for Linda & Carroll & Zulaika
Man, the first light snap feeling, the slip run
away, flogged rags on your back, a band going
your way. Bare bronze bad in flight, your hip
beads low riding vuvuzelas you hear, myths
shak shak bones raise; crow shadows you fear.
Yuh done dead already? might as well kilkitay.
These flag days, illusion the reigning monarch, players
make sea salty moves on tracks duty free; chance a pirogue
from a fine bone poet's prize catch. Bodies booboolooping
ruffle the old cane rows; sky blaze braising ebony glow
genome flow deformed on the merchant ship scales.
Staked out for strip data voyeurs and passeurs
frame rivers on mobiles, decline the coarse rump
up way ̶ watching the sugar; would kneel at carmine lips
thrust me! jumpers in white robes; would screen
touch you here, in heat waylay there; on fire
pour altar wine, very suitable family fear.
Under sun feel drum fantasias, steel sutures
for repair. World weary? one last lap, Mardi,
Dingolay. Chip tunnels on bass line, love sweat
salt away. Knock iron ̶ night slits tight ̶ Ash
bells warn ̶ wire wing feathers fall break the day.
– W.W.
DREAM-REAL WOMAN
I surprise myself by dreaming up
a bold and open woman with no flags
to wave but with a thousand questions to sprout.
̶ and I thank her for her refusal
to be bothered by how her boldness looks
to the fear-shifting eyes in household mouseholes
̶ and bless her beauty she is the first
to celebrate, without apology
polishing its temple's walls into outer
mirrors of the flame that burns within
̶ and share with her the sadness of her strength
that strides the Earth as one shepherd of the blind
and must take pause to wash its own eyes
with their salty rivers that erode rust
̶ or with Heaven's rain that stings them into stars.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 