10/23/2025
“Don’t worry. His shoulders and arms were
always big. But his legs fine-fine like yours.”
– Wilson Harris, The Whole Armour (1962)
Though you might think you getting off
at Stockings, Heritage Ware . contractors clap
clap clicking Can we help you ? gut a wish
made fish or two.
Street vendoritas at fruit stalls warn ~ Please
don’t squeeze up the zaboca ~ a piece of wood
could buss yuh head | dress nice for up stairs
to devotion tiers; copy^heads up first.
………..
As harpy wings flutter on shoulders bared
wives near 40nine worry . bent over still
best at bed pillow plumping; fat flanking
dry dock days of prayer.
While soup still hot . spoon sip soothe
the pelvis lining . No place set to bread
stick this deliciousness | one heart loss Only
one! rests here.
…………
As take holders shuffle deal our Estate
card men front ‘n’ grind | strips cropped
for runway ? who has tools or time to think
pantless wheels in need of hangar.
Her overseer sheets wrung on line hung
to dry . ocean blue blue sighs despite
I goin’ seal Him ! ring on finger wax tight
tight so reparation nights burn bright.
W.W.
[ Colonial Left Turn . Georgetown, Guyana 1977 ]
YUH RAP SO (5.8)
Wandering Zimmer-men can’t afford to stall
At the romance of Struggling-Artist failure:
Carpentering minstrels do not lop their ears
Nor blow their poor brains out in sunflower fields
As yellow as the shite of the world’s blind bird
Peacocking its quills deaf to Death’s drums + drone:
For Judd, aristo-son South American
(He refused an Anglo-Caribbean fate)
Social failure was an opportunist grace
By which – as in all poverty self-valued –
Experiment’s alloy alone proved true gold.
(from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 