G.B.C.
By Michael Grandsoult
2 22,
born and raised in Scarborough Ontario.
Dual/duel,
2 nationalities I bear and hold
carried over the border
by my parents through customs
cultural baggage of a Guyanese substance,
bubbling in my body
tropical hot blood
like casareep in pepper pot.
Declared not native to this nation
foreign fruit that doesn’t take root,
“climatic unsuitability.”
Snowbound by cold racism, withholding growth.
Soils used to maple,
palm trees be gone please
rejecting me to go
back home.
But home is unknown.
Only folklore fork loads of food
musical milieu,
cultures much more.
My exotics whitewashed, lost
before I ever got it.
Foreigner here, there
searching for where?
I fit in the hyphen.
Division partitioning
Guyanese Canadian.
Imprisoned within limbo
or,
is it a bridge
connecting the 2
creating something new?
not Guyanese
not Canadian only,
GBC.
So I soar Kaiteur on my ladder Niagara
to reach full height.
Making bull’s-eye mark on maple leaf
with golden arrowhead darts.
Synthesis of existences
my identity’s recipe.
Guyanese Blooded Canadian,
GBC.
Michael (MikeAll) Grandsoult is a Scarborough, Ontario native and hip hop educator. He began writing poems in the primary years of elementary school and started rapping in the junior grades. He has released three solo albums; “Mike Check” (2008), “Mike Support” (2015) and “Mike All” (2018). MikeAll’s goal is to put the poet back into rhythm and poetry.
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