(From Notes towards an Autobiography
Handwritten by Dilys at the suggestion
Of Judd after her depression-confession):
From then on the child Dilys tried her utmost
To charm the pants off (one old lech let her taste
His tongue) otherwise no-time-for-nonsense folk
Who just had to stop to hear the sweet ting squawk
Her nth parroting of The Ugly Duckling
Or cluck her tongue-tied aping of The Click Song
(In my nateev veelage in Johannesburg):
One prim old bird demurred her praise thus: My word!
Hearing her, Dilys was shocked that the word word
By itself could behave like a kind of curse-
Word: it was written, in the lines of the face
Of that granny, that nothing small could impress
Her + at that moment Dilys felt her own
Fat smallness
(from “Raponani” . a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 