A singer screams out a tropical song trapped by this or that system of electronic recording now amplified a hundred times to convince those who must hear it that they’re still alive and beyond their quotidian toils – if that term may still be applied and employed in that world which no longer subscribes to work unless it doesn’t involve any effort beyond manipulating numbers towards collecting enough zeros to prove one rich the screamed song reminds us we can get it if we really want it – once we try try and try so inspired the two hatless tourists get up to go and try and try to prove the song right – so many its left to be desired and got
(from Limboa , a sentimental anthem by Brian Chan . 2023)
Rakesh looking poor on bicycle pedalled path^ years narrowed . home to heart frugality ‘n’ ease. At Getting late! Come, take off yuh clothes his give^care Leela force of habit chafes.
On delivery by Admin feed bag holders watch hips of public snatch^catch sway, lips sip fermented soup | fluffier ducks precentre trough bills side ways in. …………..
Country road last^licks upskilling . left hand pocket coin bare so, next thing yuh know the candle meter expire | sprinkle holy water, ol’ pipe squirt; pray Birth Controllers up there can explain.
Shacks on No Man’s land not waiting for out^ house contract < word bypassers with cellphone count so far 2.3K swipe visits. ……………
From New York ‘im come back in one state – say tracks divide to ice or hell; no money? moon walk sun turn run |say ‘im miss mi nest egg lay. Is certified ‘im certified now.
For Melodie who kneads.wraps.vends. cow^ stares ~ Jab Jab hoofing for you, gyurl! ~ @Alt breath burn rate rising [ Where you think you going? too late ] click iReady . theme tight . moving.
W.W.
[ Hamza Akram Qawwal and Brothers – Khudi ]
YUH RAP SO (7.1)
We suffer too slowly – but what’s the hurry? – we suffer pretending there is nothing worth suffering for – not even Love whose ending is prefigured in its start – not even peace whose price is set as the last and the next war hovering above it all now i recall that Mikado song about the pure hauteur of the Sun and Moon unapologetic about their worth
(from Limboa, a sentimental album by Brian Chan . 2023)
“Between the wind, between the pain of wind, between the gap of footprints and the coin, the trembling nerve…” – Martin Carter, Returning (1953)
When heritage hands lift off the rolling pin, their matter folded thin, fingers mix^ signal We want what other people have | kartals there clapping Do not pass urine on this tree.
* They ransacked the living room and bedroom before attempting to start the victim’s car…
At rumour tables chatter in good faith live^ feed @our intestines | extraction beats repair never mind how back vent^like the tooth gap look.
* They fled toward Ascension Road and escaped through a drain. The victim followed and recovered the stolen tablet from the drain...
Tilted by time buyer lines . heart @register Now 31 . Syceil scans prime shelves for sheet^ mate room | fix yuh wings, gyurl ! your turn ‘n’ Enter key form soon boom.
* Police conducted searches of the area but were unable…
Preacher swear our son wouldn’t grow father^ child like; swear ‘im will wave I Gone! washed like lamb of blood | we’ll smile, die happy after severed here.
W.W.
[ Roel Calister – Interlude: Riba Un Mahinta ]
YUH RAP SO (7.0)
Its blinkered indiscriminate walking wait for what only the lords and imps of Fate know – can tell but don’t – won’t because that would spoil their fun as well as yours with all its challenging obstacles and detours and ankle-twisting limping lessons in how to whimper and sigh
whimpers and sighs are what it all boils down to like a slowly simmered sauce first whipped up fast even if just before there is or – to judge by the crack in your head – there was a loud bang but remember your lungs emptying their air and pouring it into oh no! and ah well!
(from Limboa, a sentimental album by Brian Chan . 2023)
If just to prove we can afford to eat more than our spoilsport cardiologists advise too-much proves us as rich as not-enough prods poor people to seek heart beyond the wilful muscular organ pumping away under its cage of ribs policing its tyranny of automatic memory and its twin amnesiac habit with their delusion that their body^serfdom is final empire
Your hope is to climb these stairs and find a point high enough from which active Heart’s beacon can be seen ~ now my mind-reader fancies himself a peeker-through and peeler-off of pretexts i feel i should kick him – send him sprawling flat and his notebook flapping dirty through the air But that wouldn’t make me suffer – he continues
(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem by Brian Chan, 2023)
“…the long delight of air . the sense of power and the sense of passion . created by the dead and wooden crutch of spirit and tongue.” — Martin Carter, How Come? . 1972
Good old school takes a while to close its doors, home away from creaking beams; desk fresh uniforms rewire tried^life lime . clean slate test.
Kneeling (no one’s around) carriers ask What could be done ? about this cross < the sun’s old whip . still in service; galvanize roof^ pleats protecting left behinds. ……………
Intercourse made simple : join a cricket team wear pristine whites, become a family doctor – who sensed what crevice Rishi would ? pad stroke probe ~ pay for ~ his iPhone need to be found. ……………..
At colour . skin we barely jump, cane^ribbed poui ibis braised / hair, though, aids long^ short memory camps – the cats’ curling brush, dread lion irons / T’spoon yuh cocoa, Gurleen.
Mean + byways feed off pain < for long cold moons risk horning \ + blind returns on foreign exchange \ masks to bounce with our blood demon . thirst requests.
W. W.
[ Colonial Air Defence – Georgetown, Guyana . 1965]
YUH RAP SO (6.9)
We are content – they condescendingly sigh – that you witness us just as we witness you you needn’t try to climb us – it – we wouldn’t change your path – which is simpler than you imagine – to cross the borderline between low and high – themselves a mirage but more user-friendly – that model train of a metaphor for you to catch to be transported by – over this border on which you and your scrivener wait – your Bartleby who should prefer not to climb any more stairs – having seen and tried and failed to climb any – all of us more air than stone
(from Limboa, a sentimental album by Brian Chan, 2023)
“So that, in clinging to him as to a bank of emotion, she grew to wait upon him – as upon the mill of god.” – Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room, 1967
In refrigeration for years her marriage sought the finish^line, not heat, to thaw | the ceiling fan knows lightning rarely strikes our copy^ masters . thought in compost spin.
When like priesthood our fate mappers get old their vanities camp fire . gaze poking blood fresh entry points. Don’t act too surprised at red flags; yellow pee | fodder fuckers. ……………..
Jumbie birds need an iron wheel on the bridge, co-pilot like . they struggle with world winds – rigors gasp ‘n’ peek, new to human sorcery.
Our forest ballerinas skip^cross rivers green heart space cleared for landing. No point asking to try their shoes on . life^ lift shopping off plantation price floors. ………………
Backs unheard of bent in rice field labour ! cameras scarce saved frames of baby^carrying . mainly cane stacking + granules of hard dignity, taste verifying.
As oceans of crude promise gush watch islanders port chase, tail wag side to side. Oh god! what ~ dark matter in the hold? ~ every outcast stows away one stolen star.
W.W
[ Come Rain Or Come Shine – Ray Charles ]
YUH RAP SO (6.8)
No subject ashamed of not having lived – no verb ashamed of still not living – no object ashamed of not being alive – no full stop ashamed of not being alive like others who have invented mazes of whys and hows and other alibis for shallow breathing – even if their shallow breaths are only their expensively cheap way of partly living – living totally only in and by pain the total pain of births and wars and corpses like myself yet breathing and standing around – not even walking anymore but at least grateful to have the echoes of words to live into and up to and beyond to more words
(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem by Brian Chan, 2023)
Life bearable only if a lifer can manage to fool himself that he need not feel any shame for choosing to sleep behind bars 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
(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem by Brian Chan, 2023)
“Each day I ride a wild black horse of terror and every night I lock him in my bosom…” – Martin Carter, Human Guide (1952)
Not paid to watch pots boil they wash the stump, floss grit sweets; get to work on orifice tiers < head case loading kilos of field servility . all said ‘n’ done.
Thirst never ending Data centers need lots, lots of water | our roadside vendors whistle through the nose Agua, agua! . breath thread through cactus needles. …………………..
Scratch tests, hallucination hues? let the cave man paint his wall . until first in, last agent outside wave Gone Clear! . air truth light kreyol engaging. ……………………
Against the known laws of cocoonery Bismattie swears the pelvis grip cleared her floor boards of doubt . out so she^ they recognize . vows equal, separate blood rush.
Wing tips dip ? as broad bands sweat ‘n’ ramajay + artery mas’ bulbs flicker ~ Welcome back, Piyumi! ~ butterfly swim lanes stay open; poised to fling it up? ~ shed a skin.
W.W.
[ Joe Jackson – Round Midnight ]
YUH RAP SO (6.7)
Down in the Bush up in the Interior, One more rung to High Heaven on her ladder Of God-lust odd in an otherwise docile Gyirl trying her best to keep a low profile – More so after the thing behind the sea-wall Which had made her flesh feel like a cannibal’s Bloody treat + turned her off all males for good, Including her lover, though he too had bled As part of the wages of their lapse of lust As shameful for its haste as for the rapists’ Voyeur-into-vampire perversion of it:
Her prayers after sex-nightmares helped her forget Or rather not recall too well the details Of the rage she ‘d felt at losing all control
The sound of the doorbell like a warning to joints pledged to the knuckle > @navel point knock knock ~ step back, beast on leash.
Well hello, there stranger ! Look at you . up from which cocorite village ? heart hub inside (what scare you so) spike metal gate; sheen fronting, quiet envy. ………………
All the while him ‘pon her . back member ship dry spelling ! cyan find no papaw^ like pulp seed fi squeeze send bear.
Her folding berth holds on . long for like^ subscribe wedge closure ~ Your thing in there! Hurry,I have to pee. ……………….
Face fictions trouble, bubbling up bath body pipes as him^her leaning mirror true mist wipe | meantime flat tyre handlers feather cap the iron touch.
High mas’ play set ? from walkabout chair ride the Elephant^humble . how used we are the bible bell, Admin Get well! fare ringers; past port prospects studied.
W.W.
[ Colonial Blessings Burn . Georgetown, Guyana ]
YUH RAP SO (6.6)
The source of blood in this lifetime would ever Be behind a wall all men must climb over, Not just to get to better fields they must plough But, in the name of Freedom, to unbelong, Or at least not belong too well, to the breast That translates blood into the milk of deafness On which the rigmarole of women’s lives thrives, The Hourglass-sand + The Skeleton’s swath-scythe Mere men’s limps around the roots + fruits of growth: It’s no wonder Ladd seemed always out of breath, As though his latest was bound to be his last
A glance at the notebook on his knee shows me a page full of as many numbers as words i ask what man, are you an accountant then? and he says better, I’m an economist revising rules for accountants and lawyers to die by i sigh i seee! a fabulist!
The careless ease with which i translate the thrust of his expertease-dart into its essence of fantasy surprises me like a slap to my own face – waking me to the memory of an arrogant audacity of mine not unlike this man’s – my pretense at being (that existential angst of the common man) the academic most people thought i was because my reading had influenced my speech.
(from Limboa, a sentimental anthem by Brian Chan, 2023)
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