The Harder They Come

Into the city for big time spoils,
five three with a ‘bop’ walk,
occasional high heels, to boost,
and that feminine voice.
He walked, talked, jumped fast,
learned to sing mento down town,
Vincent Ivanhoe Martin, fourteen and bad.
He robbed and ran so fast, no one caught him.

1938, Jam Down, Kingston resident’s court
dished him twelve tamarind strokes,
for a vicious attack.
Early 40s, burglary, shop break-ins, wounding.
Then 1945 his war began,
underworld gang monikers pinned tight,
Captain Midnight, Alan Ladd, but mainly
Two-Gun Rhygin.
Every job, he photographed himself,
a showman with two guns, to send the press.
He robbed rich, gave to poor,
Robbin’ da Hood, and the ghetto thanked.

1946, with his gang, got seven years,
that final straw pulled, he escaped in two,
and there on ratchet in his waist,
Johnny Too Bad,
gunned and gunned,
promising twenty nine un-wasted bullets.

1948, holed up in the Carib Hotel,
wearing just underpants,
shot his way free,
killing, wounding, making headlines
Jamaica would never forget.
He wrote regular letters to papers and police,
telling his next move,
how they must improve, and who was
the next nail under his gun’s hammer.
A fugitive in hiding
up Ferry Reef Swamp,
he didn’t have long for fame,
£200 bounty, rode on his head,
povertied people started spilling addresses.
While mum and dad were arrested for fish dynamiting,
his own net closing, he escaped.
Two Greenwich Town fishermen
took him to Lime Cay, but tipped off,
police and army arrived, surrounded,
and, as he always said,
never take me alive,
they shot him to bits.

Thousands went to the morgue,
to see Jamaica’s biggest criminal,
wrapped in blood and sack, but still, their hero
and future star of
The Harder They Come