Welcome To De Sarcophagus Ah Patriarkey

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Content Warning: Physical & Verbal Violence Against Queeribbean People

De day afta de Red Muddah shut-up shap

Darkness de covah de rims ah Guyana

Castin de plague ah shadows

Into de souls ah de eye-suh-late.

An still, de faddah, muddah,

An de oly spirit ah Patriarchiee

De baptize rivahs ah agony fah

Wash way de queerness outta dey son

Sinful body wid de oly scriptshas.

Buh wah shame you gat

Tah get fah drain meh soul

Suh you could guh home?

Victimae paschal laudes

To the paschal victim

Behine de dense bush ah Hudo Backdam

An de tick muda wata, feel de sway

Ah banana breeze. Watch de kaleidoscope

Ah light hoist de broken child into paradise.

Save by de colony ah Priests,

De chile is lain ta rest.

Kill fah de parents salvashion.

Ear dem

Immobent Christian

Let Christians offer up their songs of praise

Buh, how we gon get inta Heaven

Wen de seed dat is sown is kourpt wid sorrow?

Ta enter intah Paradise

Yah gat to exorcise de demon in de host,

The sins of the flesh must perish

Before resurrecting eternal salvation,

Aguns redemit oves

The lamb has redeemed the sheep.

As day melt into nite,

Dem start fah see

De krakz ah reality.

Ten days afta de lackdown,

Fahdah de kyan look at meh,

Clean, too neat fah dem lackdown.

Stink wid ee brown rum,

Ee de kyan tek am no mo.

Is wah kine a man, me raise ah wah?

*SMACK, SMACK*

Brown skin bleed, bleedin again.

Bruk-up pieces ah de green rum bahckle

Dey “deep-deep” in de picknee head.

Red streaks ah blood trickle inta de land

“Twist an twist am, till he learn.”

“I AM A BOY”

LOUDDAH, YAH LIL FAGGOT SHIT,

“TWIST AN TWIST DE BAHCKLE IN EE EAD”

De pickniee hollah-hollah, buh like wan gal

“Twist again”, Mona come old down yah Son

Ee nah learn.

“I,” from de core ah ee

Masculinity, de chile

Profess, “AM A MAN.”

Good, yah lil shit,buh

“Hallah, hallah sum mo”

Christus innices patri

Christ, who is without sin

Crowned wid de halo ah

Green glass, Ah learn meh lesson:

Lil bahnaz dem nah neat,

Stay stink an outa faddah gaze.

Reconcilivait peccatores

He has reconciled sinners to the Father

Call yah wah? Jas-mine?

MONA!! Come hay, gurl!!

WE NAME YAH JAZZ CAUZE YOU IZ AH BAI

“NO, I am nat.”

“OH REALLY?

Whip-whip de telephone wire into ee back”

MONA-MONA, dis is wrang

*Smack-Smack*

“Teach ee fah be wan real-real man”

Ee wan change ee name to wan gal now.

Yuh iz me son

“Kick an stamp, stamp an kick”

Yuh iz a bai,

Nah WAN GAL.

Mors et vita duello

Death and Life

“Tie ee down to de coconut tree.

Dose ee wid kryo fah we eat,

Baptize ee foot wid Oly Fire,

Bun de devil outa de bai.

Bun ta wan redden crisp

Mould de chile ta wah will now.”

Bath meh badie in Oly Fire

Fah save meh muddah?

Does it please yah fahddah?

Is it safe fah me now?

Dux vitae mortous

The Prince of life was dead

Regnant vivus

But lives and reigns

Tah save yah soul,

Yuh muss dead.

Poison wid de apple ah sin.

Chritius spesmea

Truly, we, know Christ

Tu nobis victor rex misereie

O King and victor have mercy on us

Buh Mercy, ee

Nah live hay,

Dey is only Death.

Amen, Alleluia

On the happiest day of my survival,

I shall break fast with death’s diener.

You know, he who removes the solidified mass

Of your living dead remains.

These attendants are adorned in a long white coat,

It is dyed with a brown water stain

At the back of the unusually white pristine coat.

On their feet, a pair of black,

Knee-length glossy boots squish-squish

As my chariot into the afterlife awaits.

The trolley is extensive in length,

Browning rust eats the sliver bones of its legs.

Do you hear the whistle of a dying vessel?

It groans in protest as its arthritis joints

Are pushed to the limit. It too cries in mortification

Of my departure from the Red Muddah land.

A soul never lived but destined to die

Shall return to our Father’s Kingdom.

I eagerly watch as my purple botched body is charioted away,

A sad song is sung as another soldier is fallen,

A child of queer descent, afraid to be,

So she remains untold, another face removed

From the soul cold graveyard of the undead.

My heart weeps rivers of epinephrine,

It marches in my veins, galloping its feet,

Pounding in the broken cage of my stolen heart,

One thought ghosts its way across my mind:

Is it safe to be real now?

From the very scent of Mothers’s floral fumes,

Or Father’s stink brown rum violence,

It invades the crevices of my youth.

They raped the beauty of my identity in the creation

Of a daughter that was never meant to be,

For I am a girl

Forever trapped in a boy's body.

As Death’s orderly gently lays

My warm body on the cool slab table

Of my own confession, the cause of death is natural.

So the plethora of purple trophies

That married my body is often overlooked,

After all, there is no mercy for the transgenered soul.

In the name of the Father,

The Son, and the Holy Spirit:

Forgive me, Father, for I’ve sinned…

Do you remember, Mother,

The purple ribbon that Father awarded me?

Your prayers to exorcise the gayness,

My transgenderness out of my desired soul?

So you sold my masculinity away

In your determination to cleanse

My sins away, or else I shall burn in hell

Forevermore.

Do you remember, Mother,

The purple cloak they tied around

My limbs as they crucified my body

To satisfy your honesty to be the ideal holy family?

From the purple cross of my suffering,

I am made anew.

Be safe now, Mother, Father.


Gabrielle E. Mohamed

Hello. My name is Gabrielle Mohamed and I am a 27-year-old Guyanese. In June

2017, I graduated from the University of Guyana with a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in

English – Linguistics. I have a mixed passion for Literature and Linguistics. As an

emerging Creole poet, I believe that the employment of my Guyanese space is essential

to facilitate a breakdown and breakthrough process that will allow us to find our

true selves devoid of any colonial touch. Thus, my writing style attempts to capture

the continual influence of colonial and post-colonial attitudes and behaviors within

the lives of my countrymen.

As a Catholic individual, I testify that the escape from these colonial

touches is possible. My Christian faith has enabled us to establish the solid grounds

of nationhood that will not force anyone into a state of being ‘unhomed’, but allow

us to accept our fate as hybrid individuals of the Caribbean.

In addition to my literature background, I have studied various linguistics

courses that have exposed me to the wealth of knowledge that our diasporic language

scene possesses. As a language student, I have acquired a passion for our native

language, the Guyanese Creole English (G.C.E) which I make a point in integrating

into most my poems in the hopes of spreading its validity and increasing its prestige

within the eyes of my countrymen.

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