FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

03/22/2026

In refrigeration for years her marriage sought
the finish^line, not heat, to thaw | the ceiling
fan knows lightning rarely strikes our copy^
masters . thought in compost spin.

When like priesthood our fate mappers get
old their vanities camp fire . gaze poking
blood fresh entry points. Don’t act too surprised
at red flags; yellow pee | fodder fuckers.
……………..

Jumbie birds need an iron wheel on the bridge,
co-pilot like . they struggle with world winds –
rigors gasp ‘n’ peek, new to human sorcery.

Our forest ballerinas skip^cross rivers
green heart space cleared for landing. No
point asking to try their shoes on . life^
lift shopping off plantation price floors.
………………

Backs unheard of bent in rice field
labour ! cameras saved scarce frames
of baby^carrying . mainly cane stacking
+ granules of hard dignity, taste verifying.

As oceans of crude promise gush watch
islanders port chase, wag tail side to side.
​Oh god!what ~ dark matter in the hold? ~
every outcast stows away one stolen star.

• W.W

YUH RAP SO (6.8)

No subject ashamed of not having lived – no
verb ashamed of still not living – no object
ashamed of not being alive – no full stop
ashamed of not being alive like others
who have invented mazes of whys and hows
and other alibis for shallow breathing –
even if their shallow breaths are only their
expensively cheap way of partly living –
living totally only in and by pain
the total pain of births and wars and corpses
like myself yet breathing and standing around –
not even walking anymore but at least
grateful to have the echoes of words to live
into and up to and beyond to more words

(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem
by Brian Chan, 2023)

03 /12 /2026

Life bearable only if a lifer can
manage to fool himself that he need not feel
any shame for choosing to sleep behind bars
from one cage to the next – through whose doors i move
needing neither to open them nor to slam
them behind me with bogus finality
in sentimental gesture to the idea
of being done with at least one frustration
to freedom – one more bedroom or house or car
or café or office or toilet where stains
from the spills of habitual performance
are mixed up with the deliberate markings
of desperate loneliness’s need to leave
evidence of its once having been – leave proof
once and again and again that life once knew
itself

(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem
by Brian Chan, 2023)

03/02/2026

“Each day I ride a wild black horse of terror
and every night I lock him in my bosom…”
– Marin Carter, Human Guide (1952)

Not paid to watch pots boil they wash
the stump, floss grit sweets; get to work
on orifice tiers < head case loading
kilos of field servility . all said ‘n’ done.

Thirst never ending Data centers need lots,
lots of water | our roadside vendors whistle
through the nose Agua, agua! . breath
thread through cactus needles.
…………………..

Scratch tests, hallucination hues? let the cave
man paint his wall . until first in, last agent
outside wave Gone Clear! . air truth light
kreyol engaging.
……………………

Against the known laws of cocoonery
Bismattie swears the pelvis grip cleared
her floor boards of doubt . out so she^
they recognize . vows equal, separate blood rush.

Wing tips dip ? as broad bands sweat ‘n’
ramajay + artery mas’ bulbs flicker ~ Welcome
back, Piyumi! ~ butterfly swim lanes stay
open, Poised to up fling? ~ shed a skin.

• W.W.

YUH RAP SO (6.7)

Down in the Bush up in the Interior,
One more rung to High Heaven on her ladder
Of God-lust odd in an otherwise docile
Gyirl trying her best to keep a low profile –
More so after the thing behind the sea-wall
Which had made her flesh feel like a cannibal’s
Bloody treat + turned her off all males for good,
Including her lover, though he too had bled
As part of the wages of their lapse of lust
As shameful for its haste as for the rapists’
Voyeur-into-vampire perversion of it:

Her prayers after sex-nightmares helped her forget
Or rather not recall too well the details
Of the rage she ‘d felt at losing all control

(from Raponani by Brian Chan, 2023)

02/22/2026

The sound of the doorbell like a warning
to joints pledged to the knuckle > @navel point
knock knock ~ step back, beast on leash.

Well hello, there stranger ! Look at you . up
from which cocorite village ? heart hub
inside (what scare you so) spike metal gate;
sheen fronting, quiet envy.
………………

All the while him ‘pon her . back member
ship dry spelling ! cyan find no papaw^
like pulp seed fi squeeze send bear.

Her folding berth holds on . long for like^
subscribe wedge closure ~ Your thing in there!
Hurry, I have to pee.
……………….

Face fictions trouble, bubbling up bath
body pipes as him^her leaning mirror
true mist wipe | meantime flat
tyre handlers feather cap the iron touch.

High mas’ play set ? from walkabout chair
ride the Elephant^humble . how used we are
the bible bell, Admin Get well! fare ringers;
past port prospects studied.

• W.W.

YUH RAP SO (6.6)

The source of blood in this lifetime would ever
Be behind a wall all men must climb over,
Not just to get to better fields they must plough
But, in the name of Freedom, to unbelong,
Or at least not belong too well, to the breast
That translates blood into the milk of deafness
On which the rigmarole of women’s lives thrives,
The Hourglass-sand + The Skeleton’s swath-scythe
Mere men’s limps around the roots + fruits of growth:
It’s no wonder Ladd seemed always out of breath,
As though his latest was bound to be his last

(from Raponani by Brian Chan, 2023)

02/12/2026

A glance at the notebook on his knee shows me
a page full of as many numbers as words
i ask what man, are you an accountant then?
and he says   better, I’m an economist
revising rules for accountants and lawyers
to die by  i sigh  i seee!  a fabulist!

The careless ease with which i translate the thrust
of his expertease-dart into its essence
of fantasy surprises me like a slap
to my own face – waking me to the memory
of an arrogant audacity of mine
not unlike this man’s – my pretense at being
(that existential angst of the common man)
the academic most people thought i was
because my reading had influenced my speech.

(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem
by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

02/02/2026

“Had seen it before but now saw it again
as if he had not seen it before…as though
a new religious feeling arose from it.”
– Wilson Harris, Companions of the Day
and Night (1975)

Think you could just weevil out the Account
you asked^they built ? screen world unlocked
Play dare | so recoup what matters from device
point blame.

Fair warning : there is no ship path home
after the forest trail stops | tree trunks
them snap them bench-plane-keep . right
click to stacking .
……………..

Ah, room lights off chancers jump . sneak
currency through veil . god surge (the ankle
robes forbid) until breath^takes rip
inlets Great!

Upright knot storm over . the air so fresh, Go
set the table outside . You got this, bitch!
sweep the debris swollen under sleep^
bridled eyes.
…………….

Rooster egret corbeau snake – which brand you
think would spiral first ? about this world
sensing . can’t muck^stamp take no more.

The business we here run . lines to transcendence
may require filling a million or so bone ‘n’
back orders; grip sides basting in the sun.

• W.W.

YUH RAP SO (6.5)

In medias res the World created God
that had to happen because Creation did,
He there thought, – blasphemy no less logical
than the fashionably commonsensical
Belief that in light of the world’s darkness no
Maker could lie behind what we know + do
nor within Earth’s jungle of sheer happenings
not least the lightning that allows witnessing
but why try boyo to explain visionlight
we only see what we already bear – it
is in the baggage we bring when we are born
or else we’re only bats in the brightest noon:

(from Raponani, by Brian Chan 2023)

01/23/2026

“O wound wound wound that will
not bleed at all.”
– Martin Carter, I Walk and Walk (1952)

Long before we knew how bongos worked
people carried on ! Cassareep people, body
plate slick ‘n’ heavy | our Father superior
locked up his collection ware . Who cooks ‘n’
eats the heel of cows?

Choices still elude the poor ‘n’ handy
who measure how waves break; how collard
green vitals shrivel steaming mangrove^
like strain hold.
…………….

At the NY Supermart . idle too long near
the Guinea yams you feel these stranger eyes
tagging > Just landed ? papa Mizani, what news.

At the KY game home^coming marchers
knee lift jubilee^time drills . our great
grandfather trombone out bound sourcing.
…………………

@Water fall or elevate the multi-channel
dead (not fully) counsel < Watch yuh back^
back ! catch^all Kompa slow up streaming.
+
Flag days > mind on hue blue harvest, Toyota^
mounted school yard snatch < survivor
limping cross the plank for tarpaulin cover.

• W.W.
  

YUH RAP SO (6.4)

Though scribblers all – Khan, Ladd, Moksha, Francis – none
was political, but no man or woman
(Even somebody who’d never been allowed
To forget he/she was born to be an odd
Non-member of/outsider to a certain
Tribe, one that would pretend it wasn’t hurting
Since its scars were concealed behind the curtain
Of a determined forgetting far worse than
Any commonsense recall of how to be-
come – as though breath were a set of recipes
For coping) was ever not political.

(from Raponani by Brian Chan, 2023)

1/13/2026

But maybe all he needs is a good night’s sleep
after which everything will be dawn-rosy^
if only i could convince myself that’s true –
i have enough money – oh no i forget –
though it’s still a popular trope you can’t
take it with you – its promise and investments
and dividends have clung to and followed me
here where nothing can be bought hoarded or sold
except the mind buying into and hanging
onto and selling itself more of the same
assumptions of finality and safety
that are sewn into money’s risky fictions^
you don’t know the half of it! the scribbler says.

(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem
by Brian Chan . 2023)

01/03/2026

Hard to tell whose dwelling God has entered –
that man with woman trying there, her pooja
marigold charge full pending.

His stomach smile face beefy . praise the carrot^
stick at bedtime taken orally | shaking the mouse
only wakes up the system.
………………..

Fingers for the chain necklace clasp later
reach for the speculum to scrub salve test
bruised walls | the knife to end that kitchen^
bitch ! her ark^angel humping.

His lizard tongue flicks Not goin’ happen again?
her furrowed flesh done! twistin’ on that grille.
……………

Field routers know what’s best for others heat
air bubbles blow | bless the power^feeding
missile, gut blood brick prayer mixing.

Virtue now like placenta buried to ward off Admin
swoop peckery.
…………….

Our land planners need few readers; books
pass chapters back to trees | up ‘n’ over cane
canal launch towers start . Is what going on?

Lovers Yes Lord! plough hard, harder . neighbors
don’t suspect a thing.

• W.W.

YUH RAP SO (6.3)

Freda hadn’t yet told Judd of her ripe trysts
(She was proud that she could speak such old-book words)
With a girl-cousin who was also forward
(If only as far down as their treasure-troves).
But, rising with Judd to peaks of their one wave,
She realized how its extending power
Proved all her cousin’s stoking of their wire-fire
Was just a fiddling giggly gasping nothing
Beside the wave’s demanding and allowing
Conductor of the artless craft of knowing
Herself through this comrade, her man, her fellow.

(from Raponani by Brian Chan, 2023)

12/23/2025

To brace, enduring like our great grandparents
is no saved feat; their arms reaching out (for sunrise
no paint brush) folded the recreation of yard life^
stock + cicada all nighters.

Breast or leg preference came later;
how long, they wondered + the labour
how much it took to raise those UK castle
stones . lay pay OK?

……………………….

The seawall blocked us from the shower
stall . its head serve firmer than hands ‘n’
bucket, birds ‘n’ bush. Another reason
streamers fancied Independence so.

Until you learn to find ‘n’ bless the heart
flesh pounder respect its mystery | chest
bare you not supposed to wheel ‘n’ seek. Ah,
now you see . so we lick tempers stay.

…………………

New habitats keep rising, sans roof galvanize;
calls close on high ways for dark horses. Fastest  
growing egg plants this side of earth warming
scrap shells heap.

Still the game for pump ‘n’ rigs the ocean
belly blues confirm . only sky divers know
where our dorados lay deep waiting. Ah,
now you see . on coast watch we there ovulating.

• W.W.
  

YUH RAP SO (6.2)

In The Bush that didn’t give a shite how slight
Or high its tenants + tourists rated its
Seasonless simplicity rapt + apart
From people’s perverse pride in the harsh hairshirts
Of straining ambition + competition
& measuring towards any fruition
In the hothouse + circus of artifice
Whose noise was nada beside the silent voice
Of the stolid trees ignorant of all names:

– how bloody creepily mere clearings become
paths, thought Thomasson about to break his pause
& keep walking forward over gold-shadows

   (from Raponani by Brian Chan, 2023)