"…the lust men
invent, then cherish."
– John Ashbery, from "Tuesday Evening"
Start up the samba drums ~ string electric ocean
argument from Georgetown to, say, Malmo ~ watch
as tattooed Macusis mount and navigate with balancing
pole ~ air cold bearings > bow knots 'n' moorings.
Gate keepers no longer sigh Going Gone! as they tag
bags at island Departures . fears all blown up like
world news of Armageddon or black slate wipes.
Spotted on stonier tablets : barbarians with the pitch
forks of Bastille Liberté returning . dread heads need
only free up Jah love locks . drape the neck nape.
Ay, hombre!
with the cape for cherries . did you just phone snap
my wife's rear end? ~ son of a which front slit!
An ordure alert! cattle bones in parched heresy lands
sense new plot warming mu-moo drops. The bright
side? we could order drone delivery in strike rice
bowls out . watch authors rise.
Mesdames et Messieurs, please, your attention, about
"humanity" ~ the wine here is excellent.
Beloved so! our prayers are ended . our knees now
roots have reason to believe . I am very tired.
– W.W.
INFINITIVES
In the Fall and Winter, to stay
at home to fast and so enter
the inner room which snakes cannot ̶
To point to a grey sky empty
of the Sun and yet see there is
the Light allowing us to see
even as our own eyes cloud it ̶
To glimpse a flake of frost falling
off a leafless branch that but seems
a crystallised finalised bone
of misty dawn's still skeletons
and to know no difference between
North and South Americas or
hemispheres, no ocean or mind
between the Eastern earthworm's owl
and the Western magpie's phoenix,
and to praise both the turtle's speed
and the peacock's blurred scrawl of sleep ̶
In one thread of white hair stranded
in a jungle of words also
strayed off a head slowly losing
all of its accustomed allies,
to find a narrow path back home
in the Sun's dark centre where doubt
staggers all fates, serving them so
(from "Readiness" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 