FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

                                                               
                                             "You've got to see what mileage 
                                               people can get from the word human."
                                                                – Julio Cortázar,  Hopscotch (1966)                                                                         

                                                                                                   

        In line at airport Customs the young woman turned
        to the man behind her | she shrugged; the man was rose
        plant burning.        

        ü Once you’re stuck with the bloody label might 
        as well carry on, the man said; business class expects.
        So pathetic, asked to prove you are not here to comfort
        upper lip. ‘Though I could demonstrate a thing
        or two, how really stiff mates do’ | sheet spread alert,
        near perimeter wires coyote spotted.

      “The dead are so many. And they are everywhere …  
        A son found lying with his hands folded beneath
        his cheek. A woman’s corpse covered only by 
        a nightgown”  - LA Times . Ukraine Report . 04/21/22

                                                      ~                                                                 

        ü Once I saw a body with machete wounds . quiet so
         blood reigning over under | the nurse inside me ran
         away. I was fourteen. The coroner counted like 25 chops.
         Growing up I watched street carnival bands till brave
         enough I played Desperados. I want to visit Panama;
         see the Canal my great-grandfather help build.

                               / Guide ropes shuffle souls loop steps 
         distãncing. Fresh off which island flight?  they push
         sometimes you brace.
                                      Misgivings on cricket wing pick
         over passport fields. Clearance stamped, seas parting
         off you take, begin your labors.

                   / Where’d you learn to shoot like that? gets
         you notice quick. More waves than you they have
         not seen . Sunday Mondays tossing; mainstay gone.

                                                              – W.W.

 

 

         

         

 

 

 

           BUD MOLSON'S WHITE DUNCE CAP

           In this small town of a big city, you do not have
           to walk far before you run into an ex-farmboy
           willing to share with you gems of proud redneckery
           brilliant like the beers you two will be polishing off.

           You used to think Redneck was a Bad Word like Honky 
           or Nigger. But Bud Molson waves inbred biases
           and stillborn but still spastic pretentious shibboleths
           like flags, astonishing for their ragged innocence

           – innocence a warp of courage spawned by sheer terror 
           in the face of any hint of liberal nuance
           or other discrimination (another Bad Word)
           inconvenient to the rough Gentleman’s Agreement

           that life’s a Thing as stone-set as silence’s Enough!
           that thought-things be kept pressed flat

            ……………………………………………………..

                (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

       

 

         
       In that masked way i would manage to midwife the birth, out
       Of hard-nosed ‘mothers’, of a few left-field ‘home truths’ they might
       Consider taking seriously, and even using
         – Mine was a business of un-addicting people from one
       Stubborn habit, then re-addicting them to another
       – An addictive angle of my own

                                                       Call it my strongest
       Weakness:   it protected me and made me a living, but
       Its false finalism more and more depressed me, until,
       Fearing madness or some other cancer, i quit the game

                                                 ~

          Now, facing the back of a former freak’s head, i shivered
       With relief when – Where to? – my cab-driver-with-a-number
       Mumbled, so that i could tell him the name of my hotel,
       A 3-star joint with yours-to-discover fuck-you desk-staff 
       Who seemed bent on proving i wasn't just Black but black scum
       For having chosen to stay there    

       Raimonde snorted his disgust but drove me there anyhow,  
       Passing the girl with the green ball, now bouncing it outside
       A Lebanese restaurant.
                                          There, the next day, i’d eat lunch
       At a table beside a sidewalk window with a hole
       In its glass which the restaurateur had decided not
       To replace, instead putting a polished wood-frame around
       The hole – To remind people of the hole they be live in –
         He told me

           (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)

 

 

        
         \ This is Rishi again. Rishi ? from Suddie,1992.
         Now is the year 2022. For all I care in Suddie
         this could be 1922.

             \ The work load at the mortuary – flesh ‘n’ bone 
         once loved, no longer needed – still too much. 

         Advantage is being taken of me. Duty face must serve   
         say nothing Duty.

         I would be called upon, Day and Night, to transport 
         the dead; bathe and stitch the dead; space^find deposit
         said dead in freezer. To ask what more ? these hands.

                                            *

         Only the other day another dead slip out my gloves  
         and fall, under the strain of moving her | get readying,
         no local mind less curious – how far from home
         sweet give ‘n’ take stretch.

         The money paid for being here all these years still 
         too little. There is clear indication I all alone this
         bridge can’t bear . all this nakedness crossing.

             \ The supervisor chap who drives the hearse still here   
         adding . insult to energy. People still believe he’s a good
         man.

                \ Just letting you know . I plan to rectify this situation, 
         with help from the dead. Planning for all o’ them, you
         watch ! Rishi from Suddie . patience tested under
         separate equal ground soon.

                                                                     – W.W.

 

                 

           

             

             

 

 

             THE WAY

          2.         

             Push it – and there is no ahead;
             pull it back – there is no behind.
             Lift it – and there is no above;
             press it down – there is no below.
             Face it – you will not see its face;
             look at it – and there is no form;
             listen to it – there is no sound.

               Firmness as stewardship of the soul.

               …………………………………………..

         (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

             

 

 

 

          
       Prematch, they might insist the womb unveil up 
       loading rhythms; only then you’ll feel you’re in
       deeper than tumors drafting up from outhouse stress
       pits.

                                                       Some servers toss trick looks  
       at honour planning | our island registry can relate;
       after acreage of empire rain long grain stalk  
       like galvanize to rust fade steupsing.

       This first child hugs belief until . Dalpur shells  
       see no end to hard^soft boiling; her sister hem
       inch wary . their migrant uncle twig leaf^parting
       fingers.

                                 \ Chest powdered . off compact hips 
       they prickle at home plate rinsing. Can we go
       outside now ?  kite to fly | cluster here! strive
       like boulanger.   
                               \ For skulls sun shorn alone
       in basements cold unknown – bamboo fire tenders
       feel since when ? who scrolling cares.

                                               / Our plumbers snake
       away to souls at sunset impasse, fix then pray;
       left right in office pupils widen hardly blinking
       fortune drain | ranks close for what comes next.

                                      / And one more thing : Monday 
      routers open^cast Sling shots at futures. Back trails
      here! Far from your father flower | webs for Got you,
      daughter! threads for bead tests; air share, forking
      off the way.
                                                             – W.W.

 

                

           

 

          QUICK SCRAWL FROM TAHITI

          Putting down the postcard from which the man
          has been erased, she claps her hand and sighs:
          She’d love to be there lying in a chair,
          soaking in the air and plotting next year!
          For her that would be the whole of Just-So:
          she is content with so little, so much
          of no question, questions being always
          only just born, too weak for sensation,
          the fruit and food of a world of What-Next
          set in unchallenged grooves too old to fade,
          all things frigging themselves into Repeat,
          despite the dictatorship of The New
          whose trivia flash like bombs – because they can,
          so-called Evil, the flower of Why-Not.

            ……………………………………………………….

         (from “The Gift Of Screws” by Brian Chan, 2008)

 

 

         

            Imagine a wife whom you've just told of her man's death:
       See, she thoughtfully absorbs the news, then even before
       She can feel real grief, she falls to the floor and starts to wail,
       Her eyes watching your witnessing of her doing it right.

                                               ~

            Raimonde wasn't gestural, but he could be murderous
       (No doubt i was lucky not to be sitting beside him);
       Yet all he did was sulk in reaction to my sincere
       Concerns about his feelings for Mia and about her
       Well-being in relation to his being in Loffdon.

                                             ~

       But i guess he had never known me as the type of ‘shirt’
       Who would blurt out the first spate of words that flooded his tongue.
       As a sedater of mad dogs in cages, you had best
       Guard your every pax as a potential threat to the peace
       (And more so to the uninterrupted flow of your blood):

                                             ~

       No-one, not even someone seeking advice, likes to hear    
       It, and people who are told that they need guidance resist
       Being guided.   As a counsellor, you can’t expect more.
       So how could i get inmates like Winterkiss to trust me?
       By speaking out of the very indifference they had grown,
       Each in his own stunted way, to expect of The System.

       (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)

        

 

                                                                          
                                                          "The ‘deaf’ within her stirred and listened.
                                                          The ‘dumb’ she cherished began to speak."
                                                                  – Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room

             The claim nobody sees our hand to mouth managing
           won't help the cause. Cameras in the head hoard
           everything | careful! what wind^concoctions the night
           cork plugs; your foreday dream device stays on
           recording.

           Broken on plantation field it has been memories
           since | shipped separate, home grown foot forward
           paths still hang on foreign reason to be paved; praise
           Jah, saved.

                                               *

           Down off our mountain players fall . no longer angels, 
           roadside pending. You should try the fish . from our forest
           creek hooks block the town^cast nets; trench crapaud
           return.

                   For truth accounts we’ve lost the fiction | else 
          how to hear heart pounding ? for innocence now fabric
          scraps, the sage broom masters. 
                                                             Same^old getting older 
          faster ledgers dial the blade . stem slice our mañanas,
          honesties gone slack.  

                                               *

                  So much dem fear for look face lift so much
          mean privates funnel pouch for themselves . you won't
          believe. 
                                                  Out of our bowels need
          unspooling faith to keep kicks the Bejesus; or plants
          like a smack on the head one hoof of a curse . Gwan
          so, far side apple, star!
                                                           – W.W.

           

             

             

     [ for Kenneth Ramchand  .  Professor Emeritus, University of The West Indies ]

 

 

          MASTER-MODEL

          Tumble-weeds inspired cart-wheels;
            drift-wood – boats and oars;
          spider-webs – fishing-nets and lace;
            and bird-prints in sand – words
          grooved on walls of rock by eyes and fingers
            of fire, children of the child of the Sun
          the father and mother of all models of Must

            – so parent not only of my cave-poem   
          but of the marker-carver-spinner Soul itself.
              All life is star-seed.
          Seeds become their source. Human fate,
             our next final fruit, is starhood.

          ……………………………………………………….

           (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

 

 

          
          Wheat face like on toilet seat force^waiting issues,
          think when last we checked our licensing of crude
          extraction ? suck raw moon essentials for goose throat
          beak^end titling  <  sweet time tekking.

          Card packed our own hearts squat^strain ache
          to leave, though once the lift^move start the chest
          sense through lines far^near breaking. 
                                                                    Tongues might
          licky quick fly at you . Whoa! back side No . who
          go cock^good morning hail ? boxers nighties turn
          over.

                    \ On our shoulders vise^pads slip  >  watch this! 
          march fly road gaming : up front the stilt man
          scanning crowd, mask over nose; eyes for girl
          child . snatch dis‘ppearing.

                                                Oh, nah so it go ? through  
          swallow hole no trace of theft | well, samaan tree
          hear faith unzipping . hive^mind shedding night
          hair fright lay^lay the wind; fire rude so.

          Ol' chillum piper's dream ~ stand aside, watch all  
          lock cutters / never in the history of cuff^toss
          loss / march into the sea . spine bruk!  
                                                                     Storm system
          sink dem, yeah man ! clap thunder^flash fi all yaad
          bred dem drain waste, yeah man.
                                                                  – W.W.

 

               

           

          VIEW FROM THE OTHER TOWER

         We looked up from our splintering pale faces  
             and saw a ruined two-towered castle
             in which we would hide from the lion we
             had never seen and from the tribe we could
         see approaching, dark and speared, to seize our pool.

         In that tower we huddled, our tribe, for days  
            until, all danger be damned, we pulled out
            our raw hamburger and fried it despite
            the giveaway smoke: who does not prefer
         being eaten to be being trapped or ignored?

         When the quiet brutes arrived, they drank and washed, 
             just like us civilized apes, except they
             seemed to fear neither lion nor castle
             nor our hiding in it: they were patient:
          sooner or later we would have to come out.

          …………………………………………………

         (from “The Gift Of Screws” by Brian Chan, 2008) 

 

 

         

                                               "From part of you that's neither flesh nor bone,
                                                in a sleep before your last and longest, I come
                                                to say what I say."
                                                 - George Lamming, In The Castle Of My Skin

 
      His books appeared in bookstores or on the public library shelf. Back in
      those days in Georgetown, Guyana readers purchased, borrowed and
      devoured any and every printed thing.

      Caribbean authors – in their prime then, residing in England and elsewhere
        –  had no way of knowing what readers back home thought about them,
      their work.

     About writers today, it might have crossed George Lamming’s mind that –
     as Bogart now @ Miguel Street might observe – Dem writer fellas have it
     easy now, eh. The almost instant stardom of the book launch; web
     platforms for “readings”; applause for the writers’ hyphenated links to
     the islands. No need to ask how many new faces eager for display have at
     least dipped toes in Lamming’s fiction.

     In The Castle of My Skin Castle (1953) was greeted with quieter
     astonishment. The novel still attracts the attention of scholars, though
     it’s reasonable to assume it might struggle to generate interest today.
     Reputations aren’t all durable and reading habits, like molecules or breast 
     display, are subject to change.

     His appearances on the UWI Mona campus in the 70s were occasions for
     passionate reminders about the after effects of colonial rule. Students 
     were advised to keep the “pen” active but be ready to reach for         
     “the sword” when resistance was required. Literary endeavours came        
      with responsibilities.

     He tied Caribbean development to unresolved plantation issues – social
     divisions and resentments, continuing core extraction. Readers and thinkers
     should stay alert – for opportunist empire builders, for new governors
     who confine and amateur performers who contort public attention. And
     the patch-eyed scribblers who simplify issues and hide signs of active
     skin typing.

                                                     *

     There were limits to this reader’s response to his fiction. In Georgetown –
     with time enough, and no television stations (until 1988) – readers
     consumed every line in Castle – its 300 + pages packed with people who
     suddenly “mattered”; their village lives minutely observed, their (what
     now feels like) over-extended conversations.

     The novels that followed – with alluring titles, Of Age and Innocence (1958),
     Season of Adventure (1960), Natives of My Person (1970) – sent many
     searching the shelves. The result was not always overwhelming. Books of
     probing, foundational value they remain, but readers could be forgiven for
     wandering away at this stage from Lamming’s fiction.

     Besides, there were other Caribbean writers – just as compelling, with
     mesmerizing or everyday like prose. Carew, Naipaul, Selvon, Harris. So many
     story-telling styles; the variety of frames for experiences past and present.
     And characters made more memorable; so sharply imagined, they could
     mark a generation for life. Donne in Palace. Mohun Biswas.

                                                     *

     To "revisit" Lamming’s fiction is not an easy proposition. In the 2001 reprint
     of Castle a Foreword and an Introduction occupy the first 50 pages as if
     acknowledging its classic old age.  

    The moving clarity of the opening lines still catch and wrap you, pulling
    you into the fermenting humanity of that colonial time as if it was just
    last week.

    “Rain, rain, rain…my mother put her head through the window to let the
     neighbour know that I was nine, and they flattered me with the consolation
     that my birthday had brought showers of blessing. The morning laden with
     cloud soon passed into noon, and the noon neutral and silent into the
     sodden grimness of an evening that waded through water.” 

     Gradually Lamming’s authorial devices (which intrigued readers back then)
     take control; the stage play set pieces, for instance, that interweave his
     ornate narrative flow. It is anyone’s guess how students, with Twitter
     accounts and grievous language deficits, might respond if asked to read
     Castle – from beginning to end – and be ready for the test. 

                                                     *

     Georgetown, Guyana, once a centre of literary expression and cultural
     capital, has sunk to a level of narrow philistinism. Mainly on its own –
     a barren place for literature and writing, it is feared; home to fate
     contractors and helpless native souls.

     Writers with George Lamming’s dedication to his work have for all         
     purposes moved away to platforms of deeper promise offshore; the way
     the narrator in Castle who ‘had seen the last of something’ says ‘farewell,
     farewell to the land’.

     It is left to the islands to sustain interest – to celebrate excellence, cultivate
     new readership, offer achievement rewards. And stage official closing
     ceremony – for Derek Walcott (St Lucia), Kamau Brathwaite and now George
     Lamming (Barbados); past illuminators for our Caribbean ways in the world.  

                                                                          – Wyck Williams
                             
                                                                                                                              

            

                       
                                       [ In mem.  George Lamming  .  1927 – 2022 ]

                ~                    ……………………………………………                           ~                                                                                                                                                      

 

          
             Only if Sunday Monday follows and your box
             bed springs – not hard grief^ridden like in Mali where
             grass roof elders trust the lizard’s scan^dart
             slow twitch . bead counting over digits.

             Even happy heifers wouldn’t sweat the difference – 
             milk for the village v. plaisir congelée, expiration
             fate.

                                              *
                                                             Elsewhere, first                     
             impressions still nick | the face remove from flesh
             cuts twilight coding : the perfume line, wiggly blue
             crab ink.   
                                                Virtually you could still send
             bitch nights off ‘n’ running, underwear reversible;
             else little left, reach for the phone.

                                              *

                                               Our tech gods promise level 
             heavening . with diode street lights refit the midnight
             sky – unless you’re in Chile where in the thousands
             stars beam back mate orbiters . given up for lost.

                                    / One click . now latitudes strip      
             make it quick^unbelievable | feminin shaved
             masculin, no index finger smear.
                                                                       Whoa! hold
             your ma-hu . there should be room for everyone.
             
                           / Okay! knife ‘n’ spread begetters, over
             there | done fasting ? for full beard, lacy lip 
             bliss napkins | oh, big plate of applause for four 
             post chompers, rarely out of order.
                                                                   – W.W.

            

                       

                          

             

                        

                 

             QAT

             *ONE of these cats Qat calls Singer, respecting    
              His Asiatic operatic complaints
              About what no vet has yet identified.

              Perhaps he misses an old home, or his balls, 
              Or he is your Wandering Jew still needing
              To wail the Lord’s song in his latest strange land,
            Driving Qat’s neighbours (and other cats) to grind their teeth.
              But Qat’s proud of her lourd loud sad catstrato
              Who still interrupts his arias to keep
              Purring watch over his Ladyship’s fucking.

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

        

 

 

                                                     
                                      "The conversation they had had (as between
                                       naked body and naked mind) still lingered
                                       in his head."
                                            – Wilson Harris, Companions Of The Day
                                                                    And Night

          
         Violetta! Oh my stars, you came . after his Gnu
         Goat like taking you for mountain; his no chest
         tightness sensing, There’s a contract dust bowl
         like between us | buy^sell phone vibration ! savoir
         due.

         First mate^betrayal skews; some cheek tattoos   
         flinch at remove | easier to make peace with ‘im
         like eggs boiled ~ quick link God’s face^fanning
         patience.

              Murmurers can't wait for news, for you 
         to wail | the throat guard lets in every widowy
         wish i could the stomach floor boards.

                                            *

              Over night falls deep . sleep hoodies hack 
         watch midriffs warming | the barfi bite yelps, Stop
         resisting! first blood.
                       Wages that low who wouldn’t beside
         oneself ? mud ankled catch^wrap blowy grain;
         away redress fate stitchings.

                                             *

        La Casa del Amor . how^why you cleaned no longer  
        matters; you’re here now | sway holding served,
        spoon ‘n’ silence . bovarys if you prefer.
                    \ These pages like twin glass doors slide   
        open^close | mid’passages to weigh, Alt keys could
        help; for version, pick any scale.

                          \ Wait wait – you just landed ! planet 
        polar bear like in distress . how if you tear again
        away could you be reached?

                                                             - W.W.

             

         

 

 

             MARA

            *SHE had never guessed that once her Sun-Dung had, 
             While on a roll, cashed in his chips, gone outside
             And taken a taxi to a shabby zone
           Of the city no respectable tourist wanted
             To be caught dead in (as not a few had been)
             But a zone including a certain address
             Bought off a hotel-valet making ends meet

             By renting out his sister, daughter or wife 
             Whom he promoted as his ‘cousin’ Guanyin,
             Good crean fliendry rady flom good famiry

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