Them can't do statues right, bredren wheel. Shades
thrown from Gandhi + Garvey haunting the sky light
on validators : dead heat with Christ . on earth our world
charismata, Selassie patient in portrait notwithstanding.
Chat yuh chat.
Spliffing through, don't stare . for the beach thighs raise
sand crab creep hair. String purse lip tender, How
yuh do? You should know better riding horse
power like summer clearance on our island.
Chat yuh chat.
And check Segismundo : him await short list of hurricane
names . him they never pick though him wound
up and prep for paths of memorable flood nation.
Wrap yuh tendons, bwoy . distract yourself
with lottery number, breast feeders say.
Mean time hear now . home lost love sung : watch how
freight rise to the top, heart selector . toll forever.
– W.W.
WORK
As I prune these verses inside, outside
a boy is turning the soil to make it
easier for seed and sun to translate
the one’s silent secret into the other’s
bright bursting utterance of seamless tongues.
As I clean up these verses, my daughter
is vacuuming the rugs of our dead skins,
sweeping the kitchen floor of our spilt goods
and you are shining mirrors of your own
bright eyes with sweet vinegar of your sweat.
All this doing I once resisted now
I embrace as love’s natural mask without
which love would collapse under its own weight
of a vibrant space waiting to be filled
and stretched by a million masks of the sun.
Listening for my own voice, I hear also
the music of other tongues worlds away
leaping up through the stalks of my green song.
Plumbing my darkest heart, I shape the glass
of plain mind in which you may taste your own.
(from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 