Because it grows quietly like plantation resentment they let it run
unnoticed; it serves to screen waist down moves and unguinous news
paper wraps you might step on. So, heads up, remember to hold
your breath; and watch out for stoopers who won't all clear
the wind, who don't wave a posy.
Budgets are up set assuming islanders would bank on genes high
in self give in; not toss stuff out the window like conjugal
bedding live with tie knot infestation, Aie aie aie.
Cows with first names graze anywhere turning off the belt way
at hand raised signal; which allows chauffeurs of the guardian
chrome and tinted view to continue. So despite hard earned
arteries the system works, see?
Besides, grass traders, our happy few, deploy at Welcome sites
where custom inspectors ̶ and carrion book makers sorting fringe
brown tails as white beaks crow ̶ pose with no fear of getting
their angles iguana nicked; Jab Jab rear shake of the lamb
important at entry levels, Aie aie aie.
Our sugars at high yield, faith hips saris unwind,
the sheet spread under hand ̶ This is what matters! so men in haste
to stuff positioned wives gripe; grunting down to stubs.
Meanwhile, pledge hunters with no office for fun whet
knives on any plot marking grave stone; like illicit love
wanting, though not all that way, a bone to pick, a suckling
to pork ̶ usually some one off bass line, or a sniffing
tagless Please, not here! mongrel.
- W.W.
CLEAN GREEN BALLAD
Miss Camille, trying to stop a frog
from patrolling her patio
by spraying him with Mr. Clean,
found herself spraying also a snake
trying to beat her to the frog,
and ended up killing the snake
by chopping him in two with a cut-
lass ̶ which she now calls a machette,
a word that wants to rhyme with tête,
the thing which her blade separated
from the tail that twitched on till all
snake-habit had drained out of it.
I flung it into the backyard-bush,
out of sight and mind till the next
grass-snake and -poem come to pass
(like the tête and crapaud that vanished).
(from "Nor Like An Addict Would" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 