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                                                         But that was just it, the trouble,
       Or part of the trouble anyway, that had made Stew stall
       Work on his comicbook: he wasn’t afraid to depict
       The goriest crimes of war and murder and rape that lurked
       Around every corner of his society and times,
       Behind and under every smile a mile wide on billboards
       (They selling pills, we paying bills)

                                                ~

        Drawing a raw vengeful virago kicking some weird-
        Looking lowlife to death for his annoying (to put it
        Mildly) habit of knifing sleeping strangers in the gut
        – And planting evidence to make those wild crimes seem the work
        Of teenagers who had no way to prove their innocence –  
        Was easier for Stew than making images of love-
        Making

                                                  *

                                                                   Furthermore, which one
       Of his Amazons would represent Evil?, Duelle or
       Queen Mona, that Marnie-esque liar in an office-suit?

                                                  ~

          APT employed cuter whores than Radica but they were all,
       Stew felt, alike at bottom.   Then why had she captured more
       Of his imagination than the rest?    He couldn’t say,
       Stew could not utter, son of repression’s bitch of silence,
       Itching to break its glass cage with bricks of Art:   he wanted,
       But his neck was red with fear of being seen to want, that
       – A fear he couldn’t overcome, since he didn’t know how
       To name it and so tame it.     

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

 

 

 

                                                                
                                     "..the archaic compulsion – apparent bewilderment
                                                   – of the soul – rib of male and female” 
                                                   The Waiting Room, Wilson Harris (1967)     
                            
                                   
         Even under orthodox skin wish ticks riddle, mark | You 
         tense, Is this the stare end of interfacing ? inside
         heart chambers ~ dare you break to pee, fear you
         might miss the lapsed cord snip ~ brow lines
         beading.
                                                                                         So 
         her cave man left the wards, ran off with the nurse / we’d
         just entered the cafeteria, lifted our libation cups; quick
         sips, Oh, steaming rims / let What happened? steep outside
         gut liquid, polar bonds widening.

                                                   ~

         Hips for having, giving form consent | shards from her    
         glass dreams confirm . him teeth grind while them
         sleep.
                                                                                       How
         could ties main stay ? the vessel knot, a beehive; bees
         like Stage #1 curtains raising nipple cues, here after
         deemed non binding.

                                              Reupholstery  ? riskier than      
          shopping a new box spring, which for spring is a wild
          bet hedge.
                                                                                      Merde!
          The need to sit, feathers riffling to hatch; the longer last
          straws last, the helplessness | across the tables someone
          might serve . notice, care.
                                                                                      Aargh!
          Past gravity | wind, bills that let fate, hemorrhoids interfere. 
                                                                                   
                                                                                   – W.W.                                      

                                                                                                                                        

               

                 

 

                  
             MARA

             But, Mara wonders, why turn any challenge
             Of present-tense utterance into a safe
             Postponability? – by jotting it down

             For some future reference’s denial
             Of the Now of the urgencies of borrowed
             Breath whose return-date is still every moment,
            As far as Mara knows, having lived a thousand deaths.

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

 

         

                                                                       
                                                             "The open-and-closed shutter of dream,
                                                             the bitten cry in the night, the language
                                                             of the heartland."
                                                                  – Wilson Harris, "Heartland" (1964)   

             Antarctic / freeze flight in temper rare / sheets white   
         collapse form ice floes sending bone whales seas away
         for hump 'n' warmth . off mouth chat first rivers.

         Not much luck here – contact less on a reef, carrion    
         beaks ‘itching.

                                  Elsewhere egg curates mop stomach 
         tiles in denial; rent stays due as gorging water lines sidle
         up the silo.
                                                               Go ahead, blame
         the piano scales of measure ! those cave bat bitch strain
         droppings . see’f it matters.

                                                     +

         Fliers leaving our island dodge rocks in space | on slate 
         roof cubicle paper tests they don’t best well.
                                                                   They fire camp try
         poultry sacrifice . tent fold up incomplete. One way
         cobble stones shudder – Where’s the hard work in that?

                         Spackle the cracks on any profile . sap inside
         soup stirring oozes through  >  faith knit filaments
         sticky on the brow smooth barks were knotting since
         the dawn of damp.
                                               *Earth detour arrows point Fuck
         me! sideways again | meaning, globe rafters must refine
         hollows cool to idle, sort codes out; argue landing pin
         points for the next crust swirl moon shot | mask, ropes
         in the trunk.

                                                              – W.W.

    

                 

           

             

 

   
         CHARON

         *BUT Charon, an auto-misunderstood freak,
          Sometimes felt weak enough to tell Qat that all
          His life had been as hard as he is simple
        And that she had to imagine how anxious even
          The most settled stone must feel because it has
          Managed to arrive at that stability
          Which all atoms must need to serve and betray.

          A pebble-collector herself, Qat agreed:
          A stone’s beauté lies in its staggered twitching,
          Its slightest nicks dreaming of being full streams.

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

 

 

              
            Okay, okay, intelligent Reader, take it easy:
         I know Stew's a sleazy cliché as a character, young
         And hung-up on the mere hint of female power and so
         Making an ass of himself with every smart piece of tail
         He kept bringing home after his latest successful pass
        (Paid for with drinks) in a bar full of bitches and laughter
         At jokes about bitches

                                               *

         But please set aside your high-toned judicious anti-pulp
         Expectations (even if you must do so with a sigh)
         As encouraged by genteel albeit rusty novels
         Of persuasion with clever plots and proper promises
         Of some redemptive heroism or consoling myth

                                               ~

         Organic, germane to that let’s pretend game called fiction
         - For, if you’ve managed to withstand the wine-stain of this text
         Up to this point, it can’t have vexed you enough to make you
         Now want to dismiss our poor-ass Stew, look, rolling a joint
         (After his nemesistah Lee slammed his door behind her)

                                             *

         The birth – long overdue in the womb of his anxious mind –
         Of a SINful (worthless Stew would ever be a good Bad
         Catholic lad) encounter between his Twins of Good and
         Evil (could Stew ever prove more than a simplistic teen,
         As far as moral vision went?) in a dark and brittle
         Spun-sugar bubble of lust enacted in a car-park
         Or alley or rooftop

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

  

            

        Before the face turns to spider holes, skull . every limb 
        should experience at least once the dive > into sound
        fusion swells.

        Someone bites the reed announcing we’re just about    
        ready; bones look sharp . the balance Yes! beam set,
        arc sweeping. No, here be no cargo vessel jammed with
        gold . coast stunned eyes.

        Life lines skin crimping cycles through centuries  
        of ordure, risk . getting somewhere ? Who are those other guys.
        Later . they’ll doc. file air plein chord change.

                     On the qui vive . anchor links don’t build sleeves    
        ceiling high / like with stacks of hundred dollar bills / so
        bets all in while the fader holds.
                          And listen ! sex v. tête metabolizing your turn 
        off haunch will come, you’ll know | the source itself, calibration
        done, takes over.

        Nets cast higher, brainier gain ?  the ocean rolls vast
        blue; interpreters of gust, horns make sure north cleaves
        south wind connected | and there you are up 
        next to new . with skimmers passing and everything.

                                                                          – W.W.

  

       

             

                             [ In mem: Curtis Fuller . 1932 – 2021 ]

 

           LESSING

           A lazybones with a lust for doing nothing but
            Waiting to be inspired by the Surprise-muse:
            To worry about Mekking A Livin was
            For souls who had no trust in the Lord’s graces.

           *NOR did Lessing think himself religious, save
            In the radical sense of tending a link
            With his breathing’s solar-ethereal roots:
          His Lord was simply Earth’s nearest star, her resident
            God, kite-anchor of the day’s light, that present
            Which he feels it would be Baad Mannuhs to leave,
            Like a boat that has brought you this far, unmoored

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

    

           

        One roof as slant as the next ? attempt fail here, shelter
        there; pipe limers from foreign drill minding our own
        business | breach . that stage again.

        Paid up his wife took the child, arguing she had a fine    
        place back there / in that freaking rain all the time seagull
        country, Yes / gave it up . grass here dry so.

        Bus queue Might I ask good egg ?  yuh boy in London   
        lonely | in Port of Spain homely. They had a gardener
        but yuh girl was no Chatterley . tight What am I doing
        here Sargassum spread.

        Her starapple twilight gaze . read vaccine blocking nest   
        infection | though one henna Savi half his age kept angling
        round . moist, in test match readiness.
                                                           Jumping crapaud! what
        you expect . the currency of green river days ?  two
        fold bake fish ‘n’ chipping.
                                                    ~

                                                *Jook all you want . about island               
        love > a wrench to open ends a tail wind wretch would
        wheel from.  
                                   Heavens ground, curve simple : him have
        him house, she missed her rain . left him the fuck! right
        there.                                           

                       *Paratha does clap hot skin flake so, all the rook
        cooks gone a world . flipping method, still can’t castle.
                                                                               And before
        long pure scratch you hear . Build something nah, from
        bass again.
                                                            – W.W.

 

           

           

 

 

          CHARON

          So gullible but perverse Charon now tells Sistuh
            Mo (she should have been a nun): Tanks fuh nuttn,
           Feeling self-pityingly already dead,
           And slams down the hotel-phone’s red receiver.

         *OF ALL the women he could have married, why
          Had he given in to that born-again fright?
          Her other ambition had been Canada
        Where (she thanked The Lord and he Bejesus) they could get
          Divorced without the whole blinkin world having
         To tawk about it:  in Canada, who cares
          If or how you get (or get to be) an ex?

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

                                                                 
                         

 

           
        Well, i imagine that's why Lee laughed, through her gasping, at
        Stew's super-heroine, Frenchy Duelle flashing her chatte
        While rescuing innocents who still bore their baby-fat.
        Lee’s laughter felt harsh, but she was superstitiously not
        A mocker of other people’s dreams:  she’d just been too hot
        In her moment to take his fantasy-world seriously

                                                 ~

        But, to tell the truth, there were fantasies ‘out there’ a lot
        Hotter than the pap Stew was then pitching her.   Chinese Lee
        Herself had dreamt up ‘Mija’, a real shero, a bitch-‘ho’,
        A Korean karate-kicking lesbian with no
        Compunction about correcting and healing men brutish
        Towards girls, by carving and serving them up like fish

                                                 *

        Stew's pink blonde doll seemed a mere statue on top of a tomb,
        Compared to Lee’s kickin red-haired Yellow mama for whom
        The word ‘impossible’ was not a ‘viable option’
        (Even the sharpest people don’t avoid the adoption
        Of, and corruption by, the dullest shibbolethic shells).

                                                 ~

          When, after sex, Lee told Stew what she thought of his Duelle,
       And began to babble about the ‘powers’ of her own
       Mija as an angry bitch eager for a bloody bone,
       Stew pushed her out of his bed, fucking her off into hell,
       And consoled himself with the fierceness of his hatred of
       That other whore, Queen Mona, easier to loathe than love,
       Although, and because, a mere word from her made him splutter
       And get his testes atingle and his heart aflutter

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

 

 

 

               
          Blasted from homes they carry . the worst of it, forced
          to flee sans humanité suitcase like in old world wars;
          hoping cloth layers keep dock walls dry, betray no hint
          what fears in ‘n’ under weary mount.

                                                                             For once
          the coconut palms start slanting, sites go amiss; the frog
          throat pays no mind; on swallow point charter teeth halt
          grinding . turn about.
                                                         Trust a must the change
          bill man; boat triers hate watching his web fingers
          count / his paradise long list / your water breaking despite
          how capped pain waves appear.

                                                        ~

                                 Forest, desert stake the make do maison       
          d’être / rest coughing up, in tent bed pests / languish so
          sand literal poker hands peek anxious to call . deep
          craw flushers just standing there.

                                 *As camp fires face lick . scarvers    
          rifle . marbles spray the sky | bride helper, head left
          right sweeping up the casings, welcome to the feast
          (the program whispers).
                                        So say the veil unhooks, combs toss
          (why not) at beard groom vulvarines around the pledge.  

           No, your mother won’t stop crying | Yes, and tether the cow;  
          (at least configure, fret) grass nights on four, the belly
           role ballooning.

                                                                      – W.W.

             

                 

             

 

            
            QAT
                     

            *IN DOUALA (where she'd learnt shit meant also
             Ab$tract dollar$), Qat used to to chant Christian Rap
             In cafés and markets, and still conjures up
           A good-Old Testamental retribution-picture
             If you get her good-and-pissed, outraging her
             Sense of decency and l’il faut de Justice:
             Pour tel, elle se connait votre moyenne, mais

             *TO OTHERS, she beams an 'exceptional light'
              (Her boss’s term for her ‘performance-presence’)
              Of hope to the puzzled polymorphs she has
            To lead through the purgatory

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

       

 

                                                                                        
                                                                     
                                                                    "..tryin to mek sense
                                                              of all de wallawallawalla" 
                                                                    – Kamau Brathwaite, "Kumina"   

          
         The brain to swish pain on any limb / random, close / should 
         send strokers into island forests where debts 'n' nature
         dance to tune : head in a bag full of bees. 
                                                      The hands to drive car fast way
         lay soft rounding bends; bicycle lane where frame ‘n’ grass
         collection loose Oh Shit! in green red fly.

                          Not so good heaven folk next door knock asking     
         help securing heart transplant; it breaks step up . island
         bottoms, hip permits like for tippy toe ballet.

         All zinc fenced out, gun bwoy barbare | monde guango see    
         tek wing, grade skin fi suck . nice stranger recognize.
                                                     A breadth of version they’re held
         responsible for by prunes at gossip meets; by flower stalkers
         hunched over microscope | ovules warm Oh boy, watch
         trouble nah.

         Whose will lifts crow song bars for ‘ours before’ ? ocean
         cross ties | ash tomb fight, two stick tight. 
     
                                                                 Grille world . enough
         to go around, head home; probe done with sun belt, cold
         snap . shots of breast in vest, best for market over weight
         vendors – Excuse me? – minivan now boarding.

                                                 Centuries through cane, sacred
         savings . ‘Tessa  ello!...ello!’           

                                                                                            – W.W.

 

 

                              

                   

 

 

 

               BRICOLAGE

               He had clichés galore to live up to and live down,
               And was eager, as an in-White Englishman,
               To be seen not wanting to be seen as White,
               Thereby ending up being ignored as one.

               Only poor students, not yet schooled in lying
               Through their teeth to stay balanced on ambition’s
               Ladder entertained the ex-Cockney for his
            ‘Honesty’, for the very innocence that made him
               Open his mouth to let his story jump out
               Like an enthusiastic frog, warts and all.
               His only ambition it seemed was to play –

               With words, ideas and those academic banes,
               Feelings and their utterances

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

 

                                                     -                                                                               

 

             But does stubborn addiction stop there?   Why, the very air,
        Polluted or clean, in the garden hooks us with fear
        Of its running out, no matter how old or young we are,
        Whether we’re running on automatic shallow breaths, or
        Sitting in a yoga-pose, slowly becoming aware
        Of breath as widest fire

                                                ~

                                                                  Thus we're corrupted
        By our addiction to the garden’s purest atmosphere
        – A bald hairy notion someone choking to death would hear
        As immoral, evil and cruel, hypocritical
        Casuistical shite only scribes ‘metaphysical’
        Would dare utter in the face of a world of people with
        Harder and therefore better things to think about

                                                *

             I used to counsel one such pretentious ambitious tyke,
        ‘Stewart’, in APT’s D&G’s team.   He had taken a dislike
         To the very idea of the super-bitch Radica
         Astronomo-Kanamono, APT’s rich astonisher.

         To astonish her was Stewart’s obsession – one of many:
         Another was his comicbook-figure, Bedwet Benny;
         Yet another, Duelle – who’d fly around, without any
         Clothes on, over and through the streets of an ever-unnamed
         Metropolis, swooping down to rescue boys and girls blamed
         For crimes they had not (yet) committed, only considered

                                              ~

           She was the seed of a graphicnovel that had withered
         (But not quite shrunk) when Asian one-night-stand Lee laughed at it
         Or at how Stew told it as she was plucking at her clit
         To finish off what he had just failed to and had no qualm
         About, the selfish white-boy shit, what was wrong with these damn
         Little friggin boys?   Pretending to be grown men was what

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