brown sugar
Jamaican gals/soaked by memories
dancing mythically songs of emotions/lost
sweet afro-caribbean gals weeping/living/searching
for their gods/mystically false/dead dreams/hopes/
endlessly in oblivion
black women with so many rivers to cross/so
often wet/so often bleeding/so often…
black gals/street walkers/back breakers/food providers/
seekers
comfort givers/
pleasure/
black gals
black gals
black gals
in African colors/traditionally cane dyed
banana stained/mango wet/papaya bled/cassava starched
to colonize a generation misled by hunger/philosophy/anger
gone/in years looking for mankind’s faults
searching the creation of righteousness/peace/love…
black gals
daughters of ras/mothers of hungry pickennies
in global sickness begging for pittance/
fantasizing places never to be seen by men/dreaming on monkey
mountain/blue mountain/hills/rocks/wishing to be a sly
mongoose/the god of the snakes in the high grass/wanting to be
the grandpickennies
of brer ananse the diabolical god/
black gal
black gal
black gal
daughters of nefertiti/queen mary/nykamkopon
daughters of cane-cutters/cotton pickers/maroon fighters
daughters of gods/damballa/selasee/jah/legba/ogun
daughters of goddesses/asase yaa/amenertas/moo
daughters of naga nanny/defliee/Candace/nizinga/yaa
asantawaa
black gals weeping in search of gods!
Meet The Writer
Winston Nugent was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and grew up on St. Croix. He is a journalist with the U.S. Virgin Islands Legislature. He has won numerous poetry awards. He was the winner of the First College of the Virgin Islands poetry award. He has received The International Poet of Merit Award (2001) from The International Society of Poets. In 2002 he placed second in the St. Croix Avis Short Story Search Contest for his story, "The Mahogany Tree." He was recently selected as a semi-finalist in the International Open Poetry Contest for his poem, "9/11." He has published three books of poems: Negus, Blue Rain and On Our Island and has been anthologized in several Caribbean books, to include the University of the Virgin Islands Caribbean Writers series. He has worked as a staff writer for the St. Croix Avis and has freelanced for the Rollin Stone Magazine, Essence Magazine, The LA Weekly and the Caribbean Impression. For several years, Mr. Nugent was a radio journalist and broadcaster for W.S.T.X. AM and FM radio stations. He was educated at St. Andrews Technical High School in Jamaica, St. Joseph High School and then St. Croix Central High School. His higher education took place at the then College of the Virgin on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and then Pasadena Community College, in Pasadena, California.
