Author: FarJourney Caribbean

                             
                              
                                               
                                                         “I fly like a fish in the air                        
                                                          and swim like a bird in the water
                                                         and gill stays gill and lung stays lung
                                                         and my fin and my wing help each other”
                                                    -  Endless Moment World,  Martin Carter (1970)

            Line crossed . the winner smiles, bites the medal
         after collapsing on track in some rounded state
         of discovery | the rest of us/them watch, brooding
         like once viking rowers . about whistling storms;
         who back home visits, teases out the last mat
         straw.

         Sprints abreast of particulates in the stands fans 
         seem normal | this is how belief keeps pace . marathon
         lopes we’d drench any band of sweat with
         companions of blind bend testing.

         Short wave's best from stadium view . after
         the Win’s A Win turn for the anthem | Quick! before
         lean gleanings stark on the mark spike false
         start headlines.
                                                        And may the heavens
         lift us / should you stumble next time out, name
         domain ascending / hands on laps left . come day
         light green dash.

                                       *This invitation to vault, plein     
         temps consuming / this street transparency, heel
         snap pack / the bell ? who could refuse.

                                       Catch you next meet, deerchaser.
         Watch ‘n’ body check. Camel bird pecking home.
         Allez . yip yip.

                                                         – W.W.                                                                                                
                                           

             LESSING

             He has often thought he could give up the gift
            (Which ‘wise’ or ‘mature’ types see as just his last
             Addiction to losership with its fictions
           Of hope for dopes, its slow noose masked as a fast anchor)
             Even at peaks of his living up to it
             When the gift would speak through him as his alone
             And task him with not kiss/pissing it away

               (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan)

         
                 If it's still on the shelf reaching hearts assume 
                 the crave that strips and swims inside
                 the head will reject any faith swab pushing
                 gawks up the humbum.
                                        Why on earth idle ? the procedure,
                 stomach walled . sperm charge Millions asking.

                                              At sea the years suspend;  
                 at mind tiers job teeth grind, bed crumbs brush
                 aside | need^feed onset weighs – which island road
                 stop still extends . plantation schaden^stalls.

                 Paths to crack the world codes unless you’re lizard 
                 creepy | wanton whenever you snap at branch
                 leaves not on the fly list.

                 So why is this man dressed in pajamas shouting?  
                 I’m standing right in front of him, holding
                 a coffee mug, ready to stir. 

                                                    *

                            / There, see’t ? on display bargains         
                 you need hunt no longer . basket the poker, flue
                 burn up the body furnace.

                     / Niche^mate fooled?  Mint your content, trade          
                 the pawns that thrift_hop tick . stuck long.
                        Lift, some cry far the fuck! from | hips
                 flashing solid Bol şans! scan.
                                                                   – W.W.

                MARA

                XM – that Georgetown habit that in her is
              Rooted, having been seeded by her clever mother
                Who used to put a teaspoonful of the stuff
                In the breakfast ice-cream she gave to Mara
                Who could digest Mommy’s milk no other way.

               (That gyirl din born in Princess Street fuh nuttn!)
                Grown-up Mara will swear she is allergic
                To milk’s boringness.  There, then it was supposed
              To be good for ones bones and kept ones teeth from rotting,
                Not to mention ones Brains (and everyone knew
                Even gyirls in Guyana had at least six):
                Brains were key for doing tricks for getting

                Rich.  *MARA’s sardonic version of her past

                  (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan) 

              Before he completed the course for his reinvention – from Pundit
              Ganesh Ramsumair to Ganesh Ramsumair M.B.E.; finally and famously
              G.R. Muir, Esq., M.B.E. – Ganesh (In V. S. Naipaul’s The Mystic
              Masseur) drifted from occupation to occupation. One of which was
              writing. There were challenges along the way: for instance, Leela, 
              his childless wife and wavering supporter; the fits of rancour and
              reverence from family members; excited followers in his village        
             (Fuente Grove, “Nobody does ever come here.”) feeding off his
              diligence, and impressed by his display of learning.

             Attached, selected highlights from the first phase toward Ganesh
             self-ownership. That Ganesh. Trinidad,1940s.

                                                         ~

           * “Trinidad full of crazy people,” I said.   
              “Say that if it make you happy,” my mother snapped back.

             “ A boy spat in disgust and said, “Eh, eh, your foot don’t see sun
               at all at all!”  Ganesh played no more football.

             “He remembered having to walk round the body of his father,
               remembered applying the last caste-marks to the old man’s
               forehead, and doing many more things until it seemed that ritual
               had replaced grief.”

                                                           ~

           * “People go want to buy that sort of book?”
              “Is exactly what Trinidad want, boy. Take all the Indians in the towns.
               They ain’t have any pundit or anything near them, you know. How
               they go know what to do, and what not to do, when and not when.”                                                         
              “All right, Basdeo, boy. The day go come when I go send you a book
                to print.”
              “Sure, man.  Sure. You write it and I print it.”
               Ganesh didn’t think he liked Basdeo’s Hollywood manner, and he
               instantly regretted what he had said.”

              “But when Ganesh saw the cards go in blank and come out with his
                prose miraculously transformed into all the authority of type, he
                was struck with something like awe.”

                                                            ~ 

           * “Leela. I have a good mind to take off my belt and give you a good
               dose of blows before I even wash my hand or do anything else.”

              “He had always intended to read and write, of course, but one
               wonders whether he would have done so with the same assiduity if
               he had been a successful masseur or the father of a large family.”

              “When Leela asked, ‘Man, why you ain’t writing the book the
                American people begging you to write?’ Ganesh replied, ‘Leela,
               is talk like that does break up a man science of thought. You mean,
               you can’t see that I thinking, thinking about it all all the time.’”

                                                            ~

           * “This modern method of education. Everybody start thinking is the
               little piece of paper that matter. It ain’t that does make a man
               a B.A. Is how he does learn, how much he want to learn, and why
               he want to learn. Is these things that does make a man a B.A.
               I really can’t see how I isn’t a B.A.”

             “He rose at five, milked the cow in the semi-darkness, and cleaned
               out the cow-pen; bathed, did his puja, cooked, and ate; took
               the cow and calf out to a rusty little field; then, at nine, he was
               ready to work on the book.”

             “Like many Trinidadians Ganesh could write correct English but it
               embarrassed him to talk anything but dialect except on very formal
               occasions. So while, with the encouragement of Street and Smith,
               he perfected his prose to a Victorian weightiness he continued to talk
               Trinidadian, much against his will.”

                                                            ~

           * “Beharry and Suruj Mooma called that evening and as soon as Leela
               and Suruj Mooma saw each other they began crying.
             “He write the book,” Suruj Mooma wailed.
             “I know, I know,” Leela agreed, with a sharper wail, and Suruj Mooma
               embraced her.

             “A few hawkers in San Fernando agreed to display the book and Ganesh
               made many journeys to see how the sales were going. The news
               wasn’t encouraging, and he walked a good deal about San Fernando
               with the book in his shirt pocket so that anyone could see the title.”

             “Look, is experience I have in this business, you know,” Bissoon’s feet
               were draped again over the arm of his chair, and his toes were again
               playing with each other. “All my life, ever since I leave the grass-
               cutting gang, I in the book business. Now I could just look at a book
               and tell you how hard or how easy it is to sell.”

                                                                                     ~

           * “Many years after the event, Ganesh wrote in The Years of Guilt:
              "Everything happens for the best. If, for instance, my first volume
               had been a success, it is likely that I would have become a mere
               theologian, writing endless glosses on the Hindu scriptures. As it
               was I found my true path".”

             Book Revisited: “The Mystic Masseur”, V.S.  Naipaul, Vintage Books
                                       New York, 1957.

                                                                           - Wyck Williams

                
          Waiting for word ‘n’ wind to change . the continuum
         / chest fears up, level 20s / cowrites morbidities.                                                                                            
               The down cast must weigh a ton but who minds
          back stories . blood thick, game able enough to get
          hers/yours off . past squeezy trigger specialists. 
                                                         
                      With no one yelling Stop! conduct
          a search for sand dispersed scorpions, perform
          ablutions | switch new pronouns trip on stage lip
          high end slit . regroom.

                               If there’s worry ghosts might show    
          at your banquet table . fair^foul wares, too craven!
          signal the cookers of virtue on charcoal | plot
          fork ‘n’ knives clean . slice through.

                                                  *

          Masks draw lines . shots spook rights | Arrgh!
                                                                           In earth        
          warm suits pole stars drop by, offering cough
          cross nail protection . newspaper props.

                                                        Ahead forgers open 
          channels more than at any fault in memory / snatched
          orphans coin polishing some place / which for first
          worms should merit millipedal leap honors.

                                 To family, friends . tail baiting lovers         
          sworn to love that fasts, say little | metrics run on
          what Pact Sealed cells sent here hold.

                    Meantime the ocean saltier than it looks says
          It’s Okay . unsubscribe, walk | imagine your surprise.
                     
                                                                   - W.W.

           LESSING

          *PRETENTIOUS Georgetowners often called Lessing
          ‘Pretensive’, and he was a precious nuisance,
           Not least to himself, having already grown
         Fed up of hearing his own voice spewing rubbish –
           Which wasn’t garbage because it was all lies
           But because it was convictions become bored
           With themselves for their very self-addiction

             (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan)

                                        “During the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada,
                                        the Tenggerese people toss offerings – food,
                                       money, flowers, livestock – into the hazy crater
                                       of Mount Bromo.”
                                                                     – NYTimes . 11/2021

               Stones might go beserk but rainbow glass window  
               breakers should be arrested : conduct unbelonging.

               Some things you should see through yourself / Whose        
               body turns Not now! half moon beside me? / first off
               the face wipe crabgrass spider emissions.

               The Cloud hoards; cards charge on pristine table      
               linen; the net trawls / beach hosts sharpening stakes
               for the change of heart rate / as per cast off sink
               retry.

               Advisory (no date) : close home nursing at the border;
               the throats of wives ‘n’ children take if desert
               waves insist.
                                     Baggage to weigh souls tote attached
               like Qué Sera risk built bosoms, mount bearings
               set to Peak.

                  * All these ridiculous accessories | not your phone          
               screen, the window! Come to the window. Say you,
               nothing there blue new to see ? who needs to arm
               first immunize.
                                       You know what, I should go. Prairie       
               Indian scout, all done.
                                                                        – W.W.

                               [ In mem. Vicente Fernández . 1940 – 2021 ]

               A MIND DEFENDS ITS MAZE

               Well, rivers are not rain in basins 
                    in which babies can splash;
               nor are mountains hillocks and ant-mounds
                    which goats can jump over.
               Whales that can swallow boats do not sport
                    about in shallow streams.
               The swift hawk and graceful swan do not
                    nest in ponds and puddles.
               You will not find pure pearls by cracking
                   open mini-oysters

               ……………………………………………..

               (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

          

                After his failure to get his graphicnovel published
            (Too sensational or Not sensational enough or
             Not quite appropriate for our current teenage market),
             Stew thought he’d get an advance from VISA to publish it
             Himself, but gave up on that idea when he discovered
             He was ‘maxed-out’, a few bucks below his credit-limit.

                                                                            *

             You might think he would have tried to get a second job but,
             Instead, surprising even himself, he quit his only
             Paying job, gave up his apartment and boarded a bus
             For London, Ontario, where his father and mother
             Used to live and work – after their devastating divorce
            (Or had Stew told me both of them had died in a plane-crash?)       

                                                                              *

               But when i was in London in 2007
            (For no other reason than that i had some cash to spare
             Or wanted to see how that town compared to its namesake
             Or just to attend the first night of an art-show to which
             I’d been mailed an invitation – oddly, since i don’t go
             Usually to such events, but i thought this one might fit
             Into my doggy explorations of smart backwaters
             Before i die), i found no trace of a Stewart Galenza
             Either in the phone-book or in the streets.

                                                                          I thought he might
             Appear at the exhibition-opening, and i thought
             i saw a bearded version of him chatting up a girl;
             But, when i interrupted their shiraz-sipping schmoozing,
             It turned out that they were Bob and Jill who had never heard
             Of any Stew Who?

          (from *fatima solagua arterra’s nudes* by Brian Chan, 2015)

         One hundred chickens, a dozen pigs they send
         our glazed hearts out to farm . days at loss, rum
         nights. Hill side squatters unfurl banners, Let a thousand
         poppies bloom.   
                                           Patria scare crowy guards
         have their orders : sheep for wolfing, skin to fault
         pleaders at flood gate can wait.

         Landscape shopping ? carpet like ornament to hang
         glide | here front galleries house no Art, though so
         you know : wall graffiti eyes follow every plank
         sandals cross.                 

                        Hugging titles mask heads turn on frog    
         testosterone . throat cuts stagger into dump rivers,
         on to other people’s cause ways.
                Outside the rib cage stomach settlers allow
         sucks on the fate treasury if we help . fold small
         victory cigars.

                                            *                                     
                           \ So our breasts clutch faith . plate     
         hard to hold serve, betting everything.
                                           Like this our barrels thirst
         stuff brew, bulb versions screw.           
     
                                \ Not much else . could leave
         you the least bit curious ? Go back! Foreshore
         gifts let drown. Natures roam . herd rider, ocean
         broker.
                                                    – W.W.

         LESSING

        *BUT, deep dung, Lessing don’t give a fuckin fly
        (His perverse version of a Canuck-learnt curse):
         Given his luck, he’ll always crash into things,
      But also through and beyond them, his wings then bruised but
         Their feathers intact, ever ready for more
         Routine hazards arising from outside him
         But, rising within, for less of the same old.

          (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan)

                                                            

                                  "She used to point to it, and say, ‘This thing
                                   happening again, but you get use to it after
                                  the first three four times. Is a damn nuisance
                                  though’.”    – VSN, Miguel Street (1971)
                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                   
                         While her parents gathered first thoughts
          what ‘hegemony’ means, Evelin A. would check
          the public library . take out / Who am I here?  How
          do I prosper? / the Jane Austen accounts.
                                    *Most actors failed her ‘dinner
          conversation’ | moves fast forward on young grass
          belly goat did not presume.

          For neighbour Ramoo J. looking work / with “No
          money, No love” top literacy / liquor rafting made him
          half . the man.

          Our village romancier could show you virtue     
          drawings from the days : uniform school girls
          cycle home as corks in long pants pop; this Letts
          diary conviction – limit public kissing to the zoo.

                                        +

               Until ‘Country ‘n’ West’ radio waves hit estate 
          fellas hadn't a clue | match handlers picked cane
          field flower, water lily vice.
                                                          *We couldn’t wait
          for cymbals ‘n’ blessings to end . get up hot out
          satin bridal covers. La Parfaite Harmonie.

                                        +    

                  Finger letting Mozart . our Austen guide
         girl practiced scales, glissando island exits.

                      *Over There her first . double deck, knight
         shivers / NO, Oh yes yes yes / prompted blue Par
         Avions back for church step, paling chat.

                                         What happening there, Hat?
         calls, ciel à côte | palate rinsing too, you could
         argue . swab, pierce all souls.
                                                                – W.W.

             WILDROSE SPROUTS ACORN

             This vine, plaiting itself into the trunk
             of an oak in the hope of adding
             its thorn strength to the tree’s empire
            (or tree’s strength to its own empire)
             so surrenders its roses
             its stem’s fibre, its seed’s pattern of fire.

            (from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan, 1994)

             
               
             But Stew, so far, found ‘God’ a trendy inconvenience.
          In this respect, our non-believer was as gullible
          As a follower of / subscriber to some insurance-
          Policy, whether of distant papal indulgences
          Guaranteeing passage through Paradise’s narrow gates
          Or of Bible-bound redemption-tithes as tax-exemptions.

                                                *

          Stew couldn't couldn’t see that a denial of divinity
          Might be a denial of all creativity too,
          Including his own, and Creativity was a much
          Touted club he needed to belong to, since he couldn’t
          Belong to any other, except this or that beehive
          Of drones, queens and other lotus eaters

                                                 *

         And those buzz-cages of pleasure-seekers were beginning
         To disgruntle him, even as he gulped down their cheap beer
         Or was grinding up against and into some drunk girl’s flesh

                                                *

            But he didn't let his beer-sex nights disturb his ‘day-job’
         - A term he liked, as it proved him a Suffering Artist
         Making compromises in the service of his Real Art.
         But for Real Art’s sake too, one day he would (have enough cash
         To) walk away from APT’s D&G computers for good
         - For good but for what good he couldn’t yet quite imagine,
         Although sometimes – flicking through some glossy magazine he
         Had helped illustrate;   or wandering through an Ikea maze
         Seeking a particular energy-saving light bulb

          (from *fatima solagua arterra’s nudes* by Brian Chan, 2015)

           

        The salmon revelers might be first to panic . midstream
        scrambling for gill, mount protectors.
                                                        This is what I've always
        feared, this facialist zoomed / recalling grandma days
        on the island / from garden manicures, our lagahoo
        own ways.

        Blood trace in the palm ? from scratch, the carrion 
        keeper steupsed ! turning back gold fish coming
        up from piss pots under. Consider yourself
        blessed.

        Wave anticipating . brow ridge servers wipe, 
        rebalance trays of flute ablution | like nothing
        level clattering could ever cross . bite look
        away! addiction here.
                                           ~

                         Blank in waters fresh v salt . finish    
        walls protest, Enough we don’t get paid to tape
        fast rabbit lappings, head cap twists.
                         Root all you want in time ? the wary
        peloton reels in the clear lung blaster. Straight lines!
        clock starters warn, You weave, teeth grind | grid
        confined.

                                           ~

                         \ Last chance at dragon . play ? so break   
        away; leave butterfly chest thumps for the catch
        dispatch crew.
                               \ Contain vessel cleared, so swing
        stern Go . leash, walk the dog | with dignity back
        in rope braids for you some bind combs hot.
                                                   Aie aie . oh monsoon
        forming | thigh dams lock, thoughts ‘n’ prayers.
                                               
                                                             – W.W.

         QAT

          *BUT she was set on getting him to outgrow            
          Himself:   either that or she'd kick his con out - 
          Which she finally did, not too long after
        Coming home and finding him sprawled out naked under
          Her domed skylight, his eyes closed like some sacré
          Sonnensucher’s (she’d seen enough of that bunch
          When she was in that halfway-house in München)

          And with her Mandela book under his knees!
          Sun-fading her sofa again was one thing,
          Disrespecting Africa was another:
        Wake up and get your nasty balls offa my clean chair!

             (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan)