FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

       
 
          I'm a practising psychologist, i lied, and at once           
          The Lebanese restaurateur’s whole manner again changed
        – Back to that of an unflappable bonhomme of Culture.

          I tell you, he said    of this Galenza whom of you speak.
          Perhaps you be seeking him because he have escaped
          The clutch (clutches?) of your professional treatment.  Perhaps
          He too be waiting to be catchèd hand-redded for crime
          Of madness neither he nor you could begin to explain.

                                          *

          No, i sighed,   nothing that melodramatic, just a case 
          Of following up on the aftermath i mean career
          Of a young patient who, to all intents and purposes,
         (The clichés multiply and rattle on when you’re bluffing)
          Has disappeared off the face of the Earth, or something like…
          My voice trailed off lamely:   i no longer believed myself.

          Feeling i couldn’t match the Arab’s radio-ready
          Fluency made me realise i know longer knew what
          The point of my trip to yours-to-discover Loffdoff was.
          Could anything a dying pro chose to do once retired
         (That tired term making crass sense only as a pre-coffin
           Resolution to decades of respectable routine)
           Have a point, like some ambitious pyramid or arrow?

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

 

 

 

     
                                    "Steps and balconies…nailed with abandon…         
                                       making hazardous ladders against the universal
                                        wall."
                                         - Wilson Harris, Palace of the Peacock (1968)

         Meant for one part human find . the halo^head leap
        from glass towers down avenues into electric cars; heard
        on elevator rides through moon roofs – seconds split now,
        the nano in billions . bird, coin; marine, divine.

           \ Played for gang . clip^idle hands that cradle
        the promise of the magazine lock | Please, no! falls
        on stutter^start ears. For carrion keepers who stamp
        the hall pass for flatulence swollen so beside
        the point.

        Served to chefs who swear they control the plates 
        and ovens in mandarin districts, as grilles seek
        alliance with blind^hot grids; the root power shifts,
        old grow^catch stock convenience ceding.

           \ Yeah man, the unbeing creeps faster than a plane
        dumps splashings of phantom repellent.

                                             *

           \ Whose whales ? stranded on this private beach; fires,  
        floods deemed omens of balance up^inching; forests
        logged for floor concealment . the codes to rain
        light quiet agency.
                                                     Still, watch out ! get  
        those crapaud throat^sacs singing they wouldn’t stop
        till the feast is over.         
                                                            \ For now, part
        take! as the broad leaves said to the elephant passing
        deer | glass of wine on the terrace; free bagels.
                                                                   Stripped, laps
        consuming . bells, no telling if^when | so you know.

                                                                        – W.W.

                

 

         

           

 

        TO A PROUD MEEK INHERITOR OF THE EARTH'S TILT

            Once he too was a heavy earthworm beneath    
        your lawn and flower-garden – until he rose
            into the air on a magpie’s wing and breath
        and could perch now and then among your lilacs
           (which he, as a worm, could only smell and dream
        of tasting) and not have to care if skylarks
            sang sweeter, flew higher or freer than he;
        to fly black-and-white and cry cut-and-dried seemed
            enough of wanting to become, so to stay.

        ………………………………………………

         (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

 

 

       
 
         Even the crossing guard with no real benefits              
         to wave forward in the roundabout of forms reconsiders
         her child shepherding thing . the way house numbers
         short cut fear scanning the air as seasons turn.

         Eye for eye, scriptured so, like tooth exchange; face 
         truth to wake the palm smacks; and history prepares
         a place for gracious beheading blades, femme shavings;  
         dishonour handles.
                                             ~                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                        / Our island frog minds 
         inlet any moon . pool anchor, the catch or pitcher
         twisting stream.
                                                    Rage no longer at the sea 
         cell mass repairs signal Time! Union Cap’n . up off bent
         back pay.   
                                           / The search to understand what
         really happened anywhere could stall . which orifice
         tongues trust.
                                                    Shakespeare or our Walcott
         once lowered class heads for sumo wrestle reads, slip
         knot ease. Idle fingers now swipe glass pin blame
         accounts must feed.  
                                             ~  

                                    \ From ocean bed ghost limbs rub
         stone redress  >  the nearest shore | what’s so weird
         if boulders stare ? smell gambit weed desire.

                                         \ Crow to John, back when no 
         one beak^clicked Approved : angel your angles,
         rounding knight; touched so, beguile the witch.

                                                                          – W.W.

 

             

             

 

 

                   THE KING OF NOTHING

                      What the world calls power
            is nothing compared to the abdicator’s throne,
                  the emptied attention
           of the student-king who fails every proving test
                  but whose eyes, heart and guts
           are opportunist for every hint of the Light
                  which at every moment
           watches for the walls of mind and soul to let down
                  their drawbridge and ladders,
           so to allow the Light’s invasion to become
                  the garden as the end
           of the path without end, path of Earth to starhood
                  and angels to god-men

              ……………………………………………………….

               (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

                  

 

           

           But what was lunch my amnesiac tongue can't tell and earned                
           His chalk-pale waitress (from Iraq, he told me) a large tip
           – Which she raised her eyebrows at, as though it couldn’t exist.
           This contempt impressed me and on impulse i asked her if
           She knew of a young visual artist, Stewart Galenza:
           Perhaps she might have heard of him in a nightclub somewhere?

                     She frowned, raising her eyes for Heaven’s assistance, 
           And Heaven rescued her through the agency of her boss
           Who had overheard my question.   Tell me, he said, looming,
           Why you want to know?     You be private detective, mister?

                                                *

           – No no no no no,  I assured him, but, I couldn’t help 
          Laughing  – in a way, yes.
                                         – Well, he said, you be or be not?
          That’s still the question, I joked, but the prince was not amused.

                                                *

          The waitress, relieved that her boss had taken over, backed
          Away from us as though she were taking leave of the Queen,
          A submissive look marring her pointedly proud features
          That, for a moment, distracted me from her boss’s new
          Quasi-belligerent if not paranoid attitude
          Of humourlessness bordering on utter resentment.
          It was my turn to wonder why about his asking why.

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

 

 

          
          The breast that swells for that first child, or flirts with              
          that bearded man – how it flash^heats if some ungodly!
          unlatched thing intervenes. 
                                                      Until that moment you had
          no idea | inside these chamber walls an asset sleeps
          – to activate whose iron hot code after prayers
          won’t poke? – winged to respond.

          The kitchen knife rack understands, We’re good! sheen   
          up for any canyon ride | tired to tell the truth of table
          cloth pairing, onion ‘n’ spread chores.
                                        Good grief ! not the melee scythe
          swing, little David shottas sling. Watch me! faith
          fear polyps stick so the range host knows.

                                             *

                                \ Old fluid leaking body parts swear 
          they’d find reserves for one last mission . relieve
          dull pleasure^pain hauled mute all these years.

                                 \ Break timid’ties like flies to wonton  
          soup the right hand swats | get dressed, it snaps,
          blood to do about nothing.

          Variants loose an issue ? like molecules in public
          bowls doubt shaping | nothing our stainless apps
          couldn't handle – you too pronoun^cocked yield
          gaps to plug . twin^pact aiming.

                                                          – W.W.

 

             

         

 

 

 

             THE HUNTER WHO DOES NOT EAT MEAT

             My grounds are what you might call clouds and my prey     
                is the winged deer whom I must stalk until
                     he, aglow with ripe evasion, turns
                     his face to mine to offer his whole
                being with his wings as outstretched to me
             as my arms with their arc and arrow to him

             To feed on those wings without having known them 
               is the glad blind business of my fellow
                   villagers whom I have left behind
                   so as to find them the finest food
               which I myself, fasting, only feed back,
             in thanks, to the air’s sacrificial angel.

          …………………………………………….

          (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan, 2013)

 

     

                                                               
                                             "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)