current crime wave causes Trinidadian preacher to call for hangman- poet response

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JOB FOR THE HANGMAN

...now take your responsibility seriously....

hang with expediency

hang this legislation for its impropriety

hang the legacy of slavery an’ indentureship

hang high the ruling parasitic oligarchy

hang until dead the injustice

of being incarcerated

for two decades awaiting execution...

hang the plan to abolish the privy council

hang (sic) the plan to empower

the sterile legal vultures of these plantation economies....

hang the archaic state of prisons,

be it trinidad, jamaica or grenada

hang quickly the temptation to ignore amnesty international...

hang the truth up high that

the issue is not only the death penalty

but human rights...

accept the reality that the causes of crime must

be addressed for the homeless, poverty-stricken,

naked an’ hungry cannot be overlooked...

hang the inability to protect the fishing industry...

execute immediately the notion of nationals

(whether trini or guyanese)

have the right to pollute the orinoco delta

with their drug an’ gun runnin’ activity,,,

hang until dead this system of neo-colonialism

.....now take your responsibility seriously....

then we can begin to discuss

NATIONAL UNITY....

© Roi Kwabena

"A JOB FOR THE HANGMAN"

from " WHETHER OR NOT " anthology

1996-2007