George Elliott Clarke (1960-)
The Ballad of Othello Clemence
1There's a black wind howlin' by Whylah Falls;
2There's a mad rain hammerin' the flowers;
3There's a shotgunned man moulderin' in petals;
4There's a killer chucklin' to himself;
5There's a mother keenin' her posied son;
6There's a joker amblin' over his bones.
7Go down to the Sixhiboux River, hear it cry,
8"Othello Clemence is dead and his murderer's free!"
9O sang from Whylah Falls and lived by sweat,
10Walked that dark road between desire and regret.
11He pitched lumber, crushed rock, calloused his hands:
12He wasn't a saint but he was a man.
13Scratch Seville shot him and emptied his skull,
14Tore a hole in his gut only Death could fill.
15Now his martyr-mother witnesses in cries
16Over his corpse cankered white by lilies.
17There's a black wind snakin' by Whylah Falls;
18There's a river of blood in Jarvis County;
19There's a government that don't know how to weep;
20There's a mother who can't get no sleep.
21Go down to the Sixhiboux, hear it moan
22Like a childless mother far, far, from home,
23"There's a change that's gonna have to come,
24I said, a change that's gonna have to come."
Notes
1] Whylah Falls: pseudonym for Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia.
3] There's a shotgunned man moulderin' in petals: Historically, Graham Cromwell.
7] Sixhiboux River: Sissiboo River.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Whylah Falls (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 1990): 108.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2004
Recent editing: 1:2004/7/22*1:2004/11/11
Form: octets
Other poems by George Elliott Clarke
