Author: FarJourney Caribbean

     
    
             Halabi could give me no more ‘dope’ about Stew's progress                              
          Since my last session with him as a private client, when
          He had declared he meant to escape from ‘this fucking trap’,
          Whether of sex, drink, work or all three – or my counselling,
          Or the whole ‘game’ of pyschoolgy which he considered ‘full
          Of holes’ and ‘superior types who keep your arms folded’
          While drooling over the gossip of lesser mortals’ lives.

                                                 *

          Could i then now believe the delusional boy-man Stew
          Had volunteered to be a student of Enlightenment?
          Had Buddhism overnight become as fashionable
          As Yoga-poses and the pricey rags to strike them in?
          What was wrong with the boy (and with me for wondering what)?

                                                *

             But even in my vexed puzzlement, i heard my training 
          In Patent Symbology and Obviology sigh
          To my inner ear that Stew’s new path of spiritual
          Pursuits (even if only as research-material
          For a graphicnovel – about a Buddhist warrior!)
          Represented a wake-up call from my soul to my self
          To give up its recent trivial pursuits in favour
          Of a path more apt for a man rehearsing his last breath

          And i, what dead skin was i now peeling off like a snake 
          Squeezing through what strait-is-the-gate crack between which two stones?

               (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)

             Native faith healers can frond^host so long
         only . the next hundred flanges are critical. Old roof
         corrugations flatten; city forming I-beams at street
         crossings scare the air | not comprehending tyre tonnage
         cane path plantars shamble.

                            In the forest of lidded eyes covenant 
         midwives hide | once they thrived catching balloons
         pierced by javelins of repulse, steel grey to blue;
         skin tissue sent flapping.                                            

                                      Unlike fiction about night killings,
         how island women strapless run; whose langue exotique
         bond split star, happy they got away gender^chic intact.

                                                ^

                                                   Though dreams through daze
         stay On . displaced, mark where^how down midstream
         souls give^take bare . Get up here! serve^poise pause. 

                                               Waist high in flight cross
         Orinocos, neck tattoos like guide maps | wait, what!
         thick under swarming reptiles ? + you’d like to speak
         to offshore management.

                                    Aarrh! so like the throat lust of birds
         flying into glass towers, wanting only one thing – course
         validation, gleaming Eldorado^like on the shelf. Source
         eyes . deep set, look after the pass.

                                                                       – W.W.

               THE LATEST EMPEROR

                   
                          ..you might never say "All is lost!"
                   but your children born here, sensing sure 
                   anguish behind the walls of your words,
             will do their emphatic faithful best,
             and fail, to have your shared silence voiced.

             But watch out for that son or daughter
                   who will fling the lid off your smoking
                   pot and up against your tribal yokes.
            That will hurt, like the fire that melts fear,
             but shine your myths into new mirrors.

                ……………………………………

           (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

                                 " : the dim senses of birth, the remote senses
                                      of death, the cold and hungry senses of love"
                                       - Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room (1967)

          Arrival . still clicks away, on sea rough days grab
          one device – your paddle board with flotation keys.

               Our doors ‘n’ windows closed, somehow the dust 
          gets in?  look closer . mist on the room mirror.

          Mood^swing practice helps . with the wallaba 
          bat in case the cave^safe light stops working;
          the dog starts barking.

               Elsewhere not read like cup sediment The mat
          he bled out on the ground, he bled out so, the blood
          thick so | believe! so au revoirs drain. Rinse off, if
          iPhone lulz you crave.

                                                   *

              Who could refuse with guilt^in wish a basket
          of puppies? We were meant to love, the card says,       
          from a pudding egg stuffer who thought first
          of flowers . eye wetting.

                       Through cracks in dreams our Babsies fly
          the caste house, leave the iron on | thinking, match
          found could inseam fail ? my body news^tagged
          Missing . like with snatch contractors ~^~~ so
          leaf last shed.

                               Greetings Eh-eh @ tear bread, lamb sauce;
          prayer walks now . okayy . off ol’goat look^back knees.
          Oiseaux peckin’inyuhjardin?  Aarrh! pommecythèrepy.

                                                                        – W.W.

            YOUR WORDS ARE ROUNDABOUT AND A LOT

            Boats, trains and airplanes take different routes, 
            yet, for one journey, all can be used;
            a road may be rife with curves and ruts,
            but we know it always leads us here;
            and, however winding a river,
            nous savons qu’elle se mène à la mer.

            Now no master or mere faber can    
            afford to consider his work done
            if he wants it to kiss everyone
            with a sunray’s impartial kindness,
            and each according to her or his
            degree of readiness for the kiss.

            ……………………………………

        (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

            I see – recalling Fitzgerald’s Gatsby’s recaller and
        Heyman's Love Letters:   You love me – because you told me so.
        – Are we sure, i now asked, we’re talking about the same Stew
        Galenza i knew in Albertory?    Graphic artist?
        The very same, I do assure, was the rapid reply.
         – He be once in my employ, in this very eatery.

            As a waiter then?  i asked, but the owner of the place
        Shook his head, as though indulging a child, and waved an arm
        From front to back to indicate the broad abstract contours
        And strong earth-tones spread across the walls of the restaurant
        And interrupted only by three wide brass-framed mirrors
        That amplified the spatial reality of the place.

                                                    *

           You're saying Stew did all that?     There wasn’t a single hint
        Of the female figures which had been Galenza’s forte
       (As far as i had gauged from the sketchbooks he had shown me)
        But perhaps those had been reduced to the ovals and arcs
        That softened the otherwise masculine verticalist
        Thrust of the lines and angles cutting through the walls’ earth-hues.

        Old-world bonhomme Halabi nodded proudly, his eyes closed,
        His closed lips turned down in an almost sentimental smile.
        When he re-opened his eyes, were there tears welled up in them?
        The man seemed to be chameleonically sliding
        Right before my eyes, between colours of temperament.

       
          (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)

           

        Stilt men dressed like volcano deities launch 
        from the favelas, spiderly crimson strides / poui
        bosom stir^up cups, crossing land air sea / down
        Chippen Hill Parkway . bottom bunching. 

        Torso daub, soursop waist^wrap, head in bread    
        fruit balls – just go to show . while douen^haunt type
        sets perform Off page who taps conducting? 

                            * One view : back when tennis court  
        held cool ‘n’ safe they passed in law rope^skipping
        form | to feel the kalangang steel shake the wine
        glass flutter O my heart!
                                                      Such frenzy ! too bad
        they didn’t bank yesterdays in need reserve . store
        shifts for service entrance key ? ahead case
        files uploading.     

                                             ^
                          
                        Shipped to labour islands raised plight
        hands in the air, at night flamingo^strolled | bamboo
        exorcising dew^break . Koki-yo-koko lips so.    

                                  * One day imagine how! the ocean   
        jump^wave ends . belly foetus slosh, calabash hell
        ketch bailing.
                                          + One last wind . sky light
        open, platform halo verified ~ cane slash souls
        stitch^healed Trade News! source wings on
        time unfolding.
                                                         – W.W.

.       

           
                             [ In mem.  Gordon Rohlehr . 1942 – 2023 ]

           I SAY

           The limiting lister of learnt labels, a slave  
           of stamps not utterance, cannot conceive or feel
           The List’s absence as womb of Poetry’s lava
           or as pasture of freedom of the Other Voice
           that allowed the Master to plunder the other
           tongues of Europe, including his own tribes’ babbling,
           with an innocent spontaneity denied
           the slave freed who yet bows to The List’s fenced shadow.

           That style is voice, l’homme même, is the gift of guiltless 
           theft, a colonising annexure, a collage
           of influences bound to be betrayed and so
           put to the service of a wide unfettered mind
           itself in service to a surrealist world
           stubbornly fettered yet able to entertain

             ……………………………………

          (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

                                                                
                                            "..who said it's possible to become these 
                                              things : stone, shelf, step, ravine, flooring.
                                            But not while keeping the heart…”  
                                                         - Mervyn Taylor,  Alma's Advice           

           Ship up North . in city basement holds till nights
           go cold | on television watch he’d drift, restore
           his cane path time stalls; a village murder over life
           stock stolen.
                                       Top soil > exhaust he learned
           why roof rust corrugates. What is wrong with you
           so?

           Son's borough home could not refuse him old
           sun asking if his raggedy head board shakes, yuh 
           dough still rolling ? fat spouse frumpy in nighty.

           Street flood waters racing in one morning almost 
           swamped his deck | camp ‘n’ base encroachers
           weather^skeltered under the kitchen stove, scrap
           biding. What is wrong with this so?       
                                            
                                           *

                                               / Days that strip islands follow 
           nights off shore in silhouette rapture. For tenant feet
           what freeze brands wait ahead ? thaw to scurry.

                                       Puri, parang! mek^haste to heat
           beat for wind shield chipping; wrap caiman plans
           to over^stay | one likkle tear . rare^seen display.  

                               South north cross help me! currents 
           route dog tired^floating stars. Linked so, you 
           coming or what?
                                                                                             – 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

              ……………………………………………………

          (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

  
       A sense of the vanity of having to offer proof
       Of membership – of some club congratulating itself
       On its elevated philosophy with its slogans
       And tags in opposition to other clubs’ shibboleths –
       Has, since my childhood, clung to me like my own shadow, my
       Inescapable adversary, ally, faithful dog.
       What was the point?

          But now i sensed that the restaurateur, ‘Halabi’, was
       About to point me to the real behind-the-scrim purpose
       Of my trip to this town of tribes, churches, temples and mosques
       (Which i didn’t have to see to know that they existed).

                                              *

       This Galenza, he now said, be not, as you say, gone off 
       The face of this world   – Had i said that?  ‘Gone off’ sounded more
       Like a description of me or of the world’s face rotting
       And peeling off the skeleton-skull of eternity.

          Ignoring my slow open-mouthed savouring of his speech,
       Halabi said, Steward be gone to a Buddhist monkery
       –  Founded, i believe somewhere on Boulder, Colorado –
      My gasp of disbelief made him laugh, drily.    Yes, my friend,
      This I believe, because that young man himself told me so!
      I seeee, i said, not surprised, again, by someone’s blind faith.

     
       (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)

         

       Wait watchful . eagles make you feel earth is where
       all belong | patria gongs send you up gum trees, or
       get you . running from dirt bike riders who open
       throttles of brute^joy at your head . crack ice
       cubes for your face.
                                       Him^hers, not ours! lives scarf
       loved in knead position . pair bonds we bake.

                           On stools that sphincters test, on river   
       banks first aliens nature touched . our planet mapsters
       don’t scan specs returning – used to the canopy On
       Off air. What is that ? ocean high cry.

                   The coronary blows out candles; light   
       years dangling off chest ceilings puff Sorry, can’t
       gap service every home . now you know.

                                            ^

       Glass^skin towers won’t receive the fog that lifts 
       souls off jump cliffs | space^discs circle . sheets
       of notes stream in catch^release.

                                    Fogs like crowds get dispersed
       eventually | still, every day brass stand^stiff anthems
       play Here be legend ! rows we plant lists why
       with warranty to spend lack conviction scampers.

                        Aw, Fuck! the fogger’s last breath given   
      Too brief! last peak known | to every long^stem
      browsing child the dandelion surprise.

                                                               – W.W.

                  THE RECEIVER

                  Awakened but still the indistinct 
            shadow of many transformations
                 (in God’s million realms, there is no one
            king, no only Son), incarnations
                 sometimes very much there, sometimes gone,
            whether he be nailed to, or under,
                 a tree, bound to Earth or unimpressed
            by her latest wonderful blunder

              ……………………………………

             (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

    
                     "That is the whole blasted trouble," he said. "Shop
                       keeper, lawyer, doctor, labourer, overseer – I don’t
                        look like any of them." 
                             - V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas (1961)

          Ah, Mohun, readers then would have done anything
          to help, despite how omens end. Alec spat out a cigarette
          that had burned down to his lips and gone dead.

                                                                    Not cause you
          these days nobody browsing book . ‘bout island
          fevers, fate | Is puss-puss here, trap waste there;
          night forbearing turn side ways ~ wait for the world
          to yield its sweetness.

          Say what you like ‘bout blood . base^borne / Mrs Tulsi,
          scooping up beans with a shovel of roti; burly Negroes;
          Shektar, his Presbyterian modern wife / or line^served.
                                                                                         Our
          Biswas . First of its Fame from cane stock lifting . great
          fighter.     

                                           ^   

          Took chance on learner^swings : sign painter, journalist,   
          home planning; reading Samuel Smiles, Marcus Aurelius
          Epictetus.
                                                                   Husband man
          handling all the work, his vein of fortune Blocked Not
          Found tried^open. Going to buy that gold brooch
          for you, girl!     
                                                                            He didn't
          have the Hindu delight in details of death; didn’t
          shiver, lonely In the snowy and the blowy | name called
          Leave this house, too.        

                             Ask now if^how times change | the plunder? 
          man, I tell you; like virus trust^divide does heat . core
          plates loose . ol’ age one Helluva thing.

                                                                         – W.W.

              
                            [ In mem :  Mohun Biswas  .||.  To Zulaika A. ]

               THE HUNTER WHO DOES NOT EAT MEAT 

               But every time I go back home to spread out   
                  the bounty of my hunt before their fire,
                       only that few taste anything more
                       than the flattering flavour of their
                  own salty dessicated flaking flesh,
               and I must leave again to redeem the hunt,

               rather than remain behind to be obliged      
                  to witness the cindering of golden
                       feathers and the charring of white bones

                 ………………………………………………….

                (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan)

        
      Furthermore, what makes us believe that any God secure 
      In His/Her/Its power would want/need anyone’s belief?
      God the Father and God the Mother, i guess, would be glad
      To realise that their children were committing their own
      Creative divine screw-ups towards their self-awareness.

      God's watching Eye is the divinity within the self
      Too busy with the distractions of its own dense dreaming
      To recall that what is ‘below’ reflects what is ‘above’
      In an active membership in the family of God.
      God isn’t there or not there but here as much as we dare
      To become God.

                                                 *

                                                            i don't believe in belief’s
      Glass-temples whose clubbers tend to smash stones through others’ walls
      To prove their own, so keeping ‘us’ not-them and ‘them’ not-us.

      And God the Father and God the Mother must smile and shake
      Their heads in bemusement at such adolescent antics
      That are all as exhausting as owning a house you have
      To keep from falling down:   it demands daily maintenance
      That hardens into further numbing habits of blind faith.

         (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)