Wake Up Dems!

 

 

Wake up Dems

From your delusions of grandeur!

Take the blind folds off your eyes

And see the bigger picture.

 

Party before self

Though not before integrity,

On this memorial Errol Barrow Day

Seek party dignity.

 

For it has waned and waned

Until it’s almost gone,

At least that’s how it appears to me

Every awakening dawn.

 

 

Your mirror image is blurred:

Evidenced by a MY-opic view

And you have forgotten the purpose

Out of which the party grew.

 

The gender-struggle

And old guard versus young

Give the Bs the more weaponry

To knock you around.

 

It is acutely heart wrenching

On this Errol Barrow Day

To see how far you have departed

From the Errol Barrow way.

 

You are asleep in your misery

While this country suffers

And I dare say as long you in-fight

Democracy won’t prosper.

 

Who will light the fire

To scorch the heels of the Bs

Rather than this senseless pulling down

Of the Errol Barrow Ds?

 

Barbados is in dire need

For an alternate governance

But given the hapless current trends

There’s not a chance.

 

Either your base has dwindled

Or you need stir it up

For unless you can win back past Ds,

You are out of luck.

 

 

The BLP will have it their way

For the next fifteen years

Whether PM Mia Mottley continues

Or she disappears.

 

I do not mean via death

So please, no such morbidity,

I am just remembering her own words

Particularly vividly.

 

So, wake up Dems

From your delusions of grandeur!

Get rid of the MY-opic view

And see the bigger picture.

 

 

Happy Errol Barrow Day

To one and all!

And to the Democratic Labour Party,

This is your wake-up call.

 

Stewart Russell © January 21, 2025

 

Don’t You Remember?

 

 

Remember when I robbed you

And I took away your wealth

And did it in such a way

That I even ruined your health?

 

I discovered what you discovered

Though you long before I

But you had no documents

And they accepted my lie.

 

At that time, you did not matter

For you were a nobody

And I was seen all around

As somebody.

 

I not only robbed you

But I raped you too

And by severing your family ties

I decimated you.

 

It was so bad

That today you still depend on me

Hoping I would give you back

Your true identity.

 

I took your land

And all the wealth you had

And promised you a better life

If you were not bad.

 

All that I now have

Originally belonged to you,

I pay you out of your own wealth;

That is what I do.

 

I possessed you

And enslaved you

And to this very day

I still shape your view.

 

 

Your call for reparation

Will only fall on deaf ears,

What little conscience I had

Has gone with the years.

 

There is severe infighting;

That is what I see

And this is far more detrimental

Than your fight with me.

 

You can’t stand each other

Whom you daily destroy

As you seek to rise higher

In my employ.

 

Your dreams are short lived

And selfishly inclined,

Though not physically shackled

You are in the mind.

 

Together you can soar

But divided you are sinking

And more than ever I realize

I also took your thinking.

 

No doubt you now remember

But what is your intent?

You daily destroy one another

As though this is your bent.

 

Stewart Russell © August 3, 2022