Author: FarJourney Caribbean

Born in Guyana : Wyck Williams writes poetry and fiction. He lives in New York City. The poet Brian Chan lives in Alberta, Canada.

HORN SCHOOL COOL AND WHAT THE SURVEY SAYS

 

                                                                                                 
                                                                                   So what?
          play through meteor showers, the piano man said; they're
          throwing moth balls on the stage? that's Ok
          grip the surge and lift, up next a Mozart crew?
          Another round search engine eyes will grope - whose place?
          whose swollen softs? - however quick to do. Someone
          will wipe the tables. Night ravens wanting altitudes fade blue.

          Space debris everywhere these days, looks like; constituencies
          of bare shelves and bottoms spinning 'cross the globe;
          though the video about miners found alive
          in coal bowels of the earth could planetize resurrections (Yo, 
          show you can endure the thorns, they'll kneel you from the groin.)

          Hey, we still have choice: stay inside – your cabin
          wired for cable & glazed skin pixels? – and watch
          the swept up help!fight swim or swarm to freedom
          squares climate ringed. Or fly the tribe like kite or alibi:
          veils congealing loyalties, need salving through the prayers (Yo,
          snake oil men sell apple cheeks from gardens in the red desert.)

          You the orbit man…?  "La Dolce Vita" …Arriight!
          O sure, the world's a plasma melon sweeter than grits
          of yesterday and who knows?         

          We could be airborne on bikes tomorrow unless Dios mio!
          the bearded levelers bombast more old bald faiths &
          bargain shoppers and body parts fly; but – excuse me –
          my fingers come in here on the horn.
                                                             Tout a l'heure, baby!

                                                                                -W.W.

 

 

               

                      


                    

                       
                      INSOMNIAC PIANIST

                
                      The notes I play are points  
                      of my being, a geometry
                      of moons floating within
                      but beyond the fat silence linking
                      planets rutted with sleep.

                      With threads of sound I stitch
                      my moons into a mask by which blank
                      meaninglessness translates
                      its urge to be meaning into this
                      needling of the night's wall,

                      until through its punctures
                      promises of a prodigal sun
                      stretch their firm arms of light
                      and this room expands as music draws
                      a universe anew.

                 (from "Scratches On Air" by Brian Chan)

  
                  

 

 

 

NY SLIDE XLIII: THIS CHINUA PERSON

 

     For her part Mrs. Haliburton had heard of the exciting things Mr. Bilicki was doing and
she was impressed. She saw him as an old trooper willing to move with the times, to fight
the powers for change; though she never missed an opportunity to chide him about the
absence of black males from his class.
   "I don't get it," she said to him. "Help me here, Brendan. We start off with overcrowded
classrooms in the ninth grade, everybody complaining about the registers, and by the 
time they get to you in their senior year, the numbers are what?…15,16 students? Where do they go? And what is it about you that apparently turns off some students, particularly
black male students…? I mean, I see all these pretty Hispanic girls in your class, but no black males. What's going on here, Brendan?" 
   And Brendan who liked her combative spirit, who knew she didn't mean to hold him
accountable for student attrition over the years, who was neverthless wary of the razor
of anger he sensed hidden within the folds of her humor, changed the subject and spoke
of innovations he had tried to introduce to the department; and the obstacles placed in
his way by "reactionary" people like Pete Plimpler.
    Bilicki's interest in Chinua Achebe – the African connection, as he put it – really impressed her. Mrs. Haliburton was an avid reader; it was part of her book club image to walk the hallways with a hard cover edition of a famous author clasped to her breast. Stop her to enquire what she was reading, you found Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and (though not very often) Danielle Steele. If anyone said they'd never heard of these authors, an expression of dismay and censure came over Mrs. Haliburton's face.
    She spoke to Noreen at the Board of Ed about Chinua Achebe, how Bilicki had asked
his students to write a book report on her work. She was smacked with chagrin when she
learned that this Chinua was a male, not a female person. "You mean all this time…"
disbelieving laughter "..you know, I was on the phone to a book store last weekend, and
the woman was telling me she had no idea who this Chinua person was."
             (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)


NY SLIDE XLII: EVERYBODY LOVED MR. BILICKI

 

     You couldn't ask for a more committed teacher at John Wayne Cotter H.S. than
Brendan Bilicki (English) even if he didn't live in the Bronx. He hardly missed a day; he was
rarely if ever late. On the other hand he had a reputation for storming out of department
meetings or faculty meetings, declaring his dissatisfaction with some point of procedure.
    Bilicki had already done nineteen years in the system; he had secured tenure; he was
respected and reviled as a curmudgeon.
    Primary among the targets of his loathing were the supervisors, the oldsters in jackets
and ties who ran the school; he called them "the good ole boys" and he joked often that they sat in the principal's office "drinking whiskey and rye", formulating procedures that
so far had failed to turn the school around. He had it in for his assistant principal, Pete
Plimpler, whom he considered a perfect example of what was wrong with the running of
the school.
     In the morning, he'd observed, Pete Plimpler was viperish until he'd had his cup of
coffee. No point running to him with problems at the start of the day. You'd find only a
cranky old man sitting at his desk, watching his coffee maker bubble, while his radio
played low-volume classical music in the background.
    Pete Plimpler was also part of the white establishment which refused to embrace the
need to revise the curricula in the light of demographic shifts in the city. Bilicki, who was
white but always at pains to remind everyone of his Irish-Jewish roots, became
contentious at department meetings, pointing to the outdated reading lists, the books assigned to students over the years, many of which ended up lost or unreturned or "found" later on the lawns outside, wet and unusable.  
    And why were there no African-American authors, no Hispanic authors on the lists?
"Wake up and smell the coffee," he'd shout at Pete Plimpler, who sighed, wearied but unbowed, and tried to move the meeting on to the next item on the agenda.
   (Later in a deft move, and in deference to the general mood of unhappiness in the
department, Pete Plimpler offered the electives program to Bilicki; this pacified him for
awhile. He introduced his seniors to James Baldwin and Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and he
vigorously suggested that money be set aside to order at least one class set of Chinua
Achebe's "Things Fall Apart".)
    Mr. Bilicki was loved by his graduating seniors. He was the only teacher who greeted
students with a chaste kiss on both cheeks. Some of them had had Mr. Bilicki in their
junior year when they read "Streetcar Named Desire" so they signed up for his elective.
    Pass any room where his class was in session, you couldn't fail to notice a pony-tailed
teacher like an aging rocker in blue jeans sitting on his desk, the class leaning forward
in rapt attention. They liked the the "free form" tempo of his classes ("free form", a
phrase from the 60s took on fresh meaning for his students); they listened enthralled
to accounts of his college days, to his casual confession one day that he'd smoked
marijuana. ("You did drugs, Mr. Bilicki?" the class gasped.)
     When he revealed, looking out the window and stroking his beard, that he'd married
too young, that he had a teenage daughter and was divorced from his wife, they shook
their heads in shock and disbelief.
     They wanted detail, postmarital insights. Mr. Bilicki waved the matter aside. He
explained that he and his wife were very good friends. Which prompted someone in the
class to declare, "Marriage sucks."
             (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)



   


POEMS FOR HERONS HOME (& BACK AWAY)

 

                                                                                "There is a famine of years in the land…
                                                                                 It always turns out that much is salvageable."
                                                                                                – John Ashbery, "Chinese Whispers"

            

               At the airport they greet you with steel pan and home
              made cake, forgetting you have your own black pudding
              lady, unmatchable still (one day her daughter will send for her.)
              And they counting you as 'tourist' now: all courtesy
              of the Ministry of Everything you value.

              So softly walk 'cross roads dust memoried, for the mercy
              of tides lowered eyes. Word about you reached the city before
              you cleared customs, courtesy of the Ministry of Everywhere (hey,
              just remember who won, who controls now!) Hands that vend clap
              roti paddle count years of little else. And check that
              migrant accent, bai; you're welcome's bitter sweet.

              A photograve honor guard full moons the nights
              when life felt royal arse hard and folk blocked debt with singing.
              Seawalling youth, stopped short of 'treason', resist the draft to Hail!
              the mangrove raggedness of state: saplings blue (& empire greys)
              drawn like fold refusing lines in the last Reich rubble.
              Bold and best minds? gone. In sight no founding cranes.

              Behind jhandis on the Corentyne lay low if you know
              what's good for you: with maps & reptiles rivers run.
              Bright tags on travel bags, the flash you're doing well
              are village give aways. From liming pools the flightless
              larvae whisper wait for halos game balls
              tossed and intercepting play I stream you not.

              And what's that shouting? gun mouths, party cries, a stadium six.
              And who's that stumbling out the yard? ripped
              blouse, scratched weeping thighs? ow, chile, the nation.
              Run to help, or walk away; milk or lemon, you'll pay.
                                                                                  – W.W. 

                            

                   

                  

                          NATIVE STRANGER

                   When you step off the 'plane, you are another
                   but clinging to an idea of yesterday
                   and knowing which pocket holds your papers help
                   to prolong the useful fiction of a you.  

                   Other familiar shapes of pictures and words
                   are waiting to pick you up and lead you across
                   the gaps between the impressions of a man
                   you must keep flashing so as to keep breathing.

                   The no-nonsense look in your eyes reveals you
                   to be a betrayed lover bent on revenge-
                   ful reconciliation with a city
                   that's still switching on and off as much as you.

                   When you stride through its tight streets you are floating
                   on the air of the knowledge that you don't have
                   to live here but in your stomach is a stone,
                   a mushroom tough to vomit that you'll have to.

                   Old loves and aunts are here to prop your fictions
                   and you've brought them the appropriate presents
                   to celebrate what you now call their courage
                   to have stayed in a place you still can't quite stand.

                   You keep opening drawers that smell of anguish
                   you recognise though it no longer fits you.
                   Yet you keep coming back as though to witness
                   that running from spectres makes them more solid.

                   But the surer you think them the stranger you
                   feel, for what you see most clear you're farthest from.
                   Near the hotel door closed your suitcase you keep.
                   Next to your heart your passport like a shield sweats.
                      

                            (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)

 

 

 

 

NY SLIDE XLI: MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

 

   "I've been drafted into hall patrol," Radix told her.
  "Drafted? What do you mean, drafted?"
  "Actually they were asking for volunteers to patrol the hallways, you know, during
periods when we're not teaching."
   Mrs. Haliburton was suddenly fierce-lipped and silent. Radix reined in his fervour. He
thought she might be impressed with his readiness to help in the running of the school.
   "See, this is when you realize the administration is running out of ideas."
   "I don't follow you."
   "You're going to be walking around…with clipboard and handcuffs…taking down
names like you're arresting people…what does that say to these kids?"
  "Yes, but, we're trying to get them back in the classrooms."
  "Which is where the problem is in the first case. Maybe we should ask ourselves, why
are they wandering the hallways? What's driving them outside the classroom where they
should be in the first case? Hall patrols!"
   "Well, I'm new here, still feeling my way around," Radix said half-apologetically.
   "You strike me as a man without a country," Mrs. Haliburton said, looking directly
in his eyes. 
  Coming out of nowhere the remark jolted Radix. He fidgeted and glanced at his
watch.
   And Mrs. Haliburton, sensing she had touched a nerve, leaned back and said:
   "Now there's a problem for you. We have people coming to these shores, some of them
from faraway places. We have a Russian, did you know that?…from Russia…and this teacher in the Math department, from India, they say he was a university professor back
in India. Well, honey, he's having a hard time here. I have kids come to me complaining
they don't understand a word he says. He speaks this strange English. Put him in a
classroom with kids from the Bronx, what kind of learning environment are we talking
about?"
   She held her chin up and she stared at Radix as if her insights were unassailable.
   The bell rang; a swelling roar spread through the building as the hallways filled up. Radix sprang to his feet, uneasy but relieved. Mrs. Haliburton smiled and said she was pleased
to have met him; conversation with him was quite stimulating; her door was always
open; he could drop by any time.
                                           (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

NY SLIDE XL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

 

  When Radix first met Mrs. Haliburton he was unaware of her reputation as a woman
 whose power in the comunity was not to be taken lightly. He happened to wander past
 the open door of her office, and he caught a glimpse of her looking out the window,
 seemingly lost in thought. He hesitated; he was struck by the empty feel of the room,
 the spartan arrangement of chairs.
   "What goes on in here?' he asked with cheerful innocence.
   "Why don't you come in and find out?" the lady at the desk replied.
   He was startled to discover she knew who he was; knew his name, the department he
worked in.
   "I hear you're from the Caribbean islands."
   "Where did you hear that?"
   "My father came from the island of St Kitts."
   Mrs. Haliburton seemed friendly and engaging, and mysteriously self-possessed; a stout
woman in her forties, with firmly upholstered breasts; dressed with an older woman's
concern for clothes that reflected her age and status and identity. There were thin
elegant streaks of grey in her full head of hair which reminded Radix of island women of
prominence who devoted their energies to organizing other people's lives. In Mrs.
Haliburton's case there was the desk, the telephone, an air of leashed impatience; but
no sense of her room as a humming centre of activity.
   "So how're you getting along here?" she asked.
   "I'm still feeling my way around."
   "I hope you decide to stay with us. We don't have too many like you here?"
   "You mean people from the islands?"
   "I mean, there aren't too many black men in the teaching profession. You can count
the ones we have on your fingers. Our community needs more men like you…role models
for the kids…young men with your neat little Malcolm X beard, and…" she gave a fist
pump "..fire in their bellies."
   She was looking at him directly, as if measuring his worth. She asked where he lived
and was delighted to learn he lived in the Bronx. It prompted her to introduce her theory
of borough residency requirements for teachers.
   "You weren't here during the snow days last fall…see, lots of teachers couldn't get in,
they live far outside the borough. The kids made it in through all that snow, but not the
teachers. In fact we had so many teachers out, we ended up warehousing kids in the
lunch room for most of the day."
   "So how do we fix that problem?" Radix asked.
   Mrs. Haliburton's face flashed a look of disappointment.
        (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)


 

 


RISING DOWN AND SERVING FIRE)

 

 

                          
                            ihear the trees, itouch your roots
                              Earth spinning out of control

                            heavens high rise, while hell lies low
                               Earth spinning out of control 

                            greenhouse gases, foraging masses
                               Earth spinning out of control  

                            raining toads birds show entrails 'inconclusive'
                               Earth spinning out of control

                            swollen four billion years mother nature knows
                               Earth spinning out of control

                            "bone gristle poppin' from continuous grindin'
                             grapes of wrath in a shapely glass"
                        
                            carat-color-clarity > clogged artery? momentum
                               Earth spinning out of control

                            scorpions in the head, helmet turban or cap
                               Earth spinning out of control

                            "know where you're going even when it's dark"
                               Earth spinning out of control

                            days rising down, while nights serve fire
                              Earth spinning out of control
                                                                            -W.W.  
             

                  

                            WAITING ON THE WAITRESS

                             Empty hands need fire
                             to play with, to burn by,
                             so as to smoke a new

                                 map of the world in her tired
                                 face now shadowing like a cloud
                                 the questions of your open hand.
                                   (from "Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)   


      

                             
                                                                     
                                

NY SLIDE XXXVIX: THE PROPOSAL

 

   When they got inside her office Pete Plimpler looked around, then walked over to
the window. Mrs. Haliburton took off her coat and asked what the problem was.
   Pete Plimpler cleared his throat; he spoke in a clear measured tone. Mrs. Haliburton
was stunned by what she heard.
   "He had the nerve, are you listening, Noreen?…he had the audacity to suggest I give
up my office…that's what he said…he wants me to switch rooms…give up my room,
with the view…exactly…that's what I'm saying, he moves here, I go there!"
   Pete Plimpler was quite serious. Might Mrs. Haliburton not feel more comfortable, he
began respectfully, occupying his office, away from "the hurly burly" of the second floor?
The reason was simple: the location of her office, directly above the Principal's office,
made it ideal for quick communication between someone like himself and "our mutual
friend" below. Besides, with the elevator breaking down when it felt like, the logistics
of the situation would seem to suggest such an arrangement could be of benefit to
everyone.
   "Well, honey," she told Noreen,"I. don't. give. a pail of horse droppings about the
logistics of his situation..that's right! They're going to have to get a court order to
make me vacate this room."
   Actually, she was pleased with the way she handled Pete Plimpler that morning. She
tried not to look startled; she listened with fingers splayed thoughtfully on her jaw, her
eyes never wavering. And she gave the impression she was somewhat intrigued by the
proposal.
   When he'd finished Pete Plimpler focussed his beady eyes on her face, convinced by
her nodding silence that he'd persuaded her, that she would acquiesce. He seemed to
be waiting for a response right on the spot.
   But the phone rang and Mrs. Haliburton picked it up. She raised her hand, a finger
asked him to hold on one moment. Pete Plimpler didn't care to hold on while she talked
on the phone. He wiggled his finger and whispered he'd get back to her on the matter,
no hurry; and he slipped out the door.
   "Noreen, didn't I tell you something like this was going to happen?…that's what I said
too…exactly…well, he'd better get ready to rumble with this black woman."
          (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)





NY SLIDE XXXVIII: PETE PLIMPLER (A.P. ENGLISH)

 

   The first challenge to her office space came from the supervisor of the English Dept.,
Pete Plimpler. He caught Mrs. Haliburton early one morning as she strolled into the main
office. She got the distinct impression he'd been lying in wait for her; one minute he
appeared to be studying notices pinned on the main office board; the next he looked
around, smiled and announced, "Ah, there you are…"
   Mrs Haliburton threw her arms up in mock surrender – what offence had she
committed to warrant his attention? – her bosoms shaking with mirth. And Pete
Plimpler cleared his throat, touched her gently on the elbow and assured her with
corresponding good humor she had committed no offence. "At least not yet."
   "My heart went bumpity, bump," Mrs. Haliburton later told Noreen, girlfriend at the
Board of Ed. "All these years this man has nothing to say to me, walks by me like I'm
the corner mailbox…and now all of a sudden, he's happy to see me?…I mean, be still
my heart."
   "Are you going up to the second floor?" Pete Plimpler asked. "There's something I've
been meaning to discuss with you."
   Smiling, still mystified, she walked with him to the elevator.
   Mrs. Haliburton was a bosomy woman with firm, fleshy arms and a full head of hair
she kept well groomed. Pete Plimpler was short and slim, with thinning grey hair; he
wore an obligatory jacket and tie. He walked head lowered, deep in thought, his manner
gruff; and he gave the impression he'd rather be anywhere but in the Bronx, among
people not exactly genteel in manner; who wore their emotions on their sleeves; and
were quick to take offence. 
   Once the elevator door closed Mrs. Haliburton sensed the physical advantage she might
otherwise not have had over him. Seizing the moment her ebullient nature slipped off
its leash.
   Her voice boomed and walloped Pete Plimpler's head and ears as she complained
jocularly about the arbitrary nature of the elevator which some days got stuck with its
door open on one floor while people on other floors pressed the buttons, waiting and
waiting. Did he have any idea how many pounds she lost whenever this happened,
heaving herself up the stairs?
   Her laughter made him cringe inside. He stood erect and smiled painfully, his winter
pale face tight with distress. Yes, he told her, he had been a victim of elevator misuse. 
In more ways than she could ever imagine.
              (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)