West Indies, USA

Cruising at thirty thousand feet above the endless green the islands seem like dice tossed on a casino’s baize, some come up lucky, others not. Puerto Rico takes the pot, the Dallas of the West Indies, silver linings on the clouds as we descend are hall-marked, San Juan glitters like a maverick’s gold ring. All across the Caribbean we’d collected terminals – airports are like calling cards, cultural fingermarks; the hand-written signs at Port- au-Prince, Piarco’s sleazy tourist art, the lethargic contempt of the baggage boys at ‘Vere Bird’ in St. Johns... And now for plush San Juan. But the pilot’s bland, you’re safe in my hands drawl crackles as we land, “US regulations demand all passengers not disembarking at San Juan stay on the plane, I repeat, stay on the plane.” Subtle Uncle Sam, afraid too many desperate blacks might re-enslave this Island of the free, might jump the barbed electric fence around ‘America’s back yard’ and claim that vaunted sanctuary... ‘Give me your poor...’ Through toughened, tinted glass the contrasts tantalise; US patrol cars glide across the shimmering tarmac, containered baggage trucks unload with fierce efficiency. So soon we’re climbing, low above the pulsing city streets; galvanised shanties overseen by condominiums polished Cadillacs shimmying past Rastas with pushcarts and as we climb, San Juan’s fool’s glitter calls to mind the shattered innards of a TV set that’s fallen off the back of a lorry, all painted valves and circuits the roads like twisted wires, the bright cars, micro-chips It’s sharp and jagged and dangerous, and belonged to someone else.

- Stewart Brown

The poet is seen in the first half of the poem,looking down from a plane pondering on the beauty of San Juan, Puerto Rico.He refers to this island as the wealthiest country known in the Caribbean.He goes on to state that none of the caribbean islands can be compared to Puerto Rico especially in its infrastrure and ofcourse its airports which is none to compare. A sense of oppression came to the poet when he was told that if he was not getting off at San Juan, he should remain on the plane.However, it seemed that Puerto Rico was not exactly the way it was seen from the view on the plane.The poet then comes to his realization that Puerto Rico is perharps just like the other islands of the Caribbean filled with black people and ghettos which makes him refer to the country as a" shattered television screen" although it was owned by the United States of America.This meant that though Puerto Rico looked quite beautiful on the outside( view from the plane) it is rather broken on the inside.