Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
POETS AND singers took turns at the microphone for last Friday's installment of 'Spoken' at the Rootz Lounge, ICOWAL Texaco, on Friday evening.
A relatively empty house, except for the performers, was the counterpoint to a full moon, on a night where Duane Francis started and Patrick Davis ended the weekly serving of stanzas.
Francis, known as 'The Sniper Poet', mixed sensuality and humour in first expressing his regret at losing a particular lady ("dem sey time heal broken heart/but right now I am at a place where time neither stop nor start") and then giving a woman "10,000 reasons to keep screaming my name".
After asking to be allowed to "be your protector, your one-man army", Francis requested: "Let me be the genie to grant you your every wish/let me be the one to make you say you've never had it like this."
Ras Bethatune commanded the "instigators of death/non-lovers of life" to "come outta me TV!". It turned out to be a poem against latex and the sort, as he demanded "A condom bring yu come ya?".
There was appreciation as Ras Bethatune said "Yu worse dan Bush whe a kill off de worl'/cause yu a kill dem before dem born."
Ras Bethatune then looked at the process of creation of life from the more pleasant side, as he said "Sex is sweet/sex is nice/sex is sweeter than honeycomb", defining it as "a place where strange languages are spoken/an not even the speaker know the language." He closed with 'Fia Fe Food', which emphasised nutrition, before singer Israel delivered a song.
Nick Hem used his near frantic style to reach out to various communities, informing "Grants Pen/de whole Jamaica want to be yu fren" and requesting "Jungle/me a beg yu fi humble."
Marlon Chin and Black Ground preceded the poetry of Lynch, performing with guitarist Kevin and without his accustomed, Jah Children compatriots. To the strains of the guitar he introduced himself poetically, a staccato "I, I, I" setting the stage for a brief, effective start, in which he said "I never come by chance."
He then utilised the alphabet to collect 26 kinds of souls he found in a 'reasoning' on a mountain. Each letter was named as a specific kind of man, the audience getting involved as Lynch paused from time to time to ask "Whe mi deh?"
The "K man a killer, real blood spiller", "L man a lame man, naa look no fame man", "N man a neat man, fi de girls him sweet man" and "V man a vile man, no mek him go near yu chile man." There was even stronger applause when Lynch said, "W man a war man, Bush sen' dem go Iraq an' far lan." He closed with a poem for strife-torn Spanish Town, in which he observed, "inna de miggle day/a gun ting dem a play". It included a caustic comment on the operations of the police, Lynch saying "so if you don't ave a gun/one will be appointed to you."
Patrick Davis closed the night's poetic fare, embracing the collective at the outset with We The Dub Poets. Davis used cricket to hit racism for six in 'Political Sports', which looked at the irony of the West Indies playing South Africa. "To some, it is a game/but I will never forget the whip and bloodstain," Davis said. He used the popular term used to enquire about the progress of a cricket match to make his feelings on the land issue in Zimbabwe known. "Dem talking bout six, dem talking bout four/ask Mugabe, he will give you the score."
