•••
(Performance Script)
A sex drive
Newly discovered
An inventive mind at play
Fed by radio and t.v.
Ready at all times to re-enact
What she has seen and heard
A little piece on the side
A little piece before lunch
A quickie after school
That’s what she is offering
And all it will cost is
A hot Guinness and a crack conch
Hell that’s cheaper
Than a corner motel
And a hooker for the night
Don’t think I won’t take it
She may not have
The refined intelligence of a woman
She may not have
Even have the allure of a woman
But her body
Shows no age
Her sexual drive
Shows no ending
Her inventive mind
Shows no apprehension
At the things I want to do
I mean
If that is what she wants
If she has been programmed to discount
the real value of her worth
and trade it for
a hookers girth
I am going to milk her
For all her discounted worth
It is no concern of mine
That the females in her life
Will not pull her aside and check her
It is no concern of mine
That mom and pop’s have to work three jobs
So she is living for herself
Doing what she wants to get what she wants
It is no concern of mine that
Church members and teachers
Hide behind the rhetoric of words
And their own mis-deeds
Won’t speak to her
Because of their own
Unjust seeds
It is no concern of mine that
The neighbourhood folks won’t
Report what’s going on
Because they have concerns of their own
It is no concern of mine that
The police will not appear
Because they are elsewhere
Some even getting
in some other little girls underwear
So what if she has the potential to be
More than I could ever be
It is not my concern
At least
Until Someone
Does the same thing to my own
I mean
All it will cost is
A hot Guinness and a crack conch
And that’s cheaper
Than a corner motel
And a hooker for the night
Don’t think I won’t take it
•••
Lyrics submitted under the title “A Hot Guinness and a Crack Conch”
•••
Ishmael Andrew Smith is a member of Ruff Kutz, a performance collective whose goal is to bring audible life to lettered work. Ishmael is an educator with the Bahamas’ Department of Education. His ambition: to become a Professor of Applied Anthropology at The University of the Bahamas.
tongues of the ocean 
Lynn Sweeting
Is this poet celebrating the exploitation of island women? Sounds like it to me. Yuck.
Nicolette Bethel
I don’t think so – I’m guessing just the opposite.
Lynn Sweeting
I wonder if he should consider changing the tone of his voice in the reading…
Ishmael
actually the piece is satirical… it addresses the plight of school girls trading favours to bus drivers and taxi operators for pocket money…. This was a pervasive issue in the mid-90’s.
The position is an entrenched one… we sought not to separate ourselves from the issue but to speak from within….
it is interesting to note that someone percieves it to support the exploitation of island women… and not an awakening piece
Ishmael
from the perspective of a male engaged physically, vicariously, and or indirectly
Ishmael
“a male” s/b “the male”