"…age vexes age..."
̶ Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"
They want you on stage, old school vine, brick role
till dust; comrade with angina in the village square, dying
for a champion's green mansion; to smile again, crowd
pleased, as the motorcade (Havana pipe fitters) horns past.
They'd like you to serve, lithe wine girl,
scented for taste ̶ egret at standby; entry positions cheeks assume
on carpets; for murder hiring hands, quality assurance.
Sunscreen Times, you want bacchanal?
Contractor claws gouge hill
face, Solar Control stations coming. That sewage welling up in back
yard pits? tip of oil lakes underground ̶̶ bet! ̶ bubbles to take
breath away. While seine pullers sort pleading catch, bass licks
and dhantals jerk knees. With no slide rules, fellas consider guns
smoking ̶ Excuse me, where the fire hosing dragons?
Up escalators tripped ashore the other day courtesy of fat
pay rollers in Chinese deck chairs making valued customers
of every bowlegged tree climber whose splayed toes scratch
fear at the foot of the stair; our first shopping mall floors
gleaming door man screaming, You can't come in here
like that.
The sun's melting pace quickens Day-O! Transport touts squeeze
in more wet prunes or, stripped to the waist, pole stroke pink
face rafters with pony tails; tulips for hard dough. In bamboo
halls the forest children sing till hearts burst strumming all
that's metered in us. And now, ready to order, the dead
who weave our north south hammocks signal.
Faith and I used to park by the airport, hug; wait, watch
the evening flight take off. The up roar of the beast head
lift of skirt sky boosters boarding the body; the spending
spree on runway thighs ̶ Haya! Vaya! Sapodilla ̶
our crack, our thunder.
And so much sun! how alien, much less
shut cold, could home fires possibly feel out there? Green
light, two one ̶ away, you!
> limbs great wide, wind tango.
- W.W.
PATH
The higher you rise, the more
sheer the air, the more calls
the sand swearing its
sliding is surer than your
need to become the sky
of your first calling
beyond settling for Earth's core's
pull or for her grasses'
siren songs of Springs
whose purpose is to propose
their passing promises
the final real thing.
But how sure of this other
first call are you? What is
it? This becoming;
this summing-up surrender
of name and clock and clothes,
though they keep clinging
to your bones even after
bones exchange their loud tilt
for the balanced nude
spine of silence. It is here
time's thorns rise to the rose
of breath's timeless song.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 