from North back to home
Her strength of character without fear of death delivered 400 slaves
Remembered most of all for her exceptionaly stuborn ways
Harriet Tubman, fierce liberator let nothing hold her back
When a slave changed their mind, she set them on the right track.

(Copyright Ellen Johnson Apr 1992)

In this poem Milton describes his first year in England:
For My Mummy

It’s a big job to leave your country and come abroad, knowing no one. Having left ones father and mother’s home.
A big challenge to the mind.
Having known only two climates and not four.
Now spring passes into summer, summer into autumn, autumn to winter and back to spring.

Having left the security of my parents home.
Where one paid no bills only ate and slept secure – A challenge
And yet ones arrival into the country was intoxicating
New faces of an entirely industrial community, and so built up.
Everything named on Bill Boards entice you as you go along.
Within two weeks of arrival I was given a job in a paint factory

The joy of seeing the first snow
Walking hand in hand with ones first woman
Then the gush of green and the first flowers of spring
Then to know and experience sunlight until 10.30 in the evening
One does not want to sleep
Since sleeping suggests long nights of dark hell

To walk on such evenings swallowing up London
With the taste of beer called bitter
Going to my friends club house we drank lager and lime
Played darts or drank with my fellow workmates
Never missing home.
I felt the entire world was an orchard.
That was my first year.

In this poem, which he wrote in 2002 he describes his interpretation of his forty years in this country.

The Poet

When I came here in 1960, the passing of the Mental Health Act was waiting for me.
They made me a convict and Mental Patient in order that I become voiceless in the community.
Accused of reaching for a woman.
Have to leave my job, loose my rented room, sent loose over the environment- penniless.

A victim of law, they term it schizophrenia.
To enter a mental hospital is to be forever chronically ill and registered as Disabled
Jobs are not for me
I was bought into a hospital because I was encouraged by a police man to do so
I went thoroughly bewildered because I was at the gates of Buckingham Palace

And for such a simple act incarcerated
And because of the British Government and Monarchy
Plucked up from normalcy
And filled me with experiences necessary to become a Great poet and philosopher
This existential act enunciated, involved my whole being and my life

Fortunately the woman of the kingdom comforted me and protected me from a struggle that was astonishing.
And now God himself seems to be on my side

My job has been and continues to be done for my love for my children, my family and friends.
Firstly Guyanese and Guyana, then the entire world
One must have roots
Or else the forty two years here would have been useless
Since I have endured it to become what I have become
In a land I have lived in, that is not my own.

My poem of the week is dedicated to all the mothers and fathers and grand parents, in fact all the older folks in our society.

Give Them the Roses

How many times do we honour the dead when they are far away
We stand up at their funerals and find we have so much to say
The reason being when they were on earth we could not spare the time
Saying “we have plenty of things to do today, good old mother Mary is fine”

But then we hear the sad news mother Mary is gone
Some of the pain and guilt we feel inside is because we were wrong
We owe it to our older folks to tell them that we care
Without them where would we be, we feel safe knowing they are there

Some were forced to abandon their dreams but guess what spurred them on
Was to make sure their children would be comfortable after they’d gone
We could never imagine the early days our minds won’t stretch that far
We know it’s because they did what they did why we are where we are

Give them the Roses to smell today in celebration of their lives
Don’t wait to whisper I love you, just as you close their eyes
For our older folks have paid there dues and now deserve a rest
Show them respect and appreciation, tell them they are the best.

(Copyright Ellen Johnson Oct 1989)