Author: FarJourney Caribbean

                                            
                                   “Ironical master, passive mistress. Unseen hand
                                   shaped by and shaping the grind of the elements.
                                  Craft of possession and dispossession."
                                         – Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room (1967)
                           

                Assuming few take notice then frightened move
             away, the head makes up inmates to chat with;
             like our hotel cleaners who rip fiction pages for wipes.
             Eh eh, gyurl! that pineapple skin^clean ripe so.

             Told one day You could lose those eyes! become
             a princess, the toad girl follows the wand
             waver Just one touch, you’ll see! Start Over
             404.

                                                 ^

             This gringo ! wanting to take their only daughter
             away | some Artificial magnet links at work
             the mother fears. Skinny so! peck peck iPeas on
             his plate. No soft Ursala boileggs for you.     

             Dulcie looking out her window ‘til this kiskadee
            ‘wing by. Think you doing better than me?  Closer
             to the heat source, why bother ? explaining
             Ethiopian umbrellas; the ether cable attachment.

                                                 ^

             The town square ! setting life time sheets on fire
             taps cell phone capture | long after the last
             breath curls they say the pain remains. Relax!
             gullets blow ash hot You get used to it.

             Filament at its frailest, ours^theirs; partners
             wondering what went right then wrong; pronoun
             horns locked in deer trail devotion. A lot to process
             here, our quill top skullars would submit.

                                                                    – W.W.

                 YUH RAP SO (3.7)

                 Looking back over its shoulder at every
                 Shadow of its progress round every corner
                 Of the mind’s maze whose whims shadows swerve to serve:

                 How he envied his sheep + their ffflocking ways!
                 There, far from Guyana’s two big-ish cities –
                 Those backwaters content to seem backwaters
                 While informing the rational headquarters
                 Of world views which Caribbean islanders,
                 Reared on splinters off the two Americas
                 & locked to the hubris of seas sometime-ish
                 (He had first heard the term in the West Indies
                 As applied to others’ me-me moodiness)
                 Were too proudly particular to digest,
                 & might spurn as Guyanese pretensiveness

                  (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                
           Lines crossed leave dark lord skid marks +
           orphans | signs of constancy we grew up under
           alert travel tutors . See? rope ankle^hanging subjects
           from a bridge, homework like.

           What eats shore vultures clutch ! sea changers    
           paid to serve stakes high in asphalt waves | hard
           to sustain . our island wide mouth breathing on
           which crude rise makers + millions depend.

                                                ^

           Moth fitful . N’Indira half year past her last
           trimester, latch^feed account still active, googles
           How to wash^wipe leave . this All he care about
           cow milching; brain methane squirts.

           Lovers roast taste . fire place in a state
           G’wan so ! cyan just dice off every stick^cheating
           carrot | pray the capuchin^like stray pokes end
           bamsi reset in a pinch.

                                                ^

           Couching balls men chat about the game, never
           fine with loss | dandelions used to child’s play
           field invasion go Take, take whatever you want
           Please don’t

           Pimps van^shipping flesh crop + savings       
           live – for skin care job car child piano lessons – 
           stream like ‘others chancing ocean swallow
           panting for whatever the ‘uck those pots host.

                                                         – W.W.

              YUH RAP SO (3.6)

              Unlikely reader, does it seem unlikely, 
              Not to say unethical, that Conrad had
              Managed to start an Affair with Amanda,
              A tough Prairie Gal thirteen Years his Senior
              Who must have known that his caring Demeanor
              Was just his bluffing Way of trying to get
              Her to speed up the Bureaucracy-Process
              That would lead to his Emigration Papers?
              But, having no influence whatsoever
              On the Outcome of his Application,
              She simply indulged his masked Supplications:

              Naturally those had boosted her Ego but
              Don’t get her wrong (her whole Life was locked to not
              Getting – not being seen as getting – Things wrong:
              Her blood wasn’t also German for nothing!)

                  (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                
           Not that he couldn't show kindness, but forgot
           To not reserve that act for cute customers,
           Some of whom he would even smile at, yet curse
           His wife + daughter as though they were trying
           To suffocate him rather than help him
           On the ups + downs of the fate-wave of life,
           Theirs they all shared:  Wait, you tink dem young tings give
           Two hoots about you after they use yuh tail
           Fuh a free bottla Phensicks now + again?

           What had Dilys’s mother meant by that hoots?
           Words like that which the child heard her parents shout
           At each other literally flew over
           Her head, like blurred balls, only to smash into
           & between the walls of that couple’s divorce
           Masked as Hard Work, Drug Store, shuffling about: fierce
           Caged tigers who couldn’t help grazing against
           Each other’s bristling fur every now + then.

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

                               
                           “…rearranged naked premises…naked features… 
                                  rearranged exposures of the susceptibility                                  
                                     of the future to the past.”
                                        – Wilson Harris, Companions of the Day
                                                                   And Night (1975)

                The sum of fight, surrenders . smart or bare
              head^pillowing legs; songs hummed to hush child
              fears; the Minister, curve grooming. Who bears
              the cost of air jackets . dotted ties?

                        \ Prayers for smile + note exchange in hotel      
              rooms; gunmen seen in cars chewing lunch break
              choice; desert crossing genders. Who watches
              over these numbers?     

                                                    +

              Keeping pace + head on neck – not since
              the clearance of Genghis Khan, horse ‘n’ blade
              rib rabble scything | now as if just one year pass
              new Order shipped. Who waits that long for closure?

                                   \  Elsewhere, chest vests that boom
              loose bricks + IDs flying | unhappy with love print
              device . Ave Maria! first fetus growing. What
              happens in your country? 

                                                           +                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
              Island role players’ make up cast for part
              world folding – work sleep, lines repeat; single Acts
              bag feeding. What’s left with life to hew?

                                             \  Ice melt, sun burn signals             
              sent like plea bargain; see Folder Old | mon Dieu,
              What’s this ? stumbling out back furry, phone
              light on rubble point | pants up . no, don’t look away.

                                                                      – W.W.

              YUH RAP SO (3.4) 

              The world's warring wheels were greased by unnamed spite
              & yes, this priest was jealous of that girl’s youth,
              Theirs – why the very thought of Judd’s one big mouth
              Silenced for once by this girl’s two small mouths glad
              To drown the dross of low words in the high tide
              Of the milk of ecstasy et cetera –
              The very idea of infants who would dare
              To go beyond the pale of paleface-fences
              Incensed the priest’s sense of the limp impotence
              That broods at the root of death-denying rape
              – The threat of which the girl now seemed not to fear:

                     (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                Eyes that close near the end of a sentence 
                as if in prayer, as if in touch with outer space
                messengers – how to verify ? skip past on ground  
                We not supposed to play near centuries of wave follow.

                         \ Hands once cuffed to Estate fate, form
                good on ball^bat day | on state of the rack souls in enamel
                knots hang; else why would anyone care ? butter
                flaps mud baked; servers down.

                                                         +

                Pebbles build mountain trust; our tree toppers
                code branch ‘n’ leaf in hair pin numbers | still
                tower rung cow bells for wondering flesh . MEENA, yu
               ‘LUT  yu ‘other ‘UNT! 

                        \ Willing to fly, like bees fixed^wing furious
                from flower to flower; clueless how to guard
                fern trails, young women < Come! admiring ripe
                ol’ sage.

                                                        +

                Not vested, circles of rotor^roused Empire
                dust cloud altitudes; blood settles, bones run
                for outlet points | few scores to hose away, thank the earth
                solid mercy.

                          \ Locked in ? the One all style ‘n’ user
                fame; him^her in windowless phone destitution | see
                what matters, tide low ? limbo stick, see.

                                                                – W.W.

                YUH RAP SO (3.3)

                Such concerns never needled Conrad (Doctor:
                He became a dentist here in Canada)
                But, as his word-sponge, am i lying through my
                Teeth by telling what he told me of this life
                Before he became a decent dissident
                & had to seek status as an immigrant
                In this elsewhere?  If i lie, i lie after
                The masked man mouthing tales of his time down there:

                What happened was, was how he often began
                The latest segment of his installment-plan
                Autobiography – as he himself deemed
                His answers to people’s Where do you come from?
                    – But, he said once, most of them think it mek no
                Difference + them that ask do suh to keep you
                Different

                   (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                 
            Exclusiveness lies in the seed of all tribes 
            She’d read in her Ant-hop-apology class,
            Understanding Others As Ourselves, but was
            Such ob/subjectivity just realist
            Fiction?  to know thyself hard enough business
            Even for the least lazy self who would choose

            To unlid that Pandora’s carton: + Dilys
            Had grown up in the shadow of drugstore shelves
            Off which small boxes + bottles often fell
            Because her busy parents were too sloppy
            To bother with stacking their stock properly:
            As a child she’d seen that what her parents called
            Producks – things that sometimes broke + sometimes spilled –
            Came in small boxes that came in big boxes
            Some black-stamped POISON, others MADE IN TEXAS
            & most marked with mysterious fine-fine words

          (from "Raponani", a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)

                
            Unmarried, Vijinie’s Aunt swore she learnt about love^
            life wind altering from their Country songs . radio
            waves Leela's pond rippling, tide flat Estate days.
                                                                \ How to turn sixteen
            seventeen rose root knotted ? hold^give in sticky cane
            stalk leaflessness.

                                                    +

            On old plantation paths car’vans pass like buffalo
            swerving fast; tricky, verge stepping single.
                                                                    \ Outside the belt
            felt body facing consequence . book word often
            not recognised | collateral too, like weedsallover
            the heritage place.

                                                    +

            Under burq^scarf cover . modus found to stand       
            by stitchings loose. What are we if not fiction^thread
            needlers?
                                                            \ Hibiscus in the desert,
            for centuries the garden man fared trading dry
            spell secrets . watering can relief | over in minutes.

                                                    +

            Models of endurance hard to find ? if not Who are
            we period labor bearers.

                                                                   \ Wombs believe, 
            shadows slip advice . whose head to swell, foam
            balls fluff | witches land . slide into the arms of planet anger
            dust. Dub so, loop so.
                                                                            – W.W.

               YUH RAP SO (3.1)

               Later, Judd would ask Dilys if she’d believed
               She could get away with that sort of fancy
               Even twee metaphysical turn of phrase
               In producting an academic treatise:

               He was into Communication as Form: 
               Just the facts, ma’am:  hadn’t super-modern Wim
               Wenders said America has colonized
               Our consciousness (a fact we’d best get used to)?
               So what you see is what you get was what Ladd
               Was colonized by: it made things easy and
               Rhymed with his fascination over Choisisme’s
               Sharp cutaway from dull Catholicism
               – Although Alain could have taken Judd to task
               For not getting Seeing in Marienbad

                  (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

               
          Heavens guide the land over desert reptile minds;
          rib hopeful bullocks like in Behar time^cart pulling
          still | our truck crude pipe lines crossing village
          trench foot . notes for printing on‘an’on, no canopy
          no song.

                       \ Artificial I shutting calabash dip stalls    
          can 3Design think bed + bath | cushion the screen
          chair @ pixels not sky blue.
                                                                                Sink
          in weigh wash good.

                                                *

          On native soil mas’raiders spade^hit metal rare. 
          Only a matter of time, our plump girls blink, side
          eye^pass taking; paradise shelf service.

             \ Layers + veils for interfuse ‘n’ face; cave^
          like shelters from cheek sag hollows; wine^
          like cellars urgency cork^holding.

                                                                                Up 
          load ‘n’ hug chord^beats away heart frighten so.

                                               *

          Coin toss ? whose drone will host a strike right     
          down the word worship dome | crow necks
          convene to poke ‘round rubble peace; pick^
          pepper eye nose throat.

                              \ Too cold to change . the light
          bulbs dot^lining lymph tunnels | cabins cable^
          lifting souls to fever peak . last mile . docking
          forms filled out . hol’on hol’on! Beep.
                                                                      Accepted.  
          What next, find out | said done here.

                                                                 – W.W.

             YUH RAP SO (3.0)

             That was what dull old short men did, no problem –
             Except for that existentialist Bad-Faith
             Moralism that might plague them unto death
             – But nothing a little old-age exhaustion
             & growing shortage of breath (which Thomasson’s
             Doctor in Scarborough had warned him about
             Before allowing him to travel down South
             To which one of them ex-colonies again?
             No matter, man: couldn’t be a fate worse than
             Belfast's or Ontario’s yet-Colony)
             Couldn’t bear for their last few years (or thirty):

             Death of course, no-news death, was what everything
             After all boiled down to, the hot hide-peeling
             Pepperpot always on the simmer

                 (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

           Dilys in her reading ran into a lot
           Of such cases of American lingo
           & drew a blank: for her they bore no echo
           To their metaphoric/idiomatic
           Assumptiveness (– blind like all things demotic,
           As her snide Option-Prof. Mara Brickolage
           Had once pronounced in her class on Sacrilege
           As Civic Duty – which had not gone down well
           With the Vice-Rector & the Vice-Chancellor
           But was a hit with vice-Catholic students):
           They didn’t rhyme with her languagexperience:

           But she wasn’t even at home with her own 
           Country’s slang, so much less with American:
           As a child, she’d kept her head buried in books
           British, tales of princesses with golden locks
           Having to pass some test of their purity
           To prove they could do their duty by Beauty

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

                              
                                “The fear of every strange outpost of the mind,
                                   every strange planet within the ambivalent
                                    orbit of self-discovery…”
                                               – Wilson Harris, Heartland (1964)

                          \ Once those passports leave the clutch
               stamps that date all in advise no back doubling;
               bone reset . sprint blocks away from wind
               brand combustion.

               Cities strain swimmers through cold catch holds;                   
               forest arts dark or inkling rarely fade. Clock in
               so Indigene ! no time for hammock camp talk,
               myth^treated enough.

                                                       ^

                                       \ Just one vagabond glance 
               at bouncing tail destables men on stilts; road
               performers One Way traits disguise | @stern
               short stuffers point ‘n’ flail.

               Land mas’ . never meant for skin soft play; nice
               place to plume fall free, you think ? join; try
               to stay – cassavie plant cut end of days – quiet
               about the Minister’s persistence : your keys
               meeting tomorrow.

                                                       ^ 

                                     \ Mothers to nothing we hug much    
               like divine child . on speed^paved ways knees
               tumble scrape as if skyfallen | about which
               who first laughed intervention ? what intervention.

               Manage the meteor shower, redress^like for stain
               or account hard to remove | wedded parts burn
               stages fall away . All Stars Space Station
              Jeez ‘n’ Ages ! flying pan update due.

                                                                      – W.W.

               YUH RAP SO (2.8)

               The interviewing Emigration-agent
               Amanda (C, sharp, was already learning
               That in Canada surnames are the last thing
               You attach to a person, like a Label)
               A Born-again-ish gal from the Bible Belt
               (Which at the time C had only read about)
               Might have then wondered – Is this guy a Poet
               Or something?  or just an Asthmatic or what?
               Before she got it! :  the boy wanted to Get
               The Hell Outa Hey! (one of her favourite
               Calypsos of a bunch she had collected):

               What she had needed to get the Hell out of
               Was Alberta’s Slave Lake – which she dearly loved,
               Don’t get her wrong, she was planning to retire
               Back there, free to choose her own Purgatory

                 (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)