BLUE HUNDRED NOTES FOR JULIO

                                                                                             

                   
              Evening moist bites on dry bed lips testing the initials
              of youth dew kiss still cling sharper than the first search party
              mapping curve mound signs; or spring tide swell moon up
             
on the sea wall  ̶  permit at last to storm.

              On air brushed island bicycles, cow amble and cart
              in our path, we lost ourselves in Walcott-like land tie dyes;
              prince and princess, never more crowned, cool valleys
              like Marley's, never more owned. Valve insert keys golden,
              our kingdom full come. 

              The morning you disclosed your ovaries contained no eggs
             
designed to child; straight backed away  ̶  your ten o'clock intern
             
ship call [On the Rayuela Périphérique: * Even if Heaven is
              close by, all life in front of one.*]   
                                                                  Did you know then who you'd
              become? your hands scrubbed in would people house wife smiles?

              I'll go happy parts of us clasped to my chest rare coins on eye
              blinds open (nose holding casket scents).


              I'll clutch
these strips, not yet expired, like magnets on
              the chance
there's the same swipe system for the paradise side:
              a rainbow One source blues stop @ "Bird & Miles"
  ̶  a pint round
              about midnight for Julio  ̶  as hip hop tattoos sneak a peek.

              Ripe plum pluck and good luck! risks of innocence distinguishing;
              Fellini's FIN.
                                                                  < Yo, corbeau! head red 
              that garden lizard's fire fly snaps, the tree climb pause to pose,
              Eh-eh, what became of,  
                                                                             
                                                                               – W.W.

 

                      

                 

                     

                                        ̴  Ça va Julio Cortázar (1914 – 1984)  ̴

                           
 
                             

                    COCTEAU


                    I:
                 

                    My taste for moment-to-moment death yeasts
                    the liquor of life that waters the taste.

                    This tongue is ghosted by my brandy's ice-
                    dry vapour drifting in and out of being.  
 


                   II:

                   Now I am a stone in a running river,
                   split by the sun into a thousand moons;

                   now the river drained to a widow's bed,
                   a tongue of sand clogged with a million stars.
 


                   III:
 

                   My house is all windows of seamless glass
                  
with soldiers drifting by them, like stray clouds.

                   On its walls, I'm a shadow with ten eyes
                   whose target is any, whose aim is all.

                
                   
IV:

                   From branch to branch of this flowering tree
                   I hop, a bird who has traded his wings

                   for a hundred songs from as many beaks:
                   fickle to each branch, faithful to one tree.

                  (from "Scratches On The Air" by Brian Chan)

  

  

 

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Author: FarJourney Caribbean

Born in Guyana : Wyck Williams writes poetry and fiction. He lives in New York City. The poet Brian Chan lives in Alberta, Canada.

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