walk
over my neck
quick
cockroach
and make it
crick
make me turning
like a
masonic mechanic.

need a
left-hand
-er
to un-
crick
it
-er.

crick-crick
cockroach
i just killed u
crick crick
crick
maybe it
was two.

-[*]-

NOTES ON: cockroach by candlelightwritten monday 28.5.07 3:29amThis poem was written early one moring during the two months which, unable to pay my electricity bill, I lived in darkness and by candlelight.
Most nights I had no candles but fortunately this dark morning I did, when I heard the ill-fated cockroach making crick-crick noises as he traipsed and traversed his way over paper and plastic bag through the darkness of the so-called ‘hogsty’ that is my room.
Local superstition claims that in if a cockroach walks over your neck in your sleep you will awake with a cricked neck.
Another old wives tale claims if you have a cricked neck it can be relieved by a left-handed person suddenly and sharply wrenching ‘turning’ your head to one side.
Most people swear by this treatment. I have never allowed it to be done to me but I have seen it done successfully.
The reference to masonic lodges like the mechanics has to do with the rumour that members of these secret lodges are not allowed to turn their heads to look to the side or behind them but must instead turn their entire torso.
Hence when people see you with a cricked neck they tend to teasingly ask, ‘So you’ve turned a lodgeman now?’
If I remember correctly that I would have a cricked neck for many days in this period. It would eventually affect one shoulder as well.
I thought it had to do with either my lack of food or the old bed which I have slept in over 40 years of my life. In fact I now believe my cricked neck (and shoulder) was a precursor of the mild stroke I would soon suffer.
Whether cockroaches cause cricked necks or not, I don’t like them nor anyother insect especially in the same dark room with me as I sleep.
Even though the poem was completed at 3:29am 10 minutes after the cockroach’s time of death at 3:19am I actually started the poem from I lit the candle and started the hunt. His demise came in between the second and third stanza.
After that though after that I heard more crick-crick rustling. His cockroach friend, wife, child or partner-in-grime? Or he survived the fall of the Kingston and Greater St.Andrew telephone directory upon him.

[Because my poetry still retains some of its original schizophrenia, there's a hinted reference to cricket,
my nation being one of the hosts of the recent World Cup held in the region.]