01 December 2000, 812 words
Lest I be accused of being a neemakharam in this political season, I have decided to place my writing talents at the disposal of the UNC - free of charge. To this end, I have written some speeches which can be used by both the candidates and the leading lights of the party. These speeches have been written in blank verse because the main enemy the UNC faces is not the PNM, CCN and other media, judges, police officers, trade unionists, Lloyd Best, Selwyn Ryan, etc etc - no, it is the UNC's own image of crudity and lack of sophistication.
The following speeches will help ameliorate this perception and, since many voters claim to prefer honest candidates, also have the advantage of being entirely true.
Speech #1 (to be used by any candidate)
- To tief, or not to tief: that is the question:
- Whether 'tis nobler for my sucking pocket
- To swallow an outrageous fortune,
- Or just take alms from party investors.
- We cannot all be masters, and all masters
- Cannot truly be follow'd. Thus shall I be
- A duteous and knee-crooking knave
- That, doting on my own obsequious bondage,
- Wears out his five years - my constituents' ass! -
- For caviared provender. 'Tis the curse of service:
- Preferment goes by letter and affection,
- Or a few millions for the party coffers.
- 'Tis such crouchings and lowly courtesies
- That fires our Leader's wine-red blood,
- (Though not e'en the obsequy of pothound fawning
- Could stop my brother's oiled banishment.)
- But an excis'd conscience makes boldface us all,
- And, with no regard to a country turned awry,
- We abuse the bias of racial factions
- And in that fracture cry, "Is Indian time now!"
Speech#2 (for Jack Warner, therefore in prose)
Who vex lorse, I shall speak my speech trippingly on the tongue, tripping over my consonants, vowels and, indeed, the facts themselves. Contrary to Hamlet, I shall saw the air with my hand, yea, with both hands, as though the air itself were Manning, Rowley, Valley and sundry other PNMs who shall be cut like straws before the tempest, yea, the very whirlwind of my spittled words. Many may take offence that such a robustious unwigged black man shall tear a passion to tattars, to very rags, to split the ears of enemitious reporters, who say I am capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: they, with the PNM, all shall vex and lorse!
Speech #3 (for UNC investors)
- Always a borrower and a lender be,
- For loan oft repays oneself in women
- Secretly borrowed from dull husbands
- Fallen down in diabetic comas.
- By being familiar but not vulgar,
- Ne'er need I dull my palm with entertainment
- But by giving skettels my ear, earrings,
- And dinner at expensive restaurants,
- I do grapple them to my soul kiss
- With hoops of steel, such as handcuffs.
- This above all: to thine own wealth be lewd
- And it must follow, as one vamp the next,
- Thou canst this please all, by tongue-in-cheek
- Or in any other orifice they like.
Speech #4 (for Ramesh)
- The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
- For it beateth not in my jacketed heart.
- The mightiest is he who murders
- Through due process of law, and if law
- Puts standing steps beneath the swinging feet
- Of the poor, the oppressed, the unfair,
- Who have been legally caught in court,
- Why, then shall I remove the unchoked loopholes
- Of human rights: I shall move every court,
- United Nations, Amnesty, Privy Council,
- Unseat the Constitution's appeal,
- Yea, move Heaven and Earth itself!
- That I might see that fatal platform drop
- And drink the sweet sound o' that neck pop.
Speech #5 (for Basdeo Panday)
- This great man down, you mark my favourite lies;
- To win office I made friends of enemies,
- And, after, enemies where none existed,
- All to oil the oligarchy.
- So now am I beset by court judgements
- That impute bias of business and race;
- I beg for funds, having no revenue
- But my good spirits (Johnny Walker Blue).
- Why should the poor and local be flattered?
- No; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
- And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
- When said knee is eye-level on a ladder.
- Purpose is but the slave of memory:
- Of convenient birth, but poor validity;
- Most necessary 'tis that we forget
- To pay ourselves to get out of debt.
- What to voters in passion we propose,
- The passion ending, in court we lose.
- The poor, being slaves of race and ignorance,
- Need be wooed once at the five-year party dance.
- Give me that man that is not passion's slave
- And I will gag him with writs, for such do rave
- And vomitously his rhetoric spews
- Of reason and principle and issues:
- Three clappers in this election's bell
- That, if rung, would sound my party's death knell.
Copyright©2000 Kevin Baldeosingh