Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.”
– Requiem Mass
Mujeres in migraine storm, occupy a morgue,
naming, wanting the bodies of loved ones
struck numb in a prison fire.
Fear borne refugees cross burnt fields away
from villages ravaged by soldiers; drop infants
too heavy to carry, leave bones not keeping up.
Memo declassified: from men upright in blue
suits: to men with chest medal drawers: Our future
is in your hands. Burn their library.
Island school youth sentenced five years for stealing
spice mango sleeps back to the window –
fearing his bed – watching the door.
God shrilling warriors hurl stones, ferry open
coffins of comrades shot up check scarf streets;
gather again fresh, stone fresh.
Sun waxed plants stored away by squirrels
thirty two thousand years ago see,
disbelieving, skies of spring again, cheer scientists.
Days of glory, nights of stars – what, from nothing
fallen, buried for that first tribe stare touch word?
what something? whose voices of release?
– W.W.
PLAINER AND PLAINER
my confusion
of voice and eye, nothing
left to prove or
improve: a plain peace
sculpting certain
ghosts drifting in and out
of time, the wind caught
by an ancient curtain:
sketches of essences,
graphs of a stare
whose centre is any,
whose aim is all.
(from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 