Category: Uncategorized

POEMS FOR INFANT REPUBLICS (& NURSERY LIMES)

 

 

                                                                                 for Carroll M. & Joseph P.

                While shepherds watch, what choice? what chance?
                our grounded brown black flock: dreaming
                of pastured futures; weary
                of crabgrass from the past.

                The Skipper, we tried, all cricket-sweatered; the cracked field
                strips not level;
                plus now the roster's not for gentlemen at play.

                The Captain recaps those first tossed ocean renting
                timber ships; bulked labour in irons below, the stomach turns
                anchoring here.

                The Chief spreads fear of fat bricks and lying rumps; dogs in cartridge
                garlands, must wear shades; plus natty public servants plotting
                panty raids.

                The President, Prime Minister? skull caps for Trust me,
                I studied overseas! They talk bowl smooth like stool
                softener, making life so easy to pass.

                The Boss – dem fellas ride hard, boy! overseeing
                what we do with warning cuss and stop watch; can't
                catch a quick break with doudou.

                No, no don't mention the King, and don't try the gender thing;
                yes, Auntie K and Sister P
                folk friendly and carnival is we ting.

                O, the Shaman – well, hear nuh,
                this writer chap camped out in the forest with that
                to feasibly survey; he came out hearing voices, grabbed wing
                for doctors mapping ghost trails faraway. 

                Our last big shot > the space ship > crop circles
                in the sugar cane fields: when it land spindly-legged
                fellas, tendril
                arms wave wide, will appear offering work and party.
               
                Call them what you will, come along;
                and roll out red carpet today;
                and smile,
                'cause if they fancy they might promise lift up & away.
                                                                        – W.W.

                        


 

                         NOTIONS OF A NATION

                         A Problem somehow to be solved
                         by our achieving a Consensus
                         then turning back to our unsolved lives.

                         A Future we cannot afford
                         not to invest in, lest our children
                         curse us for leaving them less than heaven.

                         A tribe we must worry about
                         before it's Too Late and it breaks up
                         and we're left wandering in a desert.

                         Strands of rock and river and road
                         woven slack by the keepers of light
                         that confounds the terms of earnest men.

                              (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan) 

              

                
                         

 

 


NY SLIDE XXXV: CHINESE POT LUCK

 

      On Friday evenings Amarelle would urge him to take her out to dinner. They'd  
    gone out twice before, crossing a bridge into Manhattan and dining at a Greek
    restaurant. She smiled and made small talk, commenting on the decor and
    overdoing her excitement when the waiter took their order; while Radix, quiet
   and stiff, looked around and wondered what was no longer appealing about dining
    at home as they did on the island.
         When he stopped their eating out evenings – the one weeknight of dressing
    up, getting away from the decrepit neighborhood and dining like people with
    money to spend – Amarelle never forgave him. Now on Fridays there would be
    for him only "pot luck". And this evening she hadn't even come home from work!
         There was a Chinese Takeout on the next block.
         He stood on the stoop, buttoning his jacket, and he stared across the road
    where hours before someone had been killed. Strips of yellow police tape left
    behind flapped about on the sidewalk. A little girl emerged from the bodega
    with a bag of groceries. The Budweiser neon sign glowed and promised fun.
         At the Chinese Takeout the woman took his order without looking at him.
    Numbah 34, right? He hesitated; he changed his order, wanting something
    simpler. Okay, you want Numbah 35? She seemed eager to take his order, get
    it bagged, take his money; her eyes were cast down, her hands busy with
    detail behind the counter. And behind her – wearing their white chef hats and
    labouring over steaming bowls and pans – her Chinese helpers.
        He stood still looking out at the streets, arms folded, pondering the price of
    existence out there. The Chinese shop was next to a supermarket, and adjacent
    to a place for cashing checks. On the other side of the street, a towering
    apartment building, through whose glass doors a steady stream flowed – children
    babies in strollers, overweight women.
        Two young men came in and instantly swept aside his reflective mood. They looked
    at Radix, at his clothes, his shoes, all in one quick measuring motion; then they
    looked away. They came up to the plexiglass partition and rapped hard with knuckles.
    The Chinese woman looked up from her counter in terror; she pulled a pencil from her
    hair and waited.
        "Numbah 36!" The Chinese woman repeated the order just to be sure. "Didn't I
    just say that?… Wha's the matter…you fucking deaf?…Didn't I just say Numbah 36?
    That's what I want…and a side of fries. I don't know what this chump here wants."
    And his friend – bulky, babyfaced, wearing a bubble jacket – grabbed him and tried to
    put his head in an arm lock for calling him a chump.
                    (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
 

      

NY SLIDE XXXIV: THE SUPER’S DOWN

         

   When finally he got back home there were police cars and an ambulance in
      front the apartment building across the street, and knots of people on the
      sidewalk. What was going on?
        Someone shot the Super of the building. Put a bullet through his head. How
      did this happen? When did it happen?
         The two overweight women didn't recognize him in his jacket and brief case;
      they shrugged their shoulders. He didn't speak Spanish well, and he appeared
      to creep up on the women, startling them. Like everyone they waited for some
      sort of closure to the excitement; the dead man taken away; the police cars
      and ambulance driving off; the apartment building with its graffiti and broken
      doorway handed back to its occupants.
        When did this happen? Radix asked again. The women shrugged their shoulders
      again, shifting their heavy bodies. Hey, I live on this block too, he wanted to
      shout.
        He had an urge next to see the dead man's body. He remembered vaguely a
      stocky man with a cigar stump in his mouth and a bunch of keys at the hip,
      going in and out the front door with a mop and pail; and arguing, always
      arguing, in defiance or defence, with tenants in the building.
         He crossed the road, ducked under the yellow police tape and peered into
      the entrance. He saw a covered body, just the shoes and socks on the man's
      feet. White men in dark suits stood around; they turned and looked at him,
      struck by the jacket and tie, the intense curious face. They asked what he
      wanted, did he live in the building. Radix shook his head and backed away.
         Down the block four kids were playing street basketball; the hoop, an old
      milk crate nailed to a lamppost. Two police officers, no longer needed,
      ambled back to their cars, smooth white faces grim. They had the air about
      them of men called in to put down some local disturbance, leaving their cars
      up on the sidewalk, just about anywhere until this nasty business was over.
         The basketball got loose and one of the officers caught it, did a quick
      dribble, then shaped himself to take the shot. The boys froze where they
      stood and watched. The shot hit the rim and went wide. His partner cracked
      a thin smile and shook his head like a disappointed coach. Radix went inside.
                       (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

POEMS FOR YOUNG LOVE BROWSING SIGNS UP THERE

 

                                                                                                                 for Jean-Ann F-R

 

                          Heard from a young man the other day: about his girl,
                    Savitri, and her aurora moment: she walks into a store,
                    the Bazaar Bombay (no, in Georgetown's Regent Street)
                    intent on buying some lovelaced wispy thing to cache
                    his eye in her green heart's bursting folder.

                    Back among the bolts of blue, the layers of crimson spangles: a bony
                    neckless face, earrings of metal, eye wells of abeer, cries Holi,
                    Holi. She flees the store into midday streets stuttering from heat,
                    straight to his front door, his couch; stripped speechless –
                    what just happened?

                    Limb tinder twined for fires that curve and calm the eyes
                    stared at the ceiling as the mystery spread. He worked,
                    a drill shift, vowed to root all spirits unsummoned out; spike
                    & beam a faith up down like girders for their love.

                    After she'd gone, he logged, he said, on to a soccer match:
                    ballers at London's Wembley Stadium, after halftime; trotting
                    back on the field: making signs of the cross,
                    pointing to the sky, touching the ground:

                    So sure someone is watching…that cruising satellite
                    eye, or, after the first star ignited, the undivided
                    One in front a galactic plasma screen, Chair
                    of the grand design – from microbe to first breath. 

                    The Bombay girl? seems now she knows – the first
                    communion saved – how longings interned hold and surge;
                    what profiles sleepless roam the earth. With navel bare
                    come March she'll spray coloured water powders flowers
                    of shielding; she'll chant to chase shadows & shudders
                                                                                 of lingam away.

                    Did what?…her young man see the light…nah..
                    stopped playing the field, though.
                                                                                                – W.W.

 

 

 

 

                 

 

 

 

 


                                       RECOGNITIONS

                    Scraps of the soul drifting over the river of my eye,
                       each on his or her angled way of essential
                           forgetting of the threads linking us all,
                              shred my heart into sparks of fear

                      and of joy that leap with the finding, and fade with the loss
                        of links frayed by the tension off seeing too well,
                          the impulse of recognition staggered
                             by a relentless remembering

                     both the finest stitch and the most ruthless unravelling
                         of a quilt still spreading, impossible to check
                            whose patches of light are too brief to be
                               held and too sharp to be ignored.
                                                           (from "Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)      

 

 

              
              

 

          

             
                 

            

NY SLIDE XXXIII: ROAD RAGE

 

          He felt first the surprise of impact; he saw the head of the driver snap back,
     his hands raised in the air a little theatrically. The lanes beside his kept moving;
     vehicles behind him tried to manoeuvre out of his lane, honking in frustration at
     what his apparent carelessness had caused.
         The driver approaching him wore a baseball cap and sneakers; his shirt was
     unbuttoned; he seemed not to mind the cold temperature; he had a beer
     drinker's belly and a very annoyed manner. Radix watched him, ready to admit
     it was all his fault, waiting for the first indication of how the matter would be
     resolved.
        He sensed someone else watching: across the road, standing on the cracked
     asphalt, a man and a ferocious looking dog. He was dressed in a grey sweat suit;
     his face under the hood looked grizzled, gaunt. His dog sniffed the grass and
     tugged at the leash, wanting to move on; but the man wasn't ready. Radix caught
     his eye, felt his anticipation of something dramatic about to happen.
        Meanwhile the driver had inspected his rear bumper which looked dented but
     was otherwise intact. Radix' vehicle had gotten the worse of it, a smashed head-
     lamp; and as he tried to gauge the extent of the damage the man raised his arms
     in a gesture of disbelief and anger.
         He came up to Radix, "What the fuck?"… staring, waiting…"What the fuck?";
     then he walked back to the front of his car and reached inside, for a cigarette
     pack.
         Though not threatening this behavior left Radix uneasy.The man lit his
     cigarette and with his arms bracing the car appeared to be pondering his
     options. At intervals he said "Shit" with strange vehemence, as if building up
     emotional steam. He seemed to be waiting for Radix to say something, and
     Radix knew that the tone and choice of his first words would determine what
     happened next.
          He glanced at the man with the dog across the street. He could feel the man's
     knowingness, his amused appraisal: Like fish out of water… Don't know what 
     the fuck you're doing, right fella?  He looked back down the road, at miles of
     backed up traffic. People driving by gave him quick looks of fury. A wind gust
     sent dust in his face.
        A woman's voice from the man's car, screamng "For chrissakes, Angelo, shut 
     the door!" shifted his attention from Radix. He answered her in Spanish. They
     had a fierce rapid exchange, the accident forgotten for the moment; then the
     woman got out and came around to inspect the damage.
         She moved briskly as if accustomed to taking charge in mishaps like this, when
    her man wasn't sure what to do; and she smiled at Radix and commiserated, "Hey,
    it's not so bad…could have  been worse." Then in a firm tone she said, "Get in
    the car, Angelo,"  annoyed, muttering  "…the fuck outta here."
         Angelo came back to inspect his bumper one more time. He pointed and shook
     an unhappy finger at Radix: "You better learn how to fucking drive!" And with
     that the matter was settled – the man getting into his vehicle, moving off with
     sharp loud revs, daring anyone to hit his car again.
                                                (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

  

NY SLIDE XXXII: ROADWAYS HIGH AND LOW

 

           Approaching his car Radix noticed a tiny pool of what looked like…what was
    most certainly…green engine coolant fluid near the front tires. Panic with tiny
    fingers gripped his heart. He bent down to inspect the fluid. How could he        
    be sure it came from his car?
        He got in and turned the ignition. The car started after the third try but the
    engine shuddered and rattled ominously. At the second traffic light, with the
    interior warming up and everything else sounding normal, his anxiety faded. He
    drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked out at a city heading
    home under grey skies.
        On the overpass he looked down and saw four lanes of traffic jammed up on
    the highway, stretching for miles, crawling forward. He'd have to go down there;
    he'd have to ease his way into that crawl. There were alternative routes but he'd
    never taken the time to explore them, knowing only one road home; hating
    roadways, the time-consuming need to travel on them; drivers who showed no
    concern for human limb and life.
        At the access road to the highway other drivers were having second thoughts.
    One fellow, already half way down, threw his car in reverse and came barelling
    back, the driver's head craned round, he didn't give a fuck what anyone thought
    as long as you got out his way.
         Radix decided to stick to the local roadway. It ran parallel to the highway
    until the highway went up and above ground and ran for a mile or so on concrete
    reinforcements, offering the convenience of not having to pass through local
    communities.
         But the roadway, an uneven strip, its lanes not clearly marked, soon backed
    up; traffic lights at intersections up ahead kept changing, from red to green
    then back to red for long minutes. Yet nothing moved. He began to regret not
    taking the highway which he could see above him, cars moving slowly, but
    moving; there was flow up there, and order; no bumper poking and jostling for
    space. The cars up there seemed… and before he could finish that thought his
    car struck the rear end of the vehicle in front.
                                        (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
 

POEMS FOR SUMMERS GONE (& LEGENDS FADING)

 

                 
               They came to the city park – the heat that windless day,
               browning up the grass! – to hear the grandmaster sing
               kaisos up from the islands. Was heritage week. Round
               the bandstand home hungers blazing, sun spot powdered
               body pasts chafing, people shaking hip in half
                                                                             a moon of devotion.

               "But why he sitting down to sing?"  "He getting old, you know."
               "And where he party clothes?"  "He getting on, you know."
               "And why words dropping out from that song? I getting old,
                       I remember every word from that song."

               When he wobbled or he fluffed, the horn crew grinding stopped
               to pick him up, didn't miss a beat, thank God
                        for  lay lay, lay lay, aie aie, aie aie
                       and  pim pim, pim pim, bambamyuhbumbum.

               Booming the master of ceremonies asked over and over,
               Areyuhready?  And once:
                   Any driver who park their car inside the park
                       better move their car outside the park
                           rightaway   is a NYCity violation   Are you ready?

               Off at the tree shaded south end this road torqued woman,
               her life close by in swollen plastic bags, slept through
               like yorkie on rug; till the anchor line. How you jammin'
               so. She jump up, rub she eyes, look 'round,
               then start one wining bad beside she self.

               Scattered on the fringe los verdes ramas, unlucky to be hired
               that day, pulled down dream hiding baseball caps
               and watched. The sound system pounded
               their haze, with treats seasoned for fiestas, and tricks
               like wrapped hot burritos for the route-crossing soccer ball.

               Inside the high fenced basketball court the rim rattled
               & rang from misses; black sweat gleaming torsos huddled
               feinted, twisted through reverbs & scrimmage, raked
               back, then, with drummers'  wrist, swished for the rain withholding sky.
                                                                                                           – W.W.


               THE CANADIAN OCTOBER TREE

               in this lobby knows
               no season but a standardised summer
               to oblige with greenish branches. Only
               a few leaves puzzled
               by the tree's seed-memory of autumn
               have drained their colour. A few others, less
               unsure (more faithful)

               have already leapt
               down into their new status of rug-stain.
               But the tree, a mother by now resigned
               to her solitude
               of an eternity in soil without
               depth, stands well-clad still, saving nature's face,
               if not her full fire.
                               (from "Gift of Screws" by Brian Chan)

                                  

 

NY SLIDE XXXI: NEW RECRUITS

 

 

            Back outside the payroll secretary's office – now crowded with teachers scurrying
      about or holding one-on-one conversations – Radix discovered two more new recruits,
      two women, arms folded, faces sullen. They had chosen not to wander around; they sat
      with their feet tucked in so as not to be in the way of teachers already appointed and
      with things to do.
            They saw Radix who looked adrift and miserable, and they concluded correctly that
      he was one of them; sent by the Board, ignored by everyone around, awaiting someone's
      approbation.  The older woman lit up a cigarette and shook her head sadly, indignantly.
      Radix informed them he too had been told to wait.
          "I'm a transfer," the older woman said. "You'd think they'd have my name on some
      separate transfer list. I don't understand why I'm being treated this way." 
          The other woman, about twenty five, her hair cut short, her blue eyes at that moment
      bright but confused said, "It's been like this since I applied…terrible!…The Board treats
     you like shit…I get here, and that secretary lady, that little horse face…bitch…in there..
     treats me this way."
            The older one, speaking like a veteran of many encounters with principals and payroll
       secretaries, whispered harshly, "I'll tell you what's going on here. They don't like new
       people…they just…don't…like…new people coming in."
           "I didn't ask them to send me here," the young one pleaded. "I wanted a school in Man-
       hattan. I live in Manhattan. Instead they send me all the way out here."
           The older one gripped and pulled hard on her cigarette. The skin on her wrist was
       mottled the veins green and bulging. Her face looked tired, ravaged; but her body was
       trim and shapely. Sometimes unconsciously she smoothed her stomach and let her hands
       slide up and down her thighs.
           Radix stood nearby and listened, holding himself apart; not yet ready to enter what
       seemed an outpouring of justifiable anger.
           As it turned out the younger woman was sent back to the Board. The older woman
       was asked to stay on. Her name was Mrs. Turkles. Radix would hear that name on the
       school's address system being told, with some irritation in the speaker's voice, to report
       to her class.
           They met infrequently, but whenever she saw him in the hallway she'd buttonhole
       him, forgetting for the moment where she was going; and with a stricken face she'd
      explain what a miserable time she was having at the school.
           She'd stand looking up in his face, blocking out hallway clamour. Her new boss, she
       told him, leaning forward, bringing her lips close to his ear, was an egregious asshole;
      he showed no respect for the years she'd put into the system. One day she pulled him
      aside by the arm and said, "Look at me! What am I doing here? I have no life." Then she
     dragged herself away, looking back over her shoulder at him.
                                            (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
       

NY SLIDE XXX: REPORTING FOR DUTY

          Until he found the side entrance through which he'd exit Radix was not prepared for a
      structure that occupied almost an entire block. He drove around its perimeter looking for a
      parking spot, thinking naively there must be space to park somewhere near the building. He
      had to park two blocks away then walk back, around the black iron railings, until he found
      the front entrance.
           He was struck by the austere towering architecture of the school. It looked like a fortress,
     solid, sprawling, built to withstand centuries of seasonal and student depredations; like some
     quaint structure out of Europe dedicated to the pursuit of ecclesiastical studies. He imagined a
     Latin-teaching instructor standing at the front entrance in 1935, the year the school was
     constructed, ushering students inside and admonishing everyone to be quiet.
         But there was the American flag hanging on the silver flagpole; and on the door, graffiti
    loops and squiggles, as if some crew of angry locals had struck the night before.
         He'd been told to report to the school's payroll secretary. She greeted him with narrow
    squinty eyes, her mouth half-open in surprise and suspicion, as if she was also the armed
    guard of the teachers' payroll.
        She told him she didn't think there was a position for him at John Wayne Cotter H.S. She
    averted her eyes, her fingers shuffled the paperwork on her desk; and with fast dwindling
    patience she said, yes, she understood the Board of Education had sent him here; and, yes,
    his paperwork seemed in order; but things were kind of hectic at the moment; he'd just have
    to wait until she got it all sorted out.
        Radix left her tiny office and wandered around on the first floor. He peered into empty
    classrooms; he wondered what the faded words PHYSICS RECITATION on one door meant.
    There were desks in orderly rows screwed onto the floor, and the blackboards had a washed
    surface gleam he would never again see once classes started.
        He came across a display board of alumni, dating back to the 1950s, with names like Tatle
    and Leibowitz, Burghardt and Terpening, all winners of awards for "Good Citizenship" and
    "Superior Scholarship". Some time in the 1980s they'd stopped inscribing names.  A Jasmine
    Maldonado and a Baljit Singh came through and won awards in 1986.
               (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
   


POEMS FOR NATION HORSES (SHOW & WORK)

 

                                                                            "In paradise all clocks refuse to chime
                                                                    for fear they might, in striking, disturb the peace." 
                                                                                      – Joseph Brodsky, "Lullaby of Cape Cod"

 

 

                       
                   Not yet a nation, worried what other nations might think,
                   we send show horses off to the world, our more or less
                   refined. One stand out steed, tasseled & pimp referenced
                   for you're Ok awards (a player who tenantlike knows them, look
                   how he bouncing with pedigree!) through shires, rows of trees
                   will bear the standard: our forked up best from bush lots of aspire. So,

                   you guys, harnessed at home, lucky if working,
                   best stop complaining; some day the wild coast fevers, wounds
                   stitched up for now, will squish death creeping. Don't sweat
                   our stadium amps & champs; and, look, kites commissioned for the sky!
                   They do declare our borders, shores (the sluices open wide)
                   can handle business runnings (private vice on the side.)

                   Our cropped over State's from Empire…godfactors…the numbers
                   to rule and so forth…What?
                   for a breaking volcano? an island beach? swop our waterfalls?
                   …surely you joke. Seal off
                   the cynics, sphincters for weary elitist viral lies. Like the forest
                   green we screen playactors by appointment and party ties. 

                   (Yo! terraqueous furies, our nemesis; cart wheels of progress, the field.
                   The game's for left right bipeds in dressage and dray. Ph.drivers wanted.)

                   You watch, the stream of faithless, pipered rats en route to rivers
                   will make a U turn, haul deliverance through Arrival days.
                   Till then, home rules apply:
                                                            cheek by bowl, vices hide;
                                                              ground fast looming, pull up, tribe!
                   (Yo, comrade! want not what you need not.
                   The force is not with you. Abide.)                         
                                                                                           -W.W.

 

                       NOTIONS FOR A NATION

                       A space other than the room we
                       are sitting in, talking about the
                       Other we will never be but are.

                       A club we are dying to join
                       for which we must produce credentials
                       impossible by our own standards.

                       A Promise whose spirit of Real
                       Estate keeps trickling out our fingers
                       to wrap itself round our hands and feet.

                       A land stolen from other tribes
                       we give some back to so they'll have no
                       excuse for not cleaning up their act…

                       ……………………………………..
                        (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)