"As one turns to one in a dream
smiling like a bell that has just
stopped tolling ….as a life
to the life that is given you. Wear it,"
- John Ashbery, "Token Resistance"
1.
Our rice fields stretch like days wet to the furry with
wage sloshed demands, the stern quiet heart alert to
the faintest snake slither. At sunset our neighbours settle
in with utensils and song, bead curtains and bed balming;
making sure we never cross the fowl scratch peck peck yard
unknown.
Under his bed Pa's cutlass looked sharp; whiffs of burning coil
whisper kept intruders at bay. It built resolve: one day
he'd move away, wife anew with child, from cane path
hammock stilts to bed rooms plumbing rods in cement.
The woman who'd sigh when poked to make his love ̶ then
serve done quick rinse dry ̶ wiped fear from the mirrors,
set window screens for fireflies in rags of darkness; faith
in habits sewn.
2.
Under the fluorescents of the main road gas station Daughter
formed her future: Diana heels leg lotioned avenues, her
jewels bunched under. Such a risk here, cast net affections;
never knowing what you'd catch ̶ red snappers slip stream
racing through the ovary.
3.
Miles outside the marble Wall city where the eldest studied
margins claimed, the neighbours grant him turf inside a foliage
of manners that cite his drive way passable; jhandi flags,
faded and frayed, defy front yard complaints.
His parents visit, sink in sofas, watch the flat screen, shake
their heads ̶̶ so much full faced, consumed! They ask: whose
car is parked outside Son's house. They worry: no moon
watch over crow neck street lamps. They'll take home
cordless tools, tales of freezer days, fall leaf ways.
Son with holding sticks to side walks, top notch clean unreadable;
though sirens passing smoke his village alarms. You can follow
him home on devices. His solitudes rise closer to the snowy
owls nest, a storied perch where no one dare profile a strange
brown man well-dressed who comes and goes.
– W.W.
COMPETITOR
You are going, you say,
from bottom to top but I also see
you a number crusted
with words chasing numbered words round and round
a melodramatic
circuit of gratuitous starts and stops ̶
a kind of poesie
that prettifies and pollutes like fingers
scurrying carelessly
across one or other keyboard of sloth.
Custom custom custom
even at the core of your ecstasy.
(from "Scratches On The Air" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 