The Ballad of Othello Clemence

There’s a black wind howlin’ by Whylah Falls;

There’s a mad rain hammerin’ the flowers;

There’s a shotgunned man moulderin’ in petals;

There’s a killer chucklin’ to himself;

There’s a mother keenin’ her posied son;

There’s a joker amblin’ over his bones.

Go down to the Sixhiboux River, hear it cry,

“Othello Clemence is dead and his murderer’s free!”

O sang from Whylah Falls and lived by sweat,

Walked that dark road between desire and regret.

He pitched lumber, crushed rock, calloused his hands:

He wasn’t a saint but he was a man.

Scratch Seville shot him and emptied his skull,

Tore a hole in his gut only Death could fill.

Now his martyr-mother witnesses in cries

Over his corpse cankered white by lilies.

There’s a black wind snakin’ by Whylah Falls;

There’s a river of blood in Jarvis County;

There’s a government that don’t know how to weep;

There’s a mother who can’t get no sleep.

Go down to the Sixhiboux, hear it moan

Like a childless mother far, far, from home,

“There’s a change that’s gonna have to come,

I said, a change that’s gonna have to come.”

Copyright Credit: “The Ballad of Othello Clearance” from Whylah Falls. Copyright (c) 2001 George Elliot Clarke. Used by permission of Polestar Book Publishers. Polestar is an imprint of Raincoast Books.

Source: Whylah Falls (Rain Coast Books, 1990)