Author: FarJourney Caribbean

                                                        
                                                           
                                                      "Sandra, where are you tonight
                                                I wonder." - Mighty Sparrow (1967)

                  
              Not sure which pet to feed in your portfolio,
              rhino . sloth . tapir?  Feathers on validation edge
              grab any floating cap whenever the pluck they can.

              Back garden tender Aunt Fae found half^
              naked; them chop down the bush where the suspect
              disappear | Lagahoo seen, dancehall tracks
              light up ! lady leg wax hours here, yeah.

                                                  + 

              Empire left mangrove^like bench markers so
              rules slide; bulb pumps checkin’ mas’ man’ woman
              dangle | bead^hair straight back to colony run^
              test.

                At blinds of faith Blue Boy firing devil rhyme
              near ash pits round the world hips heave so What
              yuh wearing Wednesday ? taking knee how.

                                                  +

              From trap indoors side exit ? not too obvious
              out source found – heritage chefs exact the purest
              flesh per pound; on cutting boards prep^gather
              coupling cubes. 

              Graves of island heroes watch cows linger
              pass; weeds nibble . sleep . detest the heat | cane
              stock not worth the climb, exhale while Likes
              to crystals grind . Ours, Vijinie xx.
                                                                   – W.W.

               YUH RAP SO (5.0)

               Till The Real Thing Comes Along was their anthem,
               Their post-coital theme-song as it fast became,
               Lady Day shrugging her wailing heart away
               Through Amanda’s turntable ever turned on:
               They’d stare at her ceiling, both wondering when
              (Everything become an egg about to hatch
               Or at worst a bomb about to burst) + what
              (After giving in, showing up, getting off
               Lying back + lighting up a floppy spliff, 
               They could think of nothing to say) + how come?
               (Two sphinxes become their own one conundrum)

                (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

                                “You know is what you doing now?… inviting
                                everybody to stay passive until they find 
                              they dead.”
                                    – Wilson Harris, The Secret Ladder (1963)

                 
             At night mild island tremors – the mosquito net 
             probes, dust icons Moko strides disturb; + back
             to back, the morning bed side turn; his palm
             the constancy presuming.

                                                      The sound of fibres
             verifying while our Diablesse urinates jangle Ctrl
             keys to flesh | not Kaieteur, bladders leak pledge^
             pause options.

                                                      ^

             Wings stitched back again fall off; our harpy checks
             its swerve preferred > midriff flash, latch unattached;
             the thumb dot foreheads dare outgrow.
                                                                         Island lamps
             line slipslop strips, planet flights landing > crapaud
             time lips to kiss, wildest^dream gate open;
             feel holy Marley! alright.

                                                   ^

             Seven to ninety years from here who’ll care ? to
             know you once lived there under sugar tonnage,
             canal faith^resembling fins.

             Paw scratch unwelcome @desire for cold duck
             shuddering cork up Sorry! screws Not in Service
             nipples shield | your secret prayer safe
             with me . Geeta xx                                
                                                                         - W.W.

                 YUH RAP SO (4.9)

                When she was found, as still as an iguana
                (Except her eyes could no longer slowly blink)
                There was no blood around her, nor anything
                Resembling the residue of a struggle.
                But her expression was never less humble,
                Her eyelids unshut + her nostrils + mouth
                Agape as they continued to defy Death:
               – Even if you kill off all we bucks like dis,
               Freda had mumbled to Judd after her first
               Surrender to his conquistadoring spear,
              – We blood gon trail y’tail till de enda Earth:

               Uttered after her blood's cells had given up
               Their pretence of not being nomads

               (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

           
      
              From one cage to the next – through whose doors i move
              needing neither to open them nor to slam
              them behind me with bogus finality
              in sentimental gesture to the idea
              of being done with at least one frustration
              to freedom – one more bedroom or house or car
              or café or office or toilet where stains
              from the spills of habitual performance
              are mixed up with the deliberate markings
              of desperate loneliness’s need to leave
              evidence of its once having been – leave proof
              once and again and again that life once knew
              itself this grooving way of dodging time’s grooves
              though it speaks of itself as already past

               (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem, 
                          by Brian Chan, 2023)

               
 
            In their morning papers they honor articles 
            about our mango in backyard; not recipe,
            articles ! subscribe ripe forcing so.

                    \ Over there after home invasion owners
            consider buying gun. Be thankful yuh know
            yuh Falls, at brim to screech Yes Lord | no seasons
            to poface lift through, wind chillin’ so.

                                               + 

            Our Minister, all chest ‘n’ wood, conducts affairs
            off the bark of trees. ‘These extensions you run pipe
            line^like from our home > late night dream
            sweet vending, Who takes you?’ gap thighs chafe.                             

                  \ Bhacku new minivan need sobriety ‘n’ space            
            to overtake; implying?  on the verge of dignity 
            best grass chip single file | hair brush^like ‘im
            scrape pass? I told you.

                                              +

            Beard long ago Capt Bocass drop this bell shape
            anchor . @ringtone Prize reward | bathers not bi^
            coastal iron heat into muddah wavelike sheet.

                         \ Eye roll sighs heave crate^lives high + 
            dry @nation ports | Endrush?  gully folk
            know what stars ‘n’ blight them apple kingdom
            sight. Hush, watch nuh. 
                                                          – W.W.

              YUH RAP SO (4.8)

                But Freda Aborigina was also  
              Modern, not only by dint of books borrowed
              From Judd but also as modern as Desire
              Itself whose cutlass ignores every whisper
              Of conscience + caution ghosting its vigour:
              Just as Judd sensing of a silence-Power
              – Vaster than the wisdom out of whose womb he
              Had emerged + still kept emerging with speech –
              Would soon drown under floods of nostalgic need
              For city-wheels of loud Culture, so too would
              Freda’s mind-fruits need to leap off their tribe-tree:

                All intelligence, first + last, will obey
              That perverse gene informing all of Nature
              From cloud to seed: the buried seed splits, eager
              To sprout + keeps shooting up + branching through
              The gnarls of its demanding mind

                (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

“Because the soil is unstable. Just pegasse. Looks
rich on top but that’s about all. What do you think
they say when the crops run away?”
– The Whole Armour, Wilson Harris (1962)

Horning, a source of rich fibrous anger, snuffs
raison so . them not^loved break up furniture, fling
outhouse good good clothes; assets ‘til death bite  

                     \ Islanders @foreign marvel how the locals jump
  on the couch in sneakers | snow or rain . jacket dasheen^
 like bright not their crop cover. Shelf top?  up from ground
 provider hit me if my Number call. Okay, I’m going
Officer ! all on the same flight.

                                                 ^    

             Teeth suck, mouth watch raised Mon Dieu! on lip
             stick prayer stub | not once You scared the shit
             out of me! breath shortness all prologuing.

                                                ^

             Back home they notice turns you flipped – them
             orange bottle pills ? no more carilla tea; + that
             December face^scrub glow, from cane plot lines
             rescued; all strip grind in.

\ They’ll ask por Dios if prices curve,
    arms tattoo pacts with fate | + wait! kinship
    latitudes time sensitive ? how come.
    Is true ? you can dip
   switch the heart, host^link Two one decoupling;
   who waits to greet you ? path reset all good.

– W.W

             YUH RAP SO (4.7)

             That land was Chancing, New Jersey, for Judd Ladd
          – Who had no intention of even trying
             To do what his father + brother would die
             Failing to achieve while feeling they had won
            (Eat To Win was a diet-book in fashion
             & it took pride of place beside the Bible
             & other guides stacked on their TV table):
             Judd had grabbed his chance to leave God’s country but
             Only to extend, not fix, that wanderlust-
             Gene the legacy of post-Edenic men
            (So it’s another story where he went next)

             (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

         
            Let me say that my surprise and puzzlement 
            at finding myself here are no less than yours^
            i too feel lost – no less than i’ve always been
            for i became what i felt although i thought
            i was above and beyond the tyranny
            of feelings which i told myself are only
            thinking’s condensations like coals that believe
            their carbon-selves to be better than the gems
            of crystal and diamond they’re bound to become –
               no less than diamonds determined to be stars – 
            no less than our very Earth dreaming her fate 
            of returning to her true state in the Sun^
            but i tell you again i don’t know where i
            am going or will be flung into after
            this interlude  interstice  intermatter

              (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem,
                         by Brian Chan, 2023)

                                                                          
            Never died before, no time for Art ‘n’ bachelor
            what would it take to lift the eye Approved! from iPhone
            camp^post ? thumbs up down mining.

                      \ There used to be consensus about the rose
            garden; how to uninstall his Lordship sprinklers;
            shield tulip bulbs from stem^snip take, gang^
            nyam vines off ripping.

                                                    +

            About saving buttons birthday cards her grandchild
            says nothing, puzzled; thinks he’s indestructible
            like the laser sword warrior in his playbox.             

                       \ Outlines of virtue under watching lids
            like on plantation . tail alert for jumper hens twitch;
            like the bois^man faith bargain > maid polishing
            on trunk call; floor wage for sin.

                                                   +

            Real holder of estate could be the yard sweep
            angling mute @verandah talk | rum glass
            need no ice; gap goat won’t stop rest trade again,
            router in the bush.

                        \ Stitch chart^blue sheets could wind
            sail over seas home stretching | spark blood
            knocks Yuh vessel charge yet? jook till the limbo
            give^card expire. Arrgh!

                                                             - W.W.

            YUH RAP SO (4.6)

            So where had that heart been hiding exactly
            When he’d first tackled Freda cynically?
            As if she were only a placid pony,
            Though he could scent she was a wild cyat really,
            But one who would embrace him as her ally
            Come to liberate her from the enemy
            Of her soul’s jaguar paused taut in her tribe’s tree
            Whose limbs allowed every opportunity
            For the jaguar’s next leap and blocked its freedom
            With one whisper – Go only where you come from:
            The price of breaking through tribe-ramparts was pain:

            But pain was love’s incestuous intimate
          - Which brother Judd + sister Freda both sensed
            As their intervining of each other’s spines
            Of fire, at once innocent + guilty, both
            Lifted them up beyond the limits of breath
            & flung them out deep into the sharpest night

              (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                  
             Down from his cross his iPhone cradles need
             like vice to grip ‘n’ stare at | chains of round
             the neck gold nonnegotiable; fewer ankle swollen
             complaints.

             Work in progress (a) for partner straying chest     
             knife stabs + street obscenity (b) Bible stories believed
             make better bettor blockers.

                                                        +

             Once the dogs start barking all bets clear – space
             agents landing. They’ll notice pavement packed
             backs west crab^legging | palms up east facing 
             like @midlife prayers.                                                        

             Bearded men, fat fortuning women lifting!
             not taking off the Ab^robe so petitioners can file
             stuff in | side entry > don’t want have to look^receive.            

                                                        +

             Our island sunsets slip messages @ horizon slits.
             Lights on new brand hotels burn fiercer than flambeaux
             @greenheart domain.                                                   

             Soon as haul strings flat line world trawlers
             turn elsewhere; seine cache snapped ‘n’ tagged
             like lobster, shell plate servers take away.
             Hey Leela, save the papaya; click properties.  

                YUH RAP SO (4.5)

                The one person whom he let read his verse was
                Freda – because he liked her angry essays
                & nurseryrhymeish notsorry pouting
                (As she herself labelled her poems) about
                Her lifestyle locked to my culture like a ghost /
                that can’t fade like a cloud / since it’s of the dust /
                that spreads the more wheels / and boots trample it down:
                The facility for which she became known
                Among her classmates for using fancy words
                To impress Teacher Judd at first unnerved Ladd
                For its urgent guilelessness matching his own:

                So: I would rather have nightmares / than have none /  
                but prefer daydreaming / to having nightmares /
                prefer sleepless nights / to sleepwalking all day 

                    (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

   
              
             To belong to a clutch of confirmed virgins 
            (But some of them too may have known The worst sin?)
             All the eager brides of a polygamous
             Lord, each a none to herself kneeling to his
             Crotch-hard Cross + trying to justify its
             Indelible groove scarring their hearts’ deserts.

             Yet some of those hearts would shame Sister Dilys
             Into viewing her well-honed ironies as
             A facile if not cowardly surrender
             To the contemptation to feel superior
            (In highschool another Red girl once cursed her
            – Who you tink you be? Actin superiyuh!)
             To those nuns who glaringly had no talent
             For voicing or facing inconvenient
             Ideas challenging their trusting assumptions:
             But that very blankness, Dilys soon saw, shone
             With a guileless animal simplicity

           (from “Raponani” . a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)

           
                                                                                                               
                                         “We get used to the life we lead, and that
                                              habit becomes a destiny that feels foreign
                                             to us.”
                                               - Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch (1966)   

                 
              They radio^play folk songs about the ways; still
              not easy to outsort the fake from world new plate;
              breeders @flyborne talk pits.
                                                                Good story cover?  
              we there minding we own patwa when this ocean
              boom! start gushing yay! above the forest myths
              we hoof ‘n’ scale.

                                                    ^

              Modern island mates ! bracelet^slaps like cane
              on his chair bottom, need unknowable; her nightie
              hitch up switchin’ top down trickle; fold^holdin’
              so.

             Speech free, in garland hung performance                     
             size argues in the pool | outside room program
             climbers chitter, watch . relieve the trees.

                                                    ^

             Past ending, how gears mesh? villages with names
             like Triumph, La Belle Alliance, all the thanks
             we get, must give | mudflat hands soap stock
             dealers bald strop^shaving. 

            How tangled roots back bone our day? Jour
            overt, head tail sore from overnight coin
            tossing; belly pot resigned | on Transit ask
            what fevers grip the purse that saves; Godspeed
            dock.  

                                                             – W.W.                                 

            YUH RAP SO (4.3)

            Still, it incensed her that a few were guilty
            Of sprouting the most mindless prejudices,
            Crass toadstools spored through the concoction of Race
            By the same perverse tribalists who policed
            The cult of Local Colour – including leashed
            Black guard-dogs slobbering beside the hidden
            White-uniformed hips of pale Portuguese-ish
            Nuns in black boots posed between two brown sandalled
            African men (as black as Portags couldn’t
            Be white) stilling the beasts barking blue murder
            At The New Nation’s invasive snapshooter:

            Watching the dogs, Dilys had thought – At least they
            Aren’t posing! for that noisepaper’s Culture Page

                  (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)