Ballad written in shaky pen hand in school
copy book on a bus bumping around
the road on the shores of
Fiji going to the town of
Suva with
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti and his 11 year old son
Lorenzo.
Bus ride ballad road to
Suva
March 4th, 1972.
Oh -ho, the
Australian lad dressed in red
Oh -ho, the
Ferlinghetti, beard on his head
Oh -ho, for the roar of the motor uphill
Oh -ho, for the feathery grass standing still
Oh -ho, the
Palm
Islands that rise from blue sea
Oh -ho, the breezy sky that hangs over me
Oh -ho, the dirt road that gives us away
Away to
Fiji,
Port
Suva, we go there today
Oh -ho, the black lady so big and so fat
From eating the taro root,
pink hair, no hat
Oh -ho, the clean
Indian wives in white cloth
Oh -ho, the green frog that
ate the black moth
Oh -ho, misty hills all
sun shining we've seen
Oh -ho,
palm -roof huts with doorsteps grass -green
Oh -ho, the black cow,
head bent on the field
Here by the old banyan,
bus stop squeaky -wheeled
The
Fiji boy opens the beer with his teeth
The bottle sits down on the floor by his feet
A cowrie -shelled purse and
Pall
Mall cigarette
Low tide by the ocean road,
sand is still wet
Green craggy
Mabenga sits on the low sea
Her men walk through fire
for you and for me
Oh ho, that last night
the round kava bowl
Numbed my mouth,
tasting the island's strange soul
Oh -ho, for hibiscus, mail pouch on the nail
Oh -ho, for the palm frond
that waves at the
well
Oh -ho, tin -roofed deserts
and drainpipes
in rows
Pacific
Development
Corp. only knows
Oh -ho, blessed freedom on
Fiji's
Greenland
Oh -ho, virgin hills, coconuts in your hand
Oh -ho, bless the pawpaw
and orchid that grows
Oh -ho, bless the
Englishman's leftover rose
But cursed be the merchants and
company cranks
Capitalists hiding behind
Hong
Kong's banks
Cursed be
Pan
Am and the hotel airways
Their business is ruined for
Eden's always
The wind that flaps the banana leaf, ho!
Cocks that peck in the garden and crow,
ho!
For the switchbacks on red dirt hillsides
Cows walk by the jungle and
grazing abide
We roll over mountains,
rocks clank in the dust
Stop for bananas and pee as we must
Oh, ho, the blue ocean,
what green peak we pass,
Down there the
White
Houses of
Suva at last!