Category: Uncategorized

         < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

            Locket # 34:

            Well, the speculation has started again. Almost ten years after the
            disappearance, there has been a sighting. There have been sightings before,
            mind you. This time an American visitor who went up there, all backpack
            and sandals, now swears he met Robert, the Mormon young man who went
            missing. “He’s grown a beard and he looks as bronze as the native Indians,”
            he said.

            We have Mormons in Georgetown. White shirt sleeves and tie, walking and
            working in pairs through our streets and heat. One day, one of them just
            took off and vanished.

            Somebody wrote to the newspapers suggesting Robert might have been
            “abducted” by bandits for ransom, or by aliens for research. If you think
            that was stretching things, that that sort of “abduction” couldn’t happen
            in these parts, well, at the rate things going, mind and body grinding dry
            cane, is only a matter of time. Our days getting shorter, our nights really
            dark.

            They didn’t publish a photo of Robert. Just a report he was last seen in
            the Northwest District. If he was a Georgetown boy you would hear his
            whole life story, from birthday to vanish day.

            Our local investigators were alerted. They interviewed his work companion.
            His story was, they were staying at a rest house at Mabaruma, in the
            Northwest. He woke up one morning and Robert was gone.

            He stepped outside, not sure where to start looking. He asked around, did
            anyone see him? How could someone not notice Robert’s white shirt,
            Robert’s white face?

            He heard someone’s personal belongings had been found near the river.
            When he got there he discovered they were in fact Robert’s things, his shirt,
            pants, shoes, bible, a letter with foreign stamps; arranged neatly and
            laid out on a towel held down by stones.

            Everybody supposed the young man had taken his own life by drowning.
            They couldn’t find a body.

            Everybody assumed the perai got to him.

            Perai, for anyone who don’t know, is a species of fish said to have three
            rows of teeth. Sharp as tiny sawmill blades. If a perai find you floating in
            our river, it sneaks up. It strips your flesh starting with your buttocks. A
            A family of perai could have feasted on Robert leaving only bones and
            astonishment.

            A fellow flew in from the US, saying he was a private investigator, and how
            he come her to “investigate”. In no time at all he managed to antagonise
            our police investigators.

            A prominent politician, lawyer, Comrade (and permanent rascal, if you ask
            me) got involved. Ever since the Jonestown horror camp, he said, he didn’t
            trust any “charitable” activity by foreigners. Like these Mormons, running
            a church with no church bells! Starting up a farm project when in truth
            under the canopy, talking like they care, they work to enslave the minds
            of vulnerable people. He expected action to follow his words. 

            I was surprised the boy’s parents didn’t show up, declaring this was a
            tragedy, and wondering how the head of our country could allow sonething
            like this to happen.

            The whole thing, the whole story, just fade away.

            My good friend at the police station, Sargie, who keeps me informed of
            developments, told me he knew two persons who had information about
            Robert. A mother and daughter, living on the East Bank (they were
            interested in joining the church). They were the last people to see Robert in
            Georgetown.

            The two Mormons, they said, stopped by every Wednesday. Came all the way
            to their house for a “finger food” lunch break, in this case a dish of Roti and
            Curry. And a glass of mauby. Which they could purchase anywhere, but they
            liked the home setting and preparation. (Unknown to the boys, the meal
            was prepared elsewhere and “home” delivered.)

            They remembered Robert, the quiet one, leaning over his plate to bite in,
            and reaching for a napkin. “I keep telling this girl, her life need direction.
            She should learn to concentrate like him. Find some regular activity to put
            her mind to.”

            The last time they visited, something unexpected happened. Robert asked to
            use the bathroom. There was an encounter, you could say, with the
            daughter. She was nineteen then.

            He just open the door and walk in, just like that, his fingers unbuckling.
            Which I find hard to believe. And her towel just happened to fall at the same
            time. Also hard to believe.

            I could just imagine the fight his eyes put up to stop looking. For as long as it
            takes a stranger to say Imbaimadai three times his eyes looked.

            The young woman insists, nothing happened. Caught off guard, her
            nakedness ‒ breasts, belly, thighs, loose damp hair ‒ plastered on his face,
            Robert turned into a cherry of embarrassment.

            Sometimes people does get their feelings mixed up. Important feelings like
            faith and lust suddenly flaring up in one ungodly struggle. I not saying that
            is what happened here. But one little drama does lead to one big drama.

            Personally, I don’t believe this young man is dead. I don’t believe any harm
            come to him either. All that identity stripping by the river, carefully
            arranging his personal effects so they could be recovered and returned ‒ if
            there’s logic in that, I don’t see it. Just don't see it.

            People like Robert the Mormon come into this country, they feel
            untouchable; they free to do the craziest things, things we ourselves can’t
            imagine doing.

            That display by the river was not the end. More like the beginning, if you
            ask me.

            The Northwest District, I never visited. Canal, yes, but the Northwest? with
            the steamer rising and plunging through the Atlantic all night, arriving the
            next morning? Not me and that.

            Call it my mid-Atlantic insecurity. But there’s always a first time. And
            always a good reason. So I heading out there.

            If you want to understand why, you should read “Shadows Move Among
            Them”. It’s a book by Edgar Mittelholzer.

            Apparently, Robert left a copy of this book with his things near the river.
            A stunning development, yes. The investigators must have flipped through
            the pages, looking for clues, like a suicide note or something. They probably
            just put it aside,

            I kept thinking, this young Mormon comes here, starts reading “Shadows
            Move Among Them”; then he “disappears”. Where’d he get this book? Did
            his walking buddy know about this book? Why leave this book with the rest
            of his things?

            And what did his hands grip now ‒ a field shovel? a canoe paddle? Did
            rectitude still steer his walking days? Maybe he was just hiding out. That
            young man has plenty explaining to do.

            I heard the name Mittelholzer, how he was this famous author. I’m ashamed
            to admit I never read a word he wrote. Not one word. Searching on and off
            for a copy of his book took years. I gave up at one point. I’m reading it now.

            It contains language people in Georgetown no longer find useful. Too many
            of us don’t read, never heard of Mittelholzer. And when time come to gasp
            and think, most of us fall quiet, fall in line with the tribe.

             I’m beginning to understand, though, why people feel they must
             “disappear”. At least for awhile, and not with any river drama.

             Something inside you says, you have to move! Away from conditions that
             keep you on edge all the time. Like ignorance and its cell mate ‘a little
             knowledge’; the blows people take every day, not saying anything, now
             that our morality gone with the perai.

             Believing is one thing, moving and seeing for yourself is another.

             So I heading out to the Northwest District ‒ yes, me on that steamer,
             ploughing through the choppy waters of the dark Atlantic. Mittelholzer
             style.

             No, no big plan. Just a short trip. Hoping to see for myself the forest and
             the river, the strange behaviors they say happen there sometimes.

             Human nature is human nature. Dressed or undressed, people don’t change
             much despite what they do, where they go.

             Malcolm De Abreu
             Georgetown, Guyana

  

 

  

         < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
  
            Locket # 33:

            I have a Canal District story for your readers. Happened many years ago.

            Full disclosure, right off the bat. I was born in that District, but I lived there
            only until I was five years old. I don’t remember much. In fact, I had the
            vaguest of memories of anything that happened in those years.

            I told my wife I was curious about where my life began. I wanted to see the
            land. We live in Toronto. She didn’t understand. Our son was about to enter
            university. I took him with me, my way of rewarding him for being accepted.

                 It was meant to be a short trip. I had the name of a contact person in
            Georgetown. A friend of a friend of my dad.

            He met us at the airport, Prem Ghosh. “Call me Prem,” he said quickly.

            Leather sandals, wearing a Havana style shirt, he taught at the local
            university. He said he was doing research in sugar estates in the 1930s. “My
            dad lived near a sugar estate,” I told him. “He’s writing a book about the
            old days. Maybe you two could get connected, share notes and memories.”

            He gave me a strange look. He was cautious about “sharing” anything with
            anyone. A professor from England came down once, claiming he was doing
            research in the same area. “They take your notes and disappear. Next thing
            you know, your notes turn up in an article or in one of their books,” he
            explained.

            It became evident he wasn’t too pleased with my lodging arrangements. I
            had made reservations at a Georgetown Hotel. “I know the place. Wood
            frame and Demerara windows. The colonials lived there back in the days.
            The new owner give it some fancy name ‒ luxury suites ‒ and turn it into
            a hotel.” I hope they upgraded the plumbing from the old days, I said. He
            didn’t think that funny. “I don’t know why you choose to stay in a place
            like that,” he said. Well, I’m not you, I said, then regretted saying that.
            I hear there’s a village called Westminster. Wonder what that looks like,
            I continued, sensing that humour ran the risk of causing unseen offence.
            There was an edginess in Prem.

            The following day I was off on the trip to Canal District. Prem had offered
            to take me there. Same workday leather sandals and the Havana style
            shirt. “My time is yours today.” 

            He had a plan. First, we’d stop at his workplace at the University; he would
            show me around.

            I didn’t respond with proper enthusiasm. I had no idea how long the “stop”
            would take. I didn’t know there was a campus. I didn’t feel like being
            “shown around”. I just wanted to see the District.

            I was worried, too, about my son. He decided he wasn’t coming with us.
            Less than 24 hours in the country, and he had contacted someone. A girl.
            Offering to show him around Georgetown. How, when did this happen?

            He was old enough to survive on his own, he protested. I needn’t worry.

            It took an eternity getting to the District. The road was crowded with every
            imaginable form of transport. Prem’s car had airconditioning, but he was
            “saving” it, preferring to lower the side windows and let the coastal breeze
            work.

            He waved at people he knew. He slowed to make purchases from roadside
            vendors under rickety structures. “You notice the fruit variety we have
            here?  Fresh from the farm.” We continued like this, his toes switching in
            anticipation from gas pedal to brakes.

            “There is a huge cloud hanging over this country,” he started talking. “The
            whole question of domination and resentment.” I had no idea what he
            meant. “Certain pathologies from the past have not gone away. Terrible
            things going on here, murderous things. But you know, maybe now is not
            the right time,” he stopped.

            For Prem, I realized, just listening was as good as sympathy. Right now he
            had a lot of showing to do. I had questions, not as weighty as “the whole
            question” on his mind. I stayed quiet, and adjusted my sunglasses. I let
            the scenery outside flash by ‒ coconut trees looking heroic under the sun,
            traffic heading the other way as if in flight from the murderous things
            going on.

            Eventually, off the major road, we drove down a narrow road strip, a canal
            running on one side. We stopped in front of a modest dwelling. It was the
            home of an estate worker. A man with a massive belly, his face puffy from
            comfort or medication. He seemed to be expecting us.

            Turned out Prem had arranged a meet and talk with him, followed by a
            drive around a sugar estate. It was more than I had come ready for.

            The estate drive-around didn't happen. Prem told us he had one important
            stop to make; he’d be right back. Took off and never returned.

            The Ramdins offered refreshment. The afternoon light faded fast. We
             waited.

            We talked about my parents, about people my father might have known.
            Kumti was busy in the kitchen. In his fifties, his face shiny with delight, Mr.
            Ramdin invited me to try the local beer.

            We changed conversation ‒ beer brands, a lettuce farm project he wanted
            to start, his back problem. “When he complained about his back, they sent
            him home,” Kumti looked in. “They told him not to exert himself.” Still no
            Prem.

            A phone rang. His car had broken down on the main road. He was watching
            it being repaired. He didn’t think he would get it back that day. It seemed
            we were “stranded” in Canal District.

            He asked to speak to me. Why not stay overnight at the Ramdins, he said.
            They had a spare bedroom. Not a “luxury suite”, but comfortable. His car
            should be ready for a late morning drive back to Georgetown.

            As for my son, I shouldn’t worry. He would find a way to contact the young
            man, tell him, Your Dad is okay. Spending the night with friends. He wants
            you to stay inside the hotel.

            I was puzzled by this sudden development. Had he planned for emergencies
            like this? His voice with high-pitched urgency somehow made it sound like
            a challenge. “Okay,” I told him. I’ll manage. I was adaptable.

            The bedsprings felt worn, but sheet and pillows were made ready. “Just
            make yourself comfortable,” Kumti said. “We have mosquito coil if you need.
            We eat a lot of garlic so mosquitoes don’t bother us.”

            I slept in fits and short stretches. Unusual noises woke me, a brief rain
            shower on the roof. My cell phone lit up the room and the hour. At five
            o-clock, still dark outside, I stood looking through the  glass louvre windows,
            hearing the first roosters, feeling as if another moment of lost childhood, 
            like my bare feet on the floor boards, had returned. 

            Someone appeared from behind a shed at the back. A woman, in
            nightclothes, moving unhurriedly toward the backsteps. That profile of face
            and hair. It was Kumti. That was her full head of hair, loose around her
            shoulders.

            There was a bathroom in the house, so this was no trip to an outhouse.
            Lifting the hem of her night clothes she climbed the back stairs, fully aware
            of where she was, what she was doing. I heard the kitchen door close.
            Footsteps to the bathroom. That door latched shut.

            Hardly a minute passed, I would say; enough time for me to wonder what on
            earth was going on. Then fresh movement. A young man, in short sleeves,
            short pants. Just as casually, not worried someone might be watching, he
            strolled to the front gate and disappeared on a bicycle.

            Kumti prepared a wonderful breakfast, fried fish, plantain and bread slices,
            coffee. Her voice percolated a bright morning feeling. The movements I
            happened to see through the window, phantoms slinking away in the night,
            no longer needed explanation.

            With one finger in his ear, unplugging, as if he’d been swimming all night in
            bed, her husband emerged. He asked if I slept well. “Very well,” I told him.
            Once my head touch the pillow, I out like a light, he said. “Sometimes he
            does sleep till midday, now that he not working. I have to wake him up,”
            Kumti explained.

            Did I want to take a morning shower, she asked, offering a folded towel. And
            put back on his yesterday clothes? Wha’ wrong with this woman? her
            husband said. She smiled and ignored him. I smiled my solidarity with her.

            And that was how my day and my night in Canal District ended, in that
            moment, in smiles of understanding.

            I wouldn't say I had the time of my life there. And I haven't told you
            everything.

            Prem didn’t take us back to the airport. Something must have happened, or
            maybe nothing happened. We got a driver from the hotel. He said he was
            born in Canal District. Spent his childhood there until he moved closer to
            Georgetown. Like Prem, he wore a Havana style shirt. But he drove very fast.

            I asked, Do you normally drive this fast? hoping to slow him down. “Don’t
            worry yourself. I know the road like the back of my hands. These are
            hands of a champion.”

                 My son in the back seat, head buried in his device, couldn’t care less about
            car speed. I placed my trust in his lighthearted pilot's arms, set to spot and
            dodge any recklessness approaching.

           We got to the airport without incident. Hands of a champion.

           In the years between that visit and now, a lot has happened. My son went on
           to university; did very well. His mother and I have separated. He’s all grown
           up, and engaged to a Canadian girl. Her family came from Guyana. I think
           the Canal District trip, at least the Georgetown part, helped break him out
           of his shell.

           I never asked him what happened the night he was all by himself in
           Georgetown. A young man is entitled to keep secrets from others. Certain
           transactions, like certain breath holding moments kept to oneself,
           become vital; in some cases necessary, as you grow older, now that I
           recall.

           J. Anthony
           Toronto, Canada

 

  

                
          Home from house cleaning Margarita moans ‒ skip
          the glass to ceiling sweep hours : Madre of can't forgiveness!
          wanting every part hind tight : the carrots grated right
          down to the wordless last shrivel . toss no paid up stub
          out.

          Finger subtleties aside, the core designs : when prune
          blades snip our flora even far along petal back; primrose
          bloom thanks hatless curates . wouldn't say.

                                                    Whose signature for trade
          soft wipes . what baby bottom contract? husbandry gluts
          in around bake bowls we stir.

                    As lumps test breast, longings wait . cheeks kiss
          whisper, No, no Patron! please hold . release, don’t drain
          the pool! after all the wet dressing hands resume the hill
          side taking good as ‘done’.

          Splayed out of prayer our grace tirades . me too much
          blue shifts bitchery to mean . the thread resigns the needle
          fine lines fabric slits under over :
                                                                                        *else
          war long shovels oven troubles . ankles cross palms
          spread for nails; death vans veer scat cleavage mount
          biometrics over tears.

                                              Tango, si ~ thigh churn to flatbed
          pending ~ Who are you?  momento, I come.

                                                                         – W.W.

               

           

             

   

           LESSING

           Sometimes Lessing looks at beauties and sees through
           Their layers of decisions about Beauty,
           Sees through the bluffing masks that invent that thing,
         Sees gangly angling aliens rather than sexy girls
           Floating around in their angelics of flesh,
           Lines of paint to finish their not-quite faces,
           Rags and cow-hide to mask their leaking balloons.

            (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

  

 

         If you were restless and lucky to be creatively talented in the 1960s, living in
      Georgetown, Guyana was the best of place and times. Prominent Guyanese
      writers and artists visited, or found residence there. Martin Carter on Lamaha
      Street. Donald Locke in Kitty Village. Melody, not percussion, waved the air.

      And there was the hinterland fiction of Wilson Harris, a magnet for feverish 
      imaginations. His work proved exasperatingly difficult. His language elevated
      you above triumphing daily news delivery meant for the people's enlightenment.
      On board flights of symbol to heavens discourse.

      You felt intrigued by his personal development ‒ who starts as a land surveyor
      in Guiana’s hinterland, then transforms into a serene author of difficult prose?

      You could wait till eternity, though, for clarity in his sentences. When he spoke in
      Georgetown he used the same tortuous language of his fiction and essays, sparing
      not one brief breath for audience levels of handling ideas.

      His fiction almost capsized you in its rivers of metaphors. Gradually reader
      reverence slipped away, leaving only career building scholars clinging to its
      subsurface layers. He was either an unchallengeable genius, or one hell of a
      performance artist, head sunk in his delvings into Anthropology or Carl Jung.
      Either way you understood what it meant to be truly “radical”, as in departure
      from same old blind fold.

      “Palace of the Peacock” (1960) is for many his fiction masterpiece, the way
      “A House For Mr. Biswas” (1961) is undeniably the signature work of Trinidad’s
       V.S. Naipaul, and “In The Castle Of My Skin” (1953), the high watermark from
       the Barbados author George Lamming.

       "Palace" dealt obliquely, it seemed, with Guyana’s need to discover mature
        interdependent relationships. Harris might have sensed that for a nation to
        emerge, mistrustful communities had to find ways, out of constituent
        “entanglement”, to build nets of (less leader serving) work platforms.

       In the novel, a multiracial boat crew on a Mission into Guyana’s Interior was
       constantly in conversation. They spoke disarmingly familiar Guyanese
       sentences, "Ah dream you done dead already, Jennings… And the hole close up
       for good for you a million years ago. You is a prehistoric animal”. They endorsed
       our youthful suspicions, “Every man mans and lives in his inmost ship and
       theatre and mind.”

       Harris could flip your next-door neighbour’s disposition into “the strangest face
       we’d ever seen”, inviting readers to look again, look closer: the fall marks, the
       eye lids on desire. 

       He left you battered by images, his startling depiction of crew mates, and those
       moments like lightning flash on the page when you thought you recognized
       someone you knew.

       From the 80s through the 00s, Guyana’s creative energy passed through its tribal
       identity phase ‒ the poetry of ships and sorrow, the fiction of victimhood, of
       lives tethered to the sugar belt ways ‒ enabled by favourers who promised their
       intervention would help reconstitute body and soul, make village poverty 
       embraceable.

       Interest in Harris and his rainforest excavations seemed to diminish in that
       period. One after the other his books presented more obscure, heavier slopes.
       His inventions struck some readers as “really dreaming” stuff, like the stories
       circulating back then about the possibility of oil basins off Guiana’s shores.

       Mercifully, his novels were short. You could hop and skip through “Heartland"
       (Faber 1964, 96 pgs); decide to try again, at stop and think pace. Access to
       its meanings remained restricted.

       Today ‒ with chat screens and mobile keys ‒ readers might show no interest
       in his dense spanning the globe words. Tech silence has displaced jungle
       silence.

       Packed tight, with a strange fluency of ordinary speech and wrought iron
       prose, that amazing first novel was definitely on to something about the birth
       pains of nationhood. You felt his characters were conducting a difficult but
       necessary conversation. Just not with everyone.

       What has not changed in Guyana is ‒ in the words of one character ‒ that
       "oldest need and desire for reassurance and life”, for protocols and ideals
        higher than what tribe comfort might provide.

       In “Palace” Harris was Guyana’s world standard lifter. He invokes from left to
       right an interwoven mythos as Guyana continues its growth from wary residents
       to confident citizens of a nation. Back then you took his word for it; you settled
       through his fiction for “the experience of his experience”.

       Artists and writers who stayed spiritually in touch with his work, however
       intermittently, will admit they were somehow altered. You could say he passed,
       to generations eager to move on, the dare to be difficult and different for one’s
       time.

       Traces of this daring are evident in the incredible vibrancy of that 60s generation
        ‒ in, for example, the work of Brian Chan, John Agard (poetry), Victor Davson,
        Carl Anderson, Andrew Lyght, Carl E. Hazlewood, Dudley Charles, Terence
        Roberts (art, media installations).

        Seeking individual assurance, new ideas on how to fill and chart a life, they
        stood at his gate, or wandered his Palace grounds. They experienced their own
        self-transformations, and like the great man eventually found a way in the
        world.

        From Harris they borrowed the strongest tools ‒ empathy, a fear free vision,
        an eternal Amazon resolve ‒ with which to engage the difficult intimacies our
        planet presents, and the old uncertainties its future now disperses.

        Wyck Williams
        New York, 2018

  

  

          < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

              Locket # 32: 

              My wife and I were coasting through retirement. As safe as anyone can coast
          in Georgetown. Actually she still working, but we are on a good track, heading
          to the golden bridge, three score and ten. So I thought.

          At age sixty-five, I would say your habits and expectations are set. My wife and
          I know each other very well.

          Last month she took a trip to New Jersey, USA. Staying with our oldest
          daughter. I didn’t go with her. America is a rich country. Why should I leave
          our poor country to spend precious pension dollars on vacation in New Jersey?

          I would have gone with her to Antigua. Our second daughter lives there. She
          wrote saying the place getting raggedy with immigrants.

          Since her return, my wife is a different person. Our conversation has changed.
          Now she asks, “So what you have planned for today?”

          I rarely have things planned for the day. Coasting through retirement, you
          develop routines. All of a sudden she is this “what we doing today” planner.
          She continues, “Nothing as usual? Okay, that’s alright, if you’re comfortable
          with that.”

          That part, “if you’re comfortable with that.” Where did she find those words?
          Then she steps out the house. Even when it rains.

          She came back with rain boots and a raincoat. Puts them on and steps out.
          Doesn’t say where the hell she’s going. Just, “I’m out.” You hear that? Who
          talks like that in this country?

          I can’t put up with rain and water running in our streets. Can barely tolerate
          umbrellas. I have enough to occupy my mind until the next rain-free day. Like
          reading a book. Conferring with like minds. I comfortable with that.

          Besides, stepping out on these Georgetown roads can be perilous business.

          I was raised by a stern father, with a firm hand; in a time of bicycle traffic
          and one or two bicycle thieves. Age has slowed and shortened my gait. Now I
          have to be careful crossing the road. Vehicles galore, and vehicle man 
          slaughter. There are days I wish we had a train service.

          I changed the louvre windows from our house and installed window bars. Late
          some nights my wife says she hears visitors outside. Rascals after the fruits
          in our backyard. Mangoes and guavas hanging low on the trees.

          Nothing wakes me once I put my head down. But she hears these intruders.
          She hears them and does nothing. Lets them take what they want as long as
          they remember to latch the front gate on the way out.

          Who lets people break and enter their property just like that?

          But you see, she came back from New Jersey, a new constitution written
          in her head. I ask myself every blessed day, where was this person hiding all
          this time?

          Take her clothes. I have never seen my wife completely naked. I don’t know
          why that would surprise anybody. I am not the type to grab her buttocks,
          playful like, in the bathroom.

          A little chubby from childbearing, she wears nice dresses, pulled over her
          head, zipped up. Modest and appropriate for the occasion.

          But she came back from New Jersey in skirt and blouse. Same person, but two
          sections of clothing, divided at the waist. To me it was a worrying sight.
          Something had changed.

          In and round the house in a blue denim skirt, and blue denim shorts. Her
          “casual wear”. That is how she dressing now. She changed her glasses frame,
          and puts on her "sneakers" when she stepping out. Clearly something is
          developing.

          “In life you have flavours and variations. I like variations,” she says. Really?
          Since when?

          Since New Jersey. I blame my daughter in New Jersey. I can imagine their trip
          to the malls, the mother-daughter conversations. It explains her new bedroom
          expectations, wanting a new intimacy now. Something closer than what was
          required after we got married.

          For instance, this thing about “hugging”.

          In the old days, 10 o’clock, lights off; was important to get your eight hours
          rest.

          Now this goodly lady wants hugging. Accuses me of not understanding the
          importance of hugging. Tells me I probably didn’t receive hugs as a boy. Men
          like me, with fathers like my father, didn’t get hugged enough in the old days,
          she says.

          How many times did you hug your daughters? My jaw dropped, then just close
          up.

          Who keeps count of huggings? I never heard our daughters complain once about
          hugging. They slept in safety every night. What does hugging have to do with
          anything in this country?

          Suddenly she is this fountain of wisdom on hugging. Making out like there was
          some kind of deprivation in our family, and she kept count and the hugging
          receipts all these years.

          I will say this: our daughters can play musical instruments, thanks to me
          insisting on music theory lessons. Salaries were low; we had to find ways to
          move ahead in this country. I knew the things that mattered, that pushed you
          beyond Satisfactory.

          My wife and I are nine learning years apart. Gaps sometimes make a difference,
          I know, but we have been equals all these years. Now I am beginning to sense,
          call it a little tilting of the balance.

          All these comments, this moving around in denim skirt, the shirt with the top
          button not buttoned. Clearly something has developed.

          Trying one morning, not too long ago, to get me interested in the “blue pill.”
          Shouting through the half-closed bathroom door, “When last did we, you know,
          do something?” (At least she didn’t bring back the “F” word.) Trying to sound
          like she not complaining. I didn’t flinch a muscle.

          At this stage in my life, I have no intention of going to the drugstore, like a
          schoolboy long ago wanting prophylactics, and enquiring about “the blue pill”,
          which I hear is very expensive.

          On this earth nature has put me on a healthy, regulated course. I wouldn’t
          be where I am today without my regular morning bowel movement. And now to
          be forced into an indulgence requiring the cost and colour of certain pills! (I
          will swear, though, by Cod Liver Oil tablets from the old days.)

          Let me say this: there was serenity in the old days. There was room for self-
          improvement and forward thinking back then. Everything required maintenance.
          As time moved on, we threw away the shackles, but we couldn’t find ways to
          maintain serenity. We can’t maintain anything these days; buildings, bridges,
          nothing.

         “For the rest of your life your face will stay like that. Serious as a church. You
          don’t have a face for having fun.” You hear that? High court in session. I don’t
          have a face for having fun.

          I came into the world with this face. It was my father’s face. It stood for rules,
          no excuses.

          I wore this face on fields of athletics. Athletic competition bred character,
          encouraged focus, honest endeavour. There were rules you followed, track
          markers and qualification times and disqualifications; and everybody could see
          who won fair and square.

          But thanks to people elected to high office, with small cupboards for minds,
          athletics have declined in this country. Gone to pasture, and so many false
          positives.

          I better stop here, cause the more I think about this, the more I get worked
          up. You won’t catch me dropping dead from blood clot or pressure, no sir.

          So Mrs. Home from New Jersey can carry on with the stepping out. In sneakers
          and blue denim skirt. Could be unhappy? Beyond the usual worries about this
          country, I can assure you my wife has no reason to be unhappy.

          Besides, I rest my case already. I’m not going to let one round trip ticket to New
          Jersey ‒ was not even New York. New Jersey! ‒ turn me into a grumpy old man
          who don’t understand “fun”.

          I will advance through these last years, steady as she goes. I see a long home-
          stretch avenue in front of me. Morning bowel movement, nature in thoughtful
          flow, no pill purchase necessary ‒ I comfortable with that.

          Brentford Rose
          Georgetown, Guyana

          

 

 

                                                                                                                                      
                                                                               
                                                                              "Originally,
                                                 we weren't going to leave home"
                                               – John Ashbery, "Token Resistance"

 

          Off cross market shores swapped gold : text the last chair
         EO decked on his coast swatting away fireflies curious about
         close one eye merchant glasses . bet now he'd wink. 

         Flying was whose eagle wing idea first . turn to quick
         share with someone considered a friend who woke . Ah!
                                                                                              hacking
         off hard to be heard from again.

         Panners keep dusting : man the ground pride the stand take
         the leg dog lick . tokens to where undulating cities fugle you
         know though you can’t swim . dying to raft riff the fear
         the stare of others.

         Certain something’s out there . who can wait as crinkled
         throats crow caution . what’s faith for if not to race . face
                                                                                                 slab
         nots supposed to happen | fighting chance, submit night
         sand snow day . why flavor this? last will this?
                            
                                                                                                More
         like how clocks watch . memory hands pick plucking world
         feathers; the climate of angel and tyrant vagility . seed beads
         or balls finger fondled as familiars would have you . crave
         pray Get to work! web shop sweet songs | get you some
         rest.
                                                                 – W.W.

 

              

             

                                                                                                                      
                                                                

             THIS NUDE

          of living stone, lava delayed in time,
          utters the scars of its sculptor who thinks
          what he has shaped is a figure of the world's
          pain and love of pain and worship of blood.

          But is there either world or pain except
          a man and his faith in a world outside
          the orbit of his own dreaming blood, a world
          he wants to shape with his nude’s flame, coming

          always too close not to set both ablaze?
          In terror of his own fire, the one fear,
          he locks away his nude or he smashes it,
          no matter: his nude has altered our blood.

          The sculptor minds, thinks he has kept or lost
          something but his nude’s only another
          cloud of brick shelved or scattered just as he is
          only one more dream of an avid ghost.

          Other dreams read of the nude what they will:
          how much can they ignore blood, recall ghosts?
          Dreams locked in a focus of blood can only
          breathe like frozen stone longing for new fire.

               (from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)

 

 

 

           < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

              Locket # 31:

           Friends since secondary school, Rishi and me. He was good at passing exams.
           He studied in England, and now he lives and works in Canal District. I won’t
           mention his profession, and I won’t use his real name. He has enough problems
           of his own; he doesn’t need people finding out more only to harass him.

           Few people really understand the man.

           Rishi likes fine living. He likes driving a car that purrs along on a smooth road
           surface; and dressing for dinner in a fine restaurant. These tastes he might
           have acquired in England.

           I use to tell him, if that was what matters he shouldn’t have come home. That
           style of life was impossible in the city, much less Canal District.

           He came back and he married Kavita who must have been the loveliest girl in
           Canal District at the time. Beauty Queen contestant lovely. About 5ft-6, a shy
           homemaking person, you might think at first. It’s harder now to grasp what
           else about her he appreciated.

           On occasion, like for birthdays or anniversaries, they came to Georgetown,
           and doubled up with me and my wife. We dined at a restaurant in town. It
           It gave us a chance to observe Rishi (the man in charge, expert in the finer
           things) and Kavi (her eyes and smile like diamond earrings) as a couple. 

           There’s not a wide choice of fine restaurants. I used to drive past this one
           place never thinking I might want to dine there. It had a nice paved entrance.
           I heard the prime minister dropped in sometimes and I told Rishi, thinking he
           would be impressed.

           First time we went, he found fault with everything. The spacing of tables,
           how the lighting too bright; the waiters were efficient, but didn’t know to
           respond to nods and signals. The other diners were mannerly at first, until the
           first burst of loud laughing. We discouraged our wives from looking round and
           asking, Who’s that?

           We followed Rishi; we didn’t order large portions. My wife seemed to enjoy
           spooning her dessert. Nearly embarrass me one time by declaring as we
           stepped back outside, “We should do this every weekend.”

                                                                  +

           The last time, while our wives leaned heads and whispered, Rishi told me
            about this roommate from Hong Kong he shared an apartment with when he
            was in England. The man was a book beater. Monday to Friday, nothing
            mattered but his books, the reading lamp, head bowed, scribbling notes.

           But on Saturday night he ordered in two English prostitutes. Paid them for four
           hours “work”. Had a  friend come over with beer. They watched videos on the
           television, and went off to the bedroom for intermissions of sex.

           They asked Rishi if he wanted “a piece of the action”. He would have had to
           chip in. At that time he couldn’t afford to chip in.

           He arranged to be out on Saturday nights. He said when he returned the house
           was spic and span quiet, as if nothing had happened the night before.

           “I had to admire these fellows. The discipline. How they organize the 24 hr
           day, the 7 day week. Knowing what's important for the long haul,” he said.

           We returned to our wives who asked, What you all talking about? We offered
           them the smiles of gentlemen, whose conversation, trailing off, was about
           the likelihood of some bony face bandit sticking a gun in your face; the dog
           and dog food raggedyness everywhere.

           With friends like Rishi sometimes you never sure where you stand. They go
           away, they come back; they seem to want friendship to pick up from where
           they left it off.                                   

           I must admit, years of living here has left me a little envious of fellows like
           Rishi. I know, I have to stop this comparing.

                                                              +

           We were at the cricket stadium one day. Big Test match. In the main pavilion
           alongside people with important day jobs, men with titles and impoverised
           political beliefs. Even a visiting rock musician from England was expected to
           show his face.

           I am not a huge cricket fan, but I pulled strings to get tickets. Rishi was not
           a huge cricket fan either, but this was an occasion he wouldn’t pass up.
           People must have heard about his professional work in Canal District. He was
           wondering how Georgetown respectables would greet a respectable member
           of Canal District.

           So we’re there in our seats, looking out on the grounds, Rishi not yet
           recognized. He gets up, says he's off to get something to drink. Acting like he
           knows his way around.

           When he came back I sensed a problem.

           What happened to the drinks? “They not serving anything I like.” He was grim
           faced. He checked his watch often. He took little interest in the eruption of
           cheers or groans around the ground.

           He leaned to me; he said, “There’s a man in this pavilion who is fucking my
           wife?” I asked him to repeat that. It sounded ridiculous, out of the blue
           ridiculous.

           He was standing at the bar, he said, when a fellow looked at him, looked
           away; then started talking loud enough for Rishi to hear ‒ how he know this
           woman from Canal District; how when she came to Georgetown they got
           intimate; she would grip him and scream and cry.

           How could he be sure it was Kavi? Because of certain things the man said.
           Details only her husband would know. “Besides, in the bedroom Kavi doesn’t
           scream. Muffled sounds, but she don’t scream.”

           He was staring with sullen disinterest at the playing field.

           I’d never seen him in this state. And so absolutely certain, that was the part
           that worried me. So some International Test cricket fan had found access
           ‒ was given access? ‒ to Kavi’s lips, her breast, her cave for “grip and scream”.
           Rishi didn’t know anything for a fact, but he was absolutely sure. I couldn't
           risk asking even one harmless question. Like who was this fellow doing the
           talking? what did he look like?

           It was an awkward moment, and I began to feel partly responsible. All this
           only happened because I had secured the tickets. I was only trying to impress
           him I had “connections” in the city. The man was managing his life just fine,
           and now look what happen.

           We left the cricket ground before play stopped for the day. Suspicion and
           anger, not there when we arrived, like terriers in his head.

                                                           +

           Months went by. Not a word from him. 

           My wife got a phone call one Sunday morning, we were still in bed. She kept
           breaking off to relay bits of the conversation, then continuing, O my God.

           Kavi gone back to her mother. Took her child.

           I sat up. I checked the hour. Sunday morning lust suspended; shock and sadness
           taking over the mattress, the pillows, twisting the sheets under her legs.

           Rishi beat Kavi real bad; face all puff up, real bad. Her parents threatening to
           go to the police, but Kavi telling them she didn’t want to bring Canal District
           police into their family business.

           Did Rishi use his bare hands? I wondered. He wouldn’t risk injury to his hands.

           My wife was leaning on her elbow, holding the sheet over her breasts, her eyes
           enlarged and flashing disbelief. I was supposed to respond to her eyes. Like I
           was an accomplice or something.

           “But why he do that to her?” she asked. I shook my head. Sounds terrible.
           “Wait, that’s all you have to say? Sounds terrible?”

            I wanted to shout back, Don’t start with me now. And ask back if she knew
            anything, like Kavi making private trips to Georgetown. Knew something but
            but kept quiet all this time.

            Some people here seize on situations like this to bring up their own problems. 
            I’m telling you. One thing lead to the next and before you know it, the room
            burst into flames. You hear yourself accusing certain people of having no
            conversation worth coming home for. No conversation. Just the same waist
            fattening, house budgeting, family inviting over and over; sucking the blood
            rush out of you. And at night, powder on the chest, “I told you I don’t like
            doing that!”

            Alright, I admit, Rishi beat up the wrong person. That didn’t mean she had to
            turn on me.

            I know what really going on. You see, this situation marked the end of our
            restaurant dinner outings. She feeling more, I would say, deprived, ever
            since. Keeps stalling and poking at the camoudie. That’s what I have to put
            up with now, this steady stalling and poking.

            J.Singh
            Georgetown, Guyana

 

           

          Sharp as wet shark pain starts . brakes a path pull
          over on left shoulder, nausea colluding > chill tight
          chest in time you call an ambulance, your mother.    

          Say folding you fall 'n' can’t recall : wait long thirst
          responders might scrub for the credits nesting deep
          in plaque pockets.
                           Okay! I will learn to trust strangers taking
          risks everyone else lavenders.

          Pain snaps shouldn’t bubble the body . you're expected 
          to halfcock valley through. Contouring matters ‒ the cast
          on prove point : ink tag the torso but get there even
          if thigh riders like spirits in the dark haven’t a full beam
          clue.
                       Crowd spent . route signs fade like nightmares
          of inbrowning border herds.

          Plot luck fifty faces show up under black umbrellas
          assuming it rains for the will turn dust release; rush
          come to shovel . your down stare renters may have pushier
          plans | such priceless subparting . no no lower.

          In bed goings gone side stay . stones with you head
          lay; make sure to register how earth wipes its steel
          on sleeve tears, particles redeeming.

                                                         Pedestrians might jump
          rail we have an agreement . highwire up, horn brass 
          ziggedy net you back on line next day.

                                                                 – W.W.

 

                 

                

 

                 
    

              CERTAINTY 

              A shadow on a ceiling might be a stain
                of leaked rain, or a gouge or gnarl. To know
                  which one it is, you must touch the spot.

             A tiny fly on a windowpane can seem
               a distant bird in the sky, or the bird
                 a mite in the corner of your eye.

             (Those are logic’s old-wives’ tale-brakes) But the perched
               bird becoming one with my blood’s pulse is
                 beyond all either-or-boths, within

             no dent-or-bump, far-or-near, wild-or-tame game,
               no watchful-or-blind, nervous-or-calm cage.
                 When our one bloodstream again divides,

             he flies off, his unity-work done, and three
               of his brothers propose a trinity
                 of pointed perch in a tree of Spring.

            These witnesses, once witnessed, also move on,
               leaving a quartet of guardians to watch
                 over their bird-man attending to

            his closest gods. (But that’s a real true story.)

                (from “Nor Like An Addict Would” © by Brian Chan)  

                       

 

         < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

            Locket # 30:

            Stay with me with this.

            They sent me to Canal District to interview an old lady, said to be the oldest
            living person in the District. Mrs. DeGroot.

            At first, she wasn’t very cooperative. She didn’t read our newspaper. She
            heard standards had fallen from back in her days. They published stories
            about our villages making them look like nice “havens”, with pictures of
            half-naked children “who should be in school”, instead they fishing in streams
            or swinging in old tree tyres.

            I had to be patient with her.

            She told me she was born in Essequibo, not Canal District. She spent most of
            her life there before moving eventually to be close to her daughter. If I
            wanted a good story I should go to Essequibo, to the village of Vlaaderen.

            There used to be a plantation there, Plantation Vlaaderen. I should look for
            a Silk Cotton tree. It should still be standing. Ask for Pastor Gravesande’s
            church. It was built years back by Pastor Gravesande. It might still be there.

            The newspaper editor was annoyed I came back with nothing. Almost fired
            me. I told him I wasn't a fairy tale teller. Maybe we could do something
            different and better, like a research article. About an old Dutch plantation,
            an old church, a pastor named Gravesande. The old lady was the longest living
            church member. He dismissed the idea.

            That weekend I went to the library, read as much as I could find about old
            Dutch plantations. The following weekend I traveled to Essequibo. It was my
            first journey so far outside Georgetown.

            Nobody on the ferry stelling knew about the church, but I found the silk
            cotton tree. I reasoned the church was somewhere nearby, so I wandered
            around until I came across a crumbling structure that might have been a
            church.

            Weeds and overgrown grass everywhere, and what looked like a narrow stony
            path to the church door.

            I took pictures of the cotton tree and the old building.

            The next time I was in Canal District ‒ they sent me there to find another
            village named Fairfield, waiting for fairy tale; with more coconut trees than
            the dozen or so families living there ‒ I stopped by the old lady. “Eh eh, you
            again.”

            I whipped out the phone and showed her the pictures. She got very excited
            and really opened up. One long story, a little family drama. I saved it all in
            my head.

            So here’s a short version of what Mrs. DeGroot now residing in Canal District
            told me about Pastor Gravesande and his church.

                                                              *

            Starting with this fellow from Holland ‒ the old lady doesn’t remember his
            name ‒ who shows up on the Essequibo coast, this is some time back in the
            70s, asking the whereabouts of a Gravesande family. The only Gravesande in
            the area lived with his wife just past the silk cotton tree.

            He finds the man, informs him he had come all this way with wonderful news

            His great great grandfather died long ago, he said, and left a small fortune
            and a Bible, with instructions that some of it should go to the Gravesandes in
            Guiana. It seemed an eccentric request. It was ignored for generations. But
            he was here now to fulfill the request.

            Mr. Gravesande should use the first installment of money to build a church
            and establish the word of God, through faith and good deeds among the
            villagers.

            This is how, with no further questions, Mr. Gravesande accepted his
            “inheritance”, built his church and became Pastor Gravesande. He called it
            the paradise on earth.

            People were mystified at first. The bush clearing, then out of nowhere a 
            simple timber structure going up; a roof, three concrete front steps, a side
            entrance, windows; inside benches like pews.

            The church had no choir. Pastor Gravesande led the gathering in clapping
            happy songs. He hired a man, Mr. Josiah, to put up a fence, keep the grass
            trimmed, do building repairs.

            The doors were open during the week in case anyone wanted to come in and
            “talk”, in silence to the Lord or to the pastor, about anything. Mostly mothers
            dropped by, now and then young people sent by their parents.

            He read a great deal, mainly the Bible. He used it like a prescription book. He
            listened to you, then he opened the Bible and found a passage which he
            applied like answers to your worries. No beardman prophecy pointing at the
            world. He became their day to day life fortifier.

            “He showed me answers in the Book of Psalms,” Mrs. DeGroot said. “The
              mischief they cause shall return on their heads. Psalms 7-16.”

             He had these gatherings for celebration, like birthdays or holidays. If the
             weather was fine they’d set up a table outside. People brought cakes, home-
             made drinks, fruits. It was a picnic atmosphere, the children running around,
             called after and given warnings. The men who came played dominos and
             wanted the pastor to send for a little alcohol.

             The Dutchman came back and was surprised at what he saw. The building,
             the front lawn; but no Lutheran Church name, no steeple. He was impressed
             with the open door consultation, and the Pastor Gravesande’s knowledge
             of the Bible.

             And though he couldn’t stay to observe a Sunday service, he released the
             second half of the Gravesande inheritance, and encouraged the pastor to
             keep spreading God’s word.

             And for the next twenty years the pastor did exactly that.

             "I used to admire his children,” Mrs. DeGroot said. “When they were young,
             he had them sitting in the front row, well-dressed, quiet and obedient. Their
             mother always close by, smiling and greeting everyone."

             Pastor G was not bad father, she said. A hard man to please, yes, but he kept
             them in line, the three boys and the girl.

             Bound to the paradise, they came straight home from school, didn’t wander
             around the village. He made them feel different from other children. He
             taught them how to measure a day’s work

             And by way of grounding their minds he made them pay attention to
             everything in the paradise, every plant, insect, fruit; every illness and cure;
             every tree leaf and natural occurrence. If there was no name for it, he 
             identified the behavior and made a label for it.

             Where are they now? “They all moved away. The girl went to Surinam, met
             some fellow who took her to Holland. She’s doing okay. The boys in the
             United States. They came back to take their mother away.”

             She was disappointed, she said, how the children cast aside their father.

             Cast aside? I was wondering at what stage the children would realize there
             were horizons beyond the paradise. Was there a point the lids started rattling
             on the pots?

             So they came back for the mother. Did she ask them to take her away?

             It seems the pastor had a stroke. Then he announced the stroke was over.
             He tried to carry on but he was not the same man.

             Gaunt and irritable he refused to accept what was happening to him,
             insisting he could manage on his own. And spreading word now that the
             Dutchman who came to him years ago was sent by God.

             Bit by bit church activity faltered, then fell away. The bush and vegetation
             held at bay all these years crept forward. People claiming they knew the
             parson before the church business denounced him as a smartman, who only
             there robbing people of precious time.

             The children came back to bury him, all grown up, with children of their own.
             “If you search at the back of the old building you might find his gravestone,”
             Mrs. DeGroot said.

             I had no intention of going back to Vlaaderen.

             I know we can’t choose the paradise we’re born into. I keep wondering what
             it felt like growing up there; what path the children followed out of the
             paradise; what knowledge they took with them on their flight; how it feels
             being elsewhere.

             Paul Peters
             Georgetown, Guyana