The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

By Stanley Collymore



I can feel your presence very strongly, as overtly

and most discernibly not to be amiss you’re

quite intent on making me fully aware

of this; all the same I’m not the least

nonplussed by what you’re doing

since I’m very conscious that it’s your

inimitable forbidden at work causing you

to act thus and therefore for you,

and obviously something

not to be shirked, your

customary way

of behaving.



But then as the Grim Reaper you well know that

Death attendant with its mortal finality isn’t

just a prolific business to be profited from

but also a most serious one to be

psychologically grieved about

and privately mourned by

those who really care; and as such there

are certain formalities that objectively

must be considered, revered, though

largely impassively on your part

it’s true, embarked upon, then

conclusively, categorically,

most assuredly and, of

course appropriately

as well, be done.



So if my time has come do get on with it

and please drop the formalities, as to

be perfectly honest with you I’m

truly one disinterested though

involuntary customer of yours who

intentionally won’t be losing any

sleep over my death knowing

that liberated through it I’ll

be permanently forsaking

this troubled earth for

what’s essentially a

brand new start

eternally!



© Stanley V. Collymore

30 January 2014.



Comment:

I can think of far more important things to concern myself with than Death, taking into account the fact that it’s inevitable however its realization is ultimately brought about. Which begs the question: could it be that those who’re most shit scared of Death and whose obsessive fears of it usually cause them to absurdly and quite fruitlessly embark on all manner of ways and means to circumvent or, even more ludicrously, attempt to stave it off indefinitely are invariably the very ones who in this life are the worst abusers, in every conceivable form, of their less fortunate fellow human beings and consequently as their own lives on Earth enter their final chapter are deeply petrified of what awaits them in the After-Life?



An After-Life where their massive ill-gotten and exploitative gains accumulated on Earth and criminally and abusively derived at the expense of others and used on Earth to unscrupulously garner immense power, influence and even more wealth for themselves can’t be transhipped to, rendering them highly impotent to affect conditions in their After-Life existence and thus scaring the living daylights out of them knowing that they’d be judged there on what they are and not who they were during their earthly life. Justice, which these bastards aren’t in the least fond of and can buy off here on Earth at last promptly and impartially delivered.



Are you listening and paying heed Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, those who own or run Monsanto, BP, RSB and the other banks, Halliburton, the pharmaceutical companies, EDF and all the other likeminded scumbags concomitant with your bought and paid for stooges in the US Congress and other foreign governments including our own British one, prime and consummate slime balls the lot of you who unfortunately infest this otherwise sacred world the rest of us are forced to share with you?

By Stanley Collymore



Don’t tell me; you’ve fallen in love again and

this time it’s for real! How many times have

I previously heard from you that same old

and unconvincing spiel? And when

will you ever learn not to confuse love

with lust, as time and time again you

miserably fail to distinguish the

one from the other or fully

acknowledge that the

two aren’t by any

means one and

the same?



Lust, let me candidly spell it out for you,

is the process where you do absolutely

nothing at all to even remotely suppress the

unbridled sexual urges that wantonly and

lasciviously assail your yearning body

as one would circumspectly expect

you to do; love, however, while

evidently recognizing and

certainly willing to enjoy these state-of-

affairs as well, nevertheless enjoins

itself in a more dignified and

erudite manner than lust

is either capable of

or could ever

muster.



For although the carnal fascination,

coital intentions and bonking routines

are unmistakably the same with love as

they obviously are with lust and prevalently

there, lust’s only aspirations are distinctly

impermanent, short lived and offer

no commitment at all, let’s be perfectly

clear; while for its part the emphasis

of love is to secure a freehold of

the chosen object’s heart and

what’s more do so on

a committed and

established

basis.



© Stanley V.Collymore

27 January 2014.



Comment:

In our contemporary, western society where the expertise of wooing is a dying skill, leg-overs are considered far more interesting and important than leg-ups and as such made more welcome, and a well-placed knee slotted seductively between the thighs and complemented by an ostentatious grab of the buttocks, fondling of inviting tits an a concerted thrust of the tongue down the recipient’s eager throat are now the customary mode of initial introductions between previous strangers to each other and bizarrely and quite delusionarily misrepresented as what realistically they inconceivably can never be; it’s hardly surprising then that for sometime now, and significantly too at an alarming pace, what has resulted is a society largely comprised of dysfunctional oiks.



Oiks vainly searching amidst their “how’s your father” escapades leading to sexual encounters that are seldom if ever earth shattering in nature, and which in turn give rise to the participants finding themselves either caught up or actively involved in serial acts of infidelity as they desperately embark on their fruitless search for the elusive Holy Grail of Love is sadly all too commonplace.



All the same I’d like to dedicate this poem to Ulrika Jonsson, Nigella Lawson, the late Jimmy Savile, Paddy Ashdown, Simon Cowell, Senator John McCain, Françoise Hollande and several others, including the many cuckolders and their offspring ignorant of their situation, who quite literally provided me with the inspiration to write it but who are far too numerous to mention here. Thank you all!

By Stanley Collymore



Your birth wasn’t planned but all the same your

creation was fashioned through love and most

certainly on your father’s part whose heart

was broken when through bigotry and

racism he was denied access to you

and never fittingly allowed the

opportunity to assume far

less play the role of Dad

that both biologically

and morally was

his right to be.



Fifty years on you’re a parent in your own

right and clearly know what it’s like to

give birth, have a loving family of

your own by someone whom you

love, firmly in the knowledge

that no one could have dared

do to their father, since

you would never have

let them, what your

grandparents so

callously did

in respect

of your

dad.



© Stanley V. Collymore

25 January 2014.



Remarks:

Happy 50th Birthday Wendy Louise!

By Stanley Collymore



Dreams are the means that we regularly employ,

whether consciously or involuntarily so, to

hopefully either circumvent or attempt

to postpone, and possibly forever,

the harsher experiences of

life with which we find

ourselves confronted and don’t really know

how best or most suitably to deal with

these problems; a fabricated world

of daydreams conflated with

legitimate aspirations and

where reality, if at all

allowed a look in,

is generally not

permitted to

play any

major

part.



Reality however is the very antithesis of dreams;

and though not always welcomed or specially

favoured by the overwhelming majority

of daydreamers is all the same, I

firmly believe, still our best

chance of pragmatically

tackling and dealing successfully

with life’s various difficulties,

as well as our best hope of

realizing if not all of

them, then surely

most of our

cherished

dreams!



© Stanley V. Collymore

3 January 2014.





Criterion:

Among my diverse outdoor activities and sporting pursuits cricket and athletics rank as two of my principal sporting pastimes, but although I also have a full awareness and much more than a proficient knowledge of football or soccer if you prefer to call it thus, principally so because of specific family and a few other personal reasons, this sport is not by any stretch of the imagination one of my major preoccupations, or is it ever likely to be.



However, fully cognisant of the role that football obsessively plays in the lives of many of you and that 2014 is the designated year for its next World Cup in Brazil, I thought that the football analogy used in the title of this poem might be an appropriate vehicle to get over to you the message, which is inherent in the poem itself; that pragmatism on average usually trumps daydreaming 3-1 in life’s everyday race to succeed.

By Stanley Collymore



Let me hold you in my arms; shield and

protect you from harm with my love,

and comfortingly embrace you with the

multitude of expectations I have for us as

man and wife sharing a life together

for the rest of our lives: uniquely

and properly so; simply, because

it’ll be a model creation of

our very own. Yet in

commonality with others like us,

likemindedly in love and who

similarly in regard to themselves

astutely aspire to achieving the

same goals as we do, will

positively encourage

us to press on all

the more.



Fortified in the knowledge, for sure,

that love although evidently the

key to what we ultimately aim to

achieve, is even so not on its

own the totality of what

that end result will be: our

own distinctive contribution to

helping the world become

a better place; and not

just for the sake of

ourselves but

equally as well

the entire

human

race.



© Stanley V. Collymore

15 January 2014.



For all those happily in love and firmly committed to creditable family and societal values. Dysfunctional or feral oiks not included; so please clear off!

By Stanley Collymore



You might be able to stitch me up with crimes I didn’t

commit; racially stereotype and accordingly, thanks

to your meticulously hand-picked and bent

jurors, routinely find me guilty, then

get your crony magistrates or elitist judges

with their entrenched Colonel Blimp and

colonialist mindset to incarcerate me

for inordinately lengthy periods

of time in your antiquated,

18th Century-assembled

and enormously

congested

jails.



That’s, of course, if your arrogantly assumed

and disdainfully exhibited abhorrence

of me, comprehensively and

liberally laced with an

astonishing immunity you know that you

can reliably count upon doesn’t cause you to

forego all that earlier stuff and, profoundly

emboldened by the successful prospects

of your racist enterprise, lead you to

callously and sadistically, even

in broad daylight and on the

streets of our busy cities,

gratuitously deprive me

and others like me

as well of our

lives.



But then, to you I was always just another

Nigger: one of the thousands of others

of all ages and of both genders that

systematically, continually and

uncaringly on your part as well as

that of our supposedly impartial

judicial system; our country’s

venal and grossly unfit for

purpose politicians who generally and

together with the powers that be

not only wanted us dead but

also at whose hands we

consistently found ourselves subjected

to racial stereotyping and profiling

ordinances, which clearly were

themselves liberally spurred

on by untrammelled

sophistry and culpable

pernicious acts of

mindboggling

bigotry.



And although we’re now finally dead: racially

murdered or executed as you all wanted us

to be, our righteous cause will none the less

live on eternally in the hearts, minds and

actions of those close to us: the likes

of Carole Duggan or Neville and

Doreen Lawrence for instance,

who love and will always

care about us and the

justice which they know

we justly deserved

but, of course,

never got.



Honest, decent, hardworking and law-abiding

persons: although no noticeable advantage,

if any at all, has been discerned from

them being thus, who all the

same along with thousands of likeminded

people across the entire nation already know

full well that what happened to us, and

quite unrestrained is going on apace,

is criminally wrong, and in conscionable

terms too the most damnable moral travesty that

either we or those who’re currently affected

could ever face; and that without justice

to lean upon, impartially grant us

full absolution, and from this pernicious

evil we’ve all been cruelly subjected

to secure for us a warrantable

societal reprieve, then there

cannot or won’t ever be

any meaningful or

durable peace!



© Stanley V. Collymore

12 January 2014.



Comment:

This poem was written specifically with Mark Duggan in mind and is dedicated to his children, mother, other family members, friends and supporters, but most especially to Mark’s aunt Carole Duggan.



An incomparable lady, Carole whose courageous and tireless commitment, in the face of overwhelming odds against her, not only to ascertain truthful answers as to why her nephew was murdered but additionally the juxtaposition of this with her unflagging energy and indefatigable determination to see justice done by him I find highly commendable, fully empathize with, totally admire and wholeheartedly support.



God bless and sustain you in your worthy endeavours Carole, and in heeding too the compellingly powerful and pertinent voice from the grave embedded in your own spirited and honest cry: “No Justice; No Peace!”



After the most brutal, savage and summary execution of Mark Duggan on a London street and in broad daylight on the 4th August 2011 the police spin machine went into overdrive.



A vicious crime exacerbated by the abysmally atrocious manner and indifferent treatment meted out to Mark’s family afterwards when they peacefully sought answers at Tottenham Police Station as to why their loved one was murdered and that served as the catalyst for the subsequent widespread riots across England when news of their gross mistreatment at the hands of the police, all too common in the case of Black people, became knowledgeable was, to say the least, inevitable.



However, in a desperate bid to expunge the blood-stained tracks of those who had premeditatedly planned, ordered, oversaw and ultimately carried out Mark Duggan’s extra-judicial execution, and specifically in the lead up two and a half years later to the most perverse inquest jury verdict outcome either witnessed or recorded in the UK, the police, who were the perpetrators of Mark’s killing, ably assisted by their compliant media hacks hurriedly went on the offensive to disparagingly vilify him at all costs.



Instantaneously Mark Duggan was publicly and vociferously declared as having been the 45th most dangerous criminal, and how’s this for idiotic hyperbole, not in Britain as the many gullible and significant brain-dead in our midst would expect; oh no! But the whole of Europe.



Risible or what? This notwithstanding the deadly circumstances replete in the entire situation surrounding Mark Duggan’s controversial murder and against whose backdrop this claptrap and cynical charade were being absurdly played out.



Personally, I don’t think that that remark from our boys in blue, echoed and regurgitated by their racist chums, about Mark Duggan being the 45th most dangerous criminal throughout Europe would have found favour with or gone down at all well with the Italian or Russian mafias for example; let alone the incorrigible, sadistic, cut-throat killers and so-called leaders of the western created, and in which Britain played a major role, hand-out, dependency satrapy of Kosovo that these western paragons of virtue, as they would have you believe, still avidly support.



Understandably, the respective European mafias and their Kosovan counterparts must be spitting rage at having been so disrespectfully and publicly humiliated by a concerted British police propaganda campaign, and a lying one at that, that sees these genuinely well-renowned and arch-criminals criminally, and mortifyingly so, supplanted by of all people a London Blackman.



Ironic coming from the British police, I must say, when all the empirical data to hand categorically show that Blacks in the UK are more likely to be the principal victims of crime here rather than the perpetrators of it; and particularly so of race crimes, that as some of Britain’s major broadsheets reported on the 13 January 2014 the police don’t even bother to investigate. And with such endemic prejudices within the police ranks reinforced by conditioned racial stereotypes why would they prefer to hesitate, given those clear-cut circumstances, rather than summarily kill a Blackman when the opportunity either presents itself or one is premeditatedly and cynically manufactured for them?



Be that as it may! But having assiduously observed and contemporaneously collated the many facts as they emerge, it all looks very much to me like the British Police and more especially their Metropolitan colleagues on finding themselves shut out of the public convenience of honesty and reason and therefore anxiously looking for somewhere else to offload their profuse urine, were forced in the Mark Duggan case, as they were with the Stephen Lawrence one and others, to piss in the air in the earnest hope that in doing so what they let off didn’t fall back and embarrassingly drench them.



However, in the immortal words of the black bobsledder in the film “Cool Runnings” similarly compromised in his emergency situation the response is: “Too late!”

Murderous intent



By Stanley Collymore



How does it feel to take the life of

someone else; to coldly bring to a

violent and abrupt end millions

of years of evolution which

resulted in that particular man or

woman: an embodiment of dreams,

hopes, aspirations and ambitions;

all undone in a matter of seconds?

Is it really worth it; to destroy

all that in one mindless and

irreversible act spurred

on by untrammelled

racial hatred?



© Stanley V. Collymore

17 February 1998.





Black Skin



By Stanley Collymore



Ridiculed and scorned it was you

That gave me the inspiration

To carry on – for in their

Intense hatred of you,

Your foes revealed

Also their innate

Fear of you!



© Stanley V. Collymore

31 July 2001.



In lasting memory of Joy Gardner, Stephen Lawrence, Mark Duggan and all the other victims of racial prejudice and institutionalized racist legal systems everywhere and particularly so in Britain.



The words for the title of this contribution that heads these two poems previously written on the dates stated are those openly expressed on the night of Wednesday 9 January 2014 in the wake of the perverse verdict following the clear execution of Mark Duggan and uttered by a very angry and racially diverse group of people, significantly young and of both genders in Tottenham.



The Macpherson report highlighted institutionalized racism within the British police forces, and very still prevalent in 2014. The Woolwich Heroes courageous and committed stance highlights what must be done if Blacks who are quite disproportionately stopped, searched, criminalized and with impunity premeditatedly executed by the British police and others in tandem with our supposed legal system continues as it seems set to.



The concept ruled on and incorporated into US law by none other than the United States Supreme Court that Blacks have no rights that whites need to respect is institutionalized within the British legal system and its Animal Farm attack dogs the British Police Forces and routinely carried out with utter impunity.



As a result well over 4000 Black men and women have been systematically murdered or summarily executed in the past two decades with not a single one of their racist white killers brought to justice for their premeditated crimes. But this is not simply a black white issue, since many of those voicing their anger in London last night were young whites who know what the score is.



And to have Bernard Hogan-Howe the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police commending his force for what they do and stating that through their efforts London will be safe belies the real truth of the matter. For it’s not just Blacks but whites like Ian Tomlinson who also get killed at the hands of sadistic members of the Met Police.



And as for fabricating evidence we only have to look at what happened in the cases of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday, the Cardiff lot and other instances where the police fabricated evidence, lied through their teeth and thought they’d gotten away with it, and would have done had it not been for the perseverance of the victims’ relatives and friends. Yet to this day none of them have been prosecuted even for perverting the course of justice or lying under oath in court.



Similarly following the brutal racist murder of Stephen Lawrence where the Met Police collaborated with the killers to destroy evidence and senior officers of that force along with others elsewhere, notably the senior officer in charge of the Hillsborough debacle who sought ways to smear the Lawrence Family, friends and supporters and rather than prosecute the racist killers of Stephen shielded them instead and sought to portray Stephen and his friend Dwayne as gang members which they weren’t, is common knowledge now.



A society where Blacks are over policed as criminals and under policed as victims. But a society also where a conscionable judge had to publicly reprimand the likes of David Cameron for seeking to pervert the course of justice in the recent case involving Nigella Lawson. And without seeking to infringe any contempt of court rules or regulations my gut feeling is that the same Cameron’s Downing Street Press Secretary/Advisor or whatever he was involved in the phone hacking scandal along with his associates, all friends of the Cameron lot, will like the killer of Ian Tomlinson walk free. For there’s one law for the rich and powerful and their friends and another for Blacks and ordinary decent everyday whites, particularly those living in inner city areas.



In any civilized country jurors being humans do occasionally make mistakes, that’s why there is usually an appeal’s system in place. But when British jurors systematically come up with the same verdicts time and time again where Blacks are concerned then something has to be fundamentally rotten in the system. And we know there is. Supposed Black perpetrators are always found guilty especially when their alleged victims are white, while the clear-cut white, racist killers and police executioners of Blacks are always found not guilty, if they get to court in the first place that is which rarely happens, come up smelling of roses and always have the handy excuse, they were threatened and felt their lives were at risk. And with racist stereotypes entrenched in the UK that’s good enough for these bent jurors, selected as always to do their white legal system puppet masters bidding.



And can Blacks count on their MPs for support? Not a bit of it! Not even those who are of the same race as themselves. For like their US Congressional counterparts Black MPs are without exception House Niggers out for themselves and vaingloriously hoping that they’ll be allowed to get some of the crumbs off the white man’s table by being allowed to climb up that greasy pole of success. Fat chance of that ever happening!



As for the risible Independent Police Complaints Commission it’s nothing more than a bunch of arse-licking cronies who got their positions in the same way that David Cameron’s hairdresser got his MBE. The IPCC therefore is totally unfit for purpose and not that different from the so-called International Criminal’s court which as the entire world knows only prosecutes fabricated Black killers while authentic mass murderers and committers of crimes against humanity like Tony Blair walk free and get paid millions in backhanders from those on whose behalf he went to war to financially boost their already massive, plundering and venal corporations.





And so the list goes on! But it’d be wise to think on that even in a classical institutionalized racist country like Britain these sadistic, racist and other premeditated murderers and executioners also have family, and no matter how immune they might think they are they’re not, for while they and those who protect them have to get it right 24/7 and 365 days every year the counter-assassin only has to get it right the once. And pray tell me how they hell do you protect schools, playgrounds, shopping malls and supermarkets where their families shop; or places they go to normally, or even in the high street as the Woolwich Heroes courageously, and wit an up yours “eye for an eye” unmistakably demonstrated.



As for me I already know where I stand and if you’re in any doubt about this I suggest you pull up on my site or any of the others that have carried it my poem: “Death doesn’t faze me and I have no fear of it!” It’s not a bluff I assure you; for I’m in deadly earnest!

By Stanley Collymore



Your valued life here on earth inevitably reached its

end but the durable and cherished remembrances

of the immense good that you did whilst among

us; what you clearly and conscionably stood

for and tirelessly, in frequently difficult

circumstances, worked exceedingly

hard to implement and against

seemingly impossible odds

to achieve, in order to

improve the lives of

others, will live

on forever.



A touching testament of your altruism, tenacity

and dogged commitment to the challenging

belief that essentially, although quite

invariably obscured by the frailties,

stubbornness and selfishness of

our nature that are themselves

often and greatly influenced

by the conditions we find ourselves

in, there’s nevertheless always there in

each of us, although usually buried deeply

within our psychological makeup, an

inherent reservoir of good simply

waiting to be fully explored,

determinedly tapped and

beneficially utilized.



And not solely for the benefit of ourselves but

correspondingly too the advantage of those

who we regularly encounter, and in the

identical manner that we promptly

engage in doing so with regard

to ourselves, we’ll likewise

undertake to favourably

reach out to; assuming

of course we truly

and charitably

are of a firm

mind to.



So rest peacefully and deservedly so from your earthly

labours Aunt Millie: mentor, inspirationalist and

dependable friend; and continue to shine

gloriously in your illustrious and

Celestial home, just as I know

you automatically did from the very start of

your arrival there after your farewell

journey to the After Life, and had

of course previously done while

you were still here on Earth. Happily

secure in the full and enduring knowledge

that though you’re no longer physically

here with those who knew and still

love you immensely, in spite of

that your comforting presence

is still very much here with

us and will unfalteringly

remain forever; since

the simple and quite

satisfying truth is

you’ll never be

forgotten!



© Stanley V. Collymore

28 December 2013.



A Personal Tribute:

In an affectionate and deserved celebration of the life, the commemoration of her memory and remarkable legacy, and as an overall and personal tribute too to the great Lady herself, this poem was inspired by and is complimentarily dedicated to Mrs Millicent Griffith: my late, dearly loved and deeply revered Great-Aunt who reciprocally in response to her committedly assured, open and demonstrable love for me I adoringly referred to her when she was alive, and still do now in all references to her, as my “Aunt Millie”.



A deeply devoted but none the less an independently minded individual, in that specific respect as in so many others we were bonded soul mates, Aunt Millie was a wife, mother, grandmother, a great grandmother, sister, aunt, great-aunt, great-great-aunt and loved relative of her racially diverse and markedly extended family.



For most of her life she resided with her family, her late husband was my Godfather, in the picturesque village of Belleplaine itself centrally located in the stunningly beautiful parish of St. Andrew where she was widely known, universally loved and deeply respected and equally so throughout the wider Scotland District of Barbados of which St. Andrew was a constituent and vital part.



Renowned for its nationally approved of, legislatively enforced and protected scenic landscape of rolling hills, verdant valleys, leisurely flowing rivers and crystal clear streams interposed with well-established centuries old hamlets ensconced with pleasant rural folk who’re nevertheless highly sophisticated and well educated with it, Barbados is just one of a tiny minority of countries worldwide with a 100% percent adult literacy rate as confirmed by UNESCO, that of the UK’s is only 75% and the USA’s is around the same, St. Andrew is the original and enduring home of the Alleyne Grammar School, Latin motto: “Aliis Non Sibi – For Others Not Ourselves” – and just a five minute leisurely walk from Aunt Millie’s former home and in whose co-educational precincts at a time when grammar schools were gender separated in Barbados and in England severely restricted in relation to girls, although the latter situation was never the case in Barbados, it was at the Alleyne School that Aunt Millie’s own family and other relatives of hers were educated, with her eldest son one of them going on to be a teacher and school principal himself.



Interestingly enough, the Alleyne School was slated in the bequest of its founder Sir John Gay Alleyne to be the first grammar school on the island of Barbados. Sir John a prominent Barbadian and an extensive landowner within Barbados and throughout some of the other Caribbean territories as well as the colony of Carolina founded on the North American mainland by Barbadians themselves and perhaps better known nowadays and to you as North and South Carolina, two constituent states of the United States of America, in addition to being a very wealthy man was also the longest serving Speaker in the history of the House of Assembly: the national Barbados Parliament, established in 1639 and after the House of Commons in London is the world’s second longest surviving and continuous, elected working parliament anywhere globally.



But crucially Sir John Gay Alleyne was also a distinguished philanthropist who loved his native island of Barbados immensely and just as profoundly his fellow Bajans, the affectionate name that Barbadians call themselves. However with minor but quite prolonged, all the same, squabbling that lasted for just under 20 years by the Board of Trustees set with the task of establishing the Alleyne School over where it should be located; whether in St. Andrew, Sir John’s familial seat and very rural in character or St. Michael, which boasted as it still does to this day Barbados’ capital Bridgetown, the country’s parliament and was a major New World port and principal city at the time, this petty squabbling allowed a much later rival and contender Harrison’s College to pip the Alleyne School to become the island’s oldest grammar school.



And with Harrison’s College established in Bridgetown the Alleyne School’s Board of Trustees eventually saw sense and opted for Belleplaine in St. Andrew as the school’s designated site, which many of those associated with the project personally favoured in the first place.



Even so the Alleyne School, apart from Harrison’s College that is, is still considerably older than any other educational institution elsewhere in the New World outside of Barbados, and significantly predates the creation of the United States of America, Canada, several European countries, including Germany, as well as Australia and New Zealand and is still very much an educational institution of excellence that is passionately supported, deeply loved and profoundly respected by Bajans of all backgrounds and both genders, but none more so than the community of St. Andrew; among whom it’s still located on its original site.



Meanwhile, St. Andrew as it has always been known ever since 1627 is situated on Barbados’ north-eastern coast where it’s bordered on its seaward perimeter by an unbroken thoroughfare of expansive and pristine, sugar white, dazzling sandy beaches lined by an immaculate collection of casuarinas trees, coconut palms and wind-shaped sand dunes atop of which and intricately linked at periodic intervals are impressive sea breeze-sculptured, and quite appealing to the eye, intertwined and fantastically cosy canopies of dark green tropical grape bushes ideal as intimate hideaways for courting couples or serving, as they frequently do as well, as the natural habitat of mini colonies of harmless Concha crabs scuttling about on their everyday business.



And the beaches here have to be physically seen and personally experienced to be properly appreciated, with sand so delicate to the touch that even the mildest of footprints are automatically trapped on it, the duration of their pleasurable and quite variable captivity very much dependent on how close they were to the seawater’s edge and the teasing playfulness of the gentle ebb and flow of the tide.



The tropical Trade Winds are likewise very much at work here too and in tandem with the azure blue waters of the expansive Atlantic Ocean that aquatically controls this coastline and with nothing between the west coast of Africa, 3000 plus miles away, and Barbados, the most easterly country within the region, to exert their abundant interest on, increasingly turn their spirited attention instead to meticulously manicuring this coastline and its constituent parts, with their similarly impressive and kaleidoscopic backdrop, that comprise the wider Scotland District of Barbados.



Related to the Springer, Walkes, Griffith and Collymore families mostly biologically so but in some instances through marriage, the Diaspora of these families even during Aunt Millie’s early lifetime stretched beyond the borders of Barbados to include other territories within the archipelago of Caribbean Islands, Guyana, other parts of South America and also Central America, and significantly too the United States of America, Canada and the UK where collectively within these three specific countries the largest concentration of them outside of Barbados were born, raised and do reside.



And justifiably proud as she evidently was of the academic qualifications gained, the successes achieved and the professional statuses earned by her immediate family members and their Diaspora – there’s hardly a profession worthy of the name that one or other of us doesn’t hold – Aunt Millie, even so, was never reluctant in encouraging her family members, whether they were born in Barbados or not - pushing at an open door was how I described it - to have the same abiding love and respect for her beloved Barbados and especially her adored St. Andrew: accumulatively her birthplace, homeland and tropical paradise, as she always did. And where fittingly her mortal remains lay buried alongside those of her late husband and in the company of other departed family members and friends in the tranquil setting of the centuries old St. Andrew’s Church graveyard.

By Stanley Collymore



I’ll lift my eyes up to the stars and venture

to attain my genuine ambitions, but in

doing so I won’t ever allow myself

to be blinded by pointless daydreams or

unrealizable expectations, assuredly

always keeping both feet firmly

planted on the ground; in the

full and quite comforting knowledge

that if my yearned for ambitions

aren’t to be realized first time

round I can then always and sensibly,

learning from the mistakes that

I’ve consciously or perhaps

unintentionally made,

be more preparedly

capable in the

future to start

all over

again!



© Stanley V. Collymore

7 January 2014.



Observation:

Success and failure are relative terms; and how much we want the one or are willing to spinelessly capitulate to the other depends inevitably and considerably on our own efforts or marked lack of them!

By Stanley Collymore



Though you assume the right to moan often but

usually in private about the difficulties you

regularly face the stark and challenging

truth is that you seldom, if ever, like

so many others do rarely bother to

scrutinize the possibilities of why these

difficulties are there in the first place

and, as such, thoughtlessly rule out

the legitimate likelihood that you

and your activities might very

well be the magnet if not the

material catalyst of many of

your pressing concerns.

And so it isn’t that

difficult to fully

appreciate

why.



Home truths like awkward relations whom you

don’t much care for but quite reluctantly,

embarrassingly and perhaps even

painfully are forced to grudgingly recognize

as very much a part of you, although you

wouldn’t contemplate let alone freely

make a point of advertising that fact,

are nevertheless things that you

simply can’t or shouldn’t try

to wistfully wish away

and pretend they

don’t exist.



For to persistently live a significant lie

long-term, while secretly dreading the

prospect of exposure, carries with it

on being eventually found out

the far greater risks of ultimate

humiliation and certain rejection

at the hands of those that you

either foolishly or else

naively endeavour

at all costs to

please.



So why not aspire instead to be your true self

at all times, and rather than timidly or

even sycophantically seeking to

please others who you think you must impress;

pandering continuously to their every whim

and fancy while inwardly deliberately

ignoring or failing to heed the signs

that on their part their loyalty to

you, if such a commodity

does exist, is ephemeral at best and

without any bonds of consistency;

that what in effect you should be

doing is to impress upon everyone,

whether they genuinely care for

you or not, to either accept or

reject you as you are, warts

and all, rather than willingly

being complicit with any

of them in what, after

all, could very well

presage your very

own inevitable

and perhaps

long-term

ruin!



© Stanley V. Collymore

3 January 2014.



Observation:

The herd instinct may very well be quite suitable for some species of animals; as human beings however and supposedly at the apex of this particular food chain I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect something much more imaginative from homo sapiens. After all, that’s why we’re individually endowed with our own brain. So why not use yours?

By Stanley Collymore



There are Grandmothers and there are also Grandmas;

at first glance and on the face of it there’s no

distinction between the two terms of

expression it would seem, but

that’s where you’re wrong a thousand fold.

Since in any household worthy of the

name the two definitions aren’t

mutually compatible or

interchange ably

the same.



For biologically most females can and do invariably

at some time or other, whether they wanted to

or not, become grandmothers, provided

of course they similarly have fertile

children of their own to start with. An exercise

and physiological outcome that combined

don’t require that much thought on the

part of the participants and even

less involvement or support,

if any is dispensed that

is, by the prospective

grandmother.



Grandmas, however, are different: a rare and special

breed of persons who not only made all the

requisite efforts and sacrifices they

could to ensure that their offspring got the very

best of starts possible in life and with their

invaluable help, inspiration and guidance

sustained that advantage throughout it;

but significantly also willingly and

welcomingly do their utmost to make certain in every

way, and crucially through their constant physical

presence and encouragement, that their much

treasured grandchildren do the same. And

you my new and esteemed friend are

evidently the model Grandma in

every accepted sense of that

cherished word, and not

simply so in name!



© Stanley V. Collymore

1 January 2014.



Commentary:

With proper Grandmas everywhere generally in mind this poem however was written specifically for and is expressly dedicated to a truly charming, poised, highly intelligent, outstandingly communicative and an exceptionally amiable Grandma who in the company of her equally remarkable junior school aged granddaughter I met for the very first time at a cold, blustery and rain swept Worthing seafront bus shelter on Monday 23 December 2013.



Without exaggeration an unforgettable encounter while the three of us were waiting for the same bus to take us to our respective homes; and an undoubted Lady in every positive interpretation of that word who I shall affectionately refer to here as the “Broadwater Grandma”, even though she doesn’t live in Worthing but was visiting and staying with her married daughter, a medical doctor, her son-in-law and their children, naturally her grandchildren, for the Christmas and New Year holidays. Something she regularly does so at every other opportunity as well throughout the year; for in her words: “I like to spend as much time as I possibly can with my grandchildren.” Well said!



For the benefit of those of you not familiar with the area Broadwater is a district of the English seaside resort Worthing. And let’s fervently hope that you too experience and continue to have a similar excellent rapport with your surviving Grandmas; or even better still if you unfortunately don’t that you’ll use 2014 to seek to persuade and ultimately convert your Grandmothers into becoming model Grandmas. Life, let’s be honest, is far too short not to; and failing to make amends discover all too late and deeply regret that you didn’t.



From birth I’ve been extremely fortunate and thoroughly blessed to have had both sets of my grandparents play significant roles in my life, and most particularly so my maternal Grandma, that carried on throughout my childhood well into my adulthood; and that same experience is also true in respect of my siblings. So I’m speaking from personal experience and most definitely recommend this familial overture. Go on, you’ve nothing to loose and a lot to gain!

COMMENTS

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Seshat
15:04 Jan 07 2014

I'm pretty sure I have read your blog.

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