The Scent of Blood and Gunpowder

THE SCENT OF BLOOD AND GUNPOWDER

I never believed in God
Until the day I saw the sky cry.
Smiling Caribbean clouds never clouded my vision before.
They were always trying to hide our reality.
But all I see before me now is a perfect haze
As the droplets of the sky’s tears obscure traffic lights.

Your smile was the sunshine left in this man’s skies.

The sky cried when she was buried,
But crying never fixed a thing. Fighting did.
The price of a few old leather chairs
Was more precious than her life it seems.
But if a life is taken,
you can damn well bet a life must be given.

The bullet in your head mocks me.

Turmoil only begets more turmoil,
It fuels that thing called hate.
That powerful presence of wind, rain and destruction
Raped me of my life. It made impiety justifiable.
To hate is sweet, but to enact revenge is sweeter,
And what I taste would make a predator ravenous.

I can still smell the blood on you.

Damn God for what he has done in
Making His children so powerless and weak.
The best thing he ever did for us was to give us gunpowder,
And life now goes as quickly as it comes.
That I could have my way and end the lives that took hers-
I will have my way and end the lives that took hers.

Your sweet laugh still haunts me.

Outside I observe what is left of our “land of beauty”.
Parents fix their torn houses and clean the cemetery of trees.
From my car I hide my smile, but their pain brings joy to me.
Roll a pebble and have it land in water,
That’s how many kids spend their days as adults go frantic;
Tattered pants and ripped shirts, but not a care otherwise.

You were the source of all that was to me.

I wonder when the sun will come out.
But then I remember that it can not.
Glorious rays should only bless the blessed,
And Jamaica no longer carries such a rarity.
What the nation needed from Ivan’s wrath was solidarity,
But what we got was pure infamy.

Yes I know sweetie, I am watching the road.

The guns in the back
Make my left nostril smell of hate.
The thought of her presence
Shows the cruelty of fate.
Make my right nostril smell of blood too,
So that I may have a reason to avenge you.
Ah yes, thank you Lord,
What a lovely scent of blood and gunpowder.