IDEAS come to creative artists from every-which-way; sometimes from out of the blues, sometimes from the Muses. On other occasions, tangible sources may trigger ideas on which to work: Tangible sources like the Chateau Margot chimney on the East Coast of Demerara, Guyana.

This landmark was recently featured in the local print media. Here are two different perspectives from two writers to whom the landmark was not far from where they used to live in their formative years. The perspectives differ, but some common features are to be found in both poems.

Landmark at Chateau Margot
You stand
Defiant of wind and weather
A landmark
Dwarfing the tall green trees around;
Innumerable bricks labouriously laid
Fashioned your form so straight and strong.
Where is the being that gave you shape?
If you could answer, you would tell:
“His bones are hidden in the dust
and time has dulled the scroll of memory.”
Yet, in your form and bearing there exudes
The spirit of your maker long deceased.

Once your hollow symmetry
Like a giant sky-trained gun
Belched forth munitions of black dust
That seemed to drown high heaven
and hide the sun;
But now, your sooty task, complete
You remain serene, majestic,
Enveloped in earth and sky and air
An age-long monument to your designer
Gladdening eyes at sea.

So, like you,
when my brief task of rhyming is complete
And the dark dust of my musings to earth subsides,
May my soul’s song survive:
A time defying monument in VERSE.
–Randal Butisingh

The Chimney at Chateau Margot
It began in antique ingenuity
like the pyramids
paging the histories of generations
in an alien land.
It stands unconquered
defying times saddened moments,
its forms patiently mortared
by hands which lived for release
on beds of straws,
dreaming of a messiah
in apocalyptic hope.

As  Dutch masters ravished black virgins
awaiting the next arrival of the fleet
to ship hog-heads and rum,
as Quamina brooded in anger,
as John Smith, consoled only with a Bible
and another tomorrow,
clawed death in triumph,
these tired goldsmiths
costumed the colossus.

Each stone placed in perfection’s image
they walled themselves to create history
as blood and tears mettled this monument
that now towers three centuries old
brooding upon the builders it has slain.
–Rooplal Monar

Guyana abounds in landmarks, from coast to coast; landmarks offering opportunities for you to make your mark in poetry. Or prose. And in other art forms.(To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)