Leaving shores not worth a pirate's gold stop,
chariot wind whips at their back; deals done
to wear like paper hats to fit heads bare with dare ̶
what trust in eyes nice weather; in crafts last call
pray all.
Soon over under shadow fins closing seagulls air lift
peals to gods extended multi-hold-on arms; the coast
line almost! sigh ̶ how far from thinking this was not
a good idea.
More fear dug out keep coming; somewhere exists they fall for.
Cities and aging masts await gusts of rekinder; kora strings
chord swipe passporte red line. As stick silver anima pop in
up in olive groves on no crack domes ̶̶ these Moors again,
their cooling rod divining high tide issued cells; from old
first worlds.
Ones who make it plant mark stems; depth cheers rise
from ocean floors.
– W.W.
FLOWERS IN A VASE,
like children flung into an adult maze
only slowly outgrow their puzzlement
at having been cut
off from their mothers
whose cries of terror and loss they never
forget even as they're facing their new-
found mortality
of feeling what's left
of their stuttered budding slowly draining
into the water that sours to feed
them through their last con-
undrum of being,
becoming, and not.
(from "The Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 