[Strong as an ox (his calf breeding wife so quiet & serving,
luscious her mambo) he served his island with OHMS pride.
They sent him for Sandhurst grooming, happy we were. He'd step
beside prime ministers & royal kin, in helmet & ceremonial whites,
body* stiff sword *keeper, such was his rank.
In his last days he'd lay in bed, not speaking.
I rushed to his side – what would become of his memories?
dignitary gossip overheard?
I hoped he'd recognize the Regiment bugler – you know,
at the cenotaph on Remembrance Day? He frowned and turned
aside; reached for the dial of his Grundig radio.
After the war that German flagship ruled the waves.
His pleasure was pilot at dial, bowhead cleaving through white
noise, imperious news to the ports he valued:
chimes, fast bowling at Lords, Sunday devotions
(though not Edmundo Orchestra & His Ros.)
I heard he fell off his bed one moody night, cracked a bone
or hip, reaching for that dial; and curled in pain
until his grandson, headset paused,
sounded the alarm ("Grandpa's sleeping on the floor".)
For his last nights, the bed now with guard rails,
I brought him a Sony, thinking it would cheer him
up – you know,
memory presets, wireless sensors?
The batteries for this thing, they die so fast, he groaned,
fearing his life would smash on its high seas, the spinning propeller
out of reach, no anchor hold;
the headwinds of shortwave passing
service at world's end]W.W.
FEAR
Dying alone, no friend,
doctor or priest to prop
the fiction that you have
lived, you reach to clutch at any
final voice and see at the end
of the arm of a stranger with no
number or word in mind the strangest
hand of desire minding its own
business of clinging to one more
straw of its habitual mind.
(from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 