"The ‘deaf’ within her stirred and listened.
The ‘dumb’ she cherished began to speak."
– Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room
The claim nobody sees our hand to mouth managing
won't help the cause. Cameras in the head hoard
everything | careful! what wind^concoctions the night
cork plugs; your foreday dream device stays on
recording.
Broken on plantation field it has been memories
since | shipped separate, home grown foot forward
paths still hang on foreign reason to be paved; praise
Jah, saved.
*
Down off our mountain players fall . no longer angels,
roadside pending. You should try the fish . from our forest
creek hooks block the town^cast nets; trench crapaud
return.
For truth accounts we’ve lost the fiction | else
how to hear heart pounding ? for innocence now fabric
scraps, the sage broom masters.
Same^old getting older
faster ledgers dial the blade . stem slice our mañanas,
honesties gone slack.
*
So much dem fear for look face lift so much
mean privates funnel pouch for themselves . you won't
believe.
Out of our bowels need
unspooling faith to keep kicks the Bejesus; or plants
like a smack on the head one hoof of a curse . Gwan
so, far side apple, star!
– W.W.
[ for Kenneth Ramchand . Professor Emeritus, University of The West Indies ]
MASTER-MODEL
Tumble-weeds inspired cart-wheels;
drift-wood – boats and oars;
spider-webs – fishing-nets and lace;
and bird-prints in sand – words
grooved on walls of rock by eyes and fingers
of fire, children of the child of the Sun
the father and mother of all models of Must
– so parent not only of my cave-poem
but of the marker-carver-spinner Soul itself.
All life is star-seed.
Seeds become their source. Human fate,
our next final fruit, is starhood.
……………………………………………………….
(from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 