Rites: After Mosera, by John R. Lee

All paintings featured by Ras Mosera (St. Maarten, b. St. Lucia). Contemporary.

Rites: After Mosera

no news to me, news of my death
though telebituaries trace coordinates
of relative history

news-clips flatter their distortions
and those who loved me
research the corners

of archived regrets
fictions of our passings
to see the first passions

of hand-in-hand, intimate desires,
before we seduced ourselves
with stupid, silly distractions --

no news to me, news of my death
among the shades of Sheol.

in the end was the hating word
and that was that —
I knew the track to end the world

under the almonds
cruising scissor-tails
a beckoning horizon of veined ocean —

but you came, a curious brown heron
stood like a sea-stone on one foot
fixed me to your insistent life

until I let the fool of a man
​go drown.

​it wasn’t all needles and cracked hos
the far city, homeless under aqueducts
wrestling filthy strays over pizza boxes —

in the beginning, beautiful companions
jazz clubs, hit shows,
late-night coffee and smoke in penthouse studios

names and faces of the day, Basquiat on the wall
soap-opera romantics with heiresses
the predictable, worthless fantasies —

those who loved me I broke
​under the guilt on my fatherless back.

Talitha, errant mythologies notwithstanding
truth be told, Mystery calls through traffic
and sound-systems of Jeremie Street

on Friday evening, looks over the shoulder
at you on the pedestrian crossing,
is the unknown number ringing your phone

in a bank queue --
when you fall beyond dream
into alien, torrid shadows

Mystery is the somehow familiar, tender wing
that lifts you to Himself.
​
John R. Lee

Saint Lucian writer, broadcaster, teacher, Bible preacher John R. Lee has a recent publication, Collected Poems: 1975-2015,  from Peepal Tree. Click here to learn more.

Ras Mosera is a self taught artist and one of the most celebrated in St. Maarten. He paints from a multilayered Caribbean perspective, focusing on people and the everyday ironies inherent in life. His paintings show widely throughout the Caribbean islands and around the world. He also loves music and says he has a "jazzy mind."