FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

09 /13/2025

A tireless soul masked as watchful waitress-mind
charging past my table – plates of food balanced
on her palms and forearms – stops fast and looks back
down at me – her eyes as heavy as dark plums –
and with pro aplomb asks como está senhor?
not wanting or right at that moment needing
an answer but giving a diner a chance
to witness her busyness rhyming with his
just once in this millionth step of her job’s dance
…………..
and what she attests to – out of the silence
of her resignation to her fate so far –
up to this point of pause in her busyness
anchoring and plumbing itself through a faith
in an X beyond but contained within it –
what she professes and enacts now is Heart.

 (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem,
             by Brian Chan,  2023)

 “A log must build, stand motionless in space…
carved in the sky like a door into limbo
or paradise.”
                            – Wilson Harris, Companions of the Day
                                                          and Night (1975)

  Not to be sniffed at, revenue from tail squirm
sermons + hearts ‘n’ hands in folds of cross
 dependence.
                        Upgrade! chatbots in the booth < making
           maiden^beast deals; to be continued.

                          \ The rest of us grindin’ dry can only
           watch men run schoolboy^like bus to prison
           yard | tug at crotch, fierce peace holding.

                                             + 

          Island roads long past bicycle quietudes;
          the grass aghast at stone^glass mountains ! turn
          signals blur so virtues risk shortcut man^
          handling; clickety split licks.

          Our FooFoo lady spreading fat . hollow allyuh
          fill fight follow ! crapaud foot scrawl Dis
          Dem Dat | good book don’t scare^block rabble
          browsing. Helluvathing.

                                             +

                          \ From desert wells empty lives wake
          in dry sweat | blue habit Sisters ladling soup
          lean in to help  > stall showers, strip^
          confess power.

          Ecstasy only you log on screen binge, you
          think ? no one (the dead ? up there; neck
          crane gasping) else sees ? clouds ‘n’ belief
          laid bare.
                                                   – W.W.

 

 

              YUH RAP SO (5.4)

              In the direction of the shadowless girl
             Thomasson extended his embittered smirk,
             Remembering one bishop with a sickly
             Sneer on his mug gliding down, not too nimbly,
             A cathedral-aisle + nodding at tourists,
             Courting their coins, granting some a chance to kiss
             The boil-like ring on his cocked middle finger:
             Our priest was ashamed, not just of belonging
             To that club of fatted geese with gilded calves,
             But also of now suddenly wanting that
             Forest-offering, Judd’s girl, as his own wench.

             But to grab the mile beyond his granted inch?

               (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

   

                                   
 “…the ultimate moment to leap… to abandon
   a grotesque imitation of life for… the innocence
of a phantasm of pollen.”
– Wilson Harris, The Whole Armour (1962)

                    First scrape with death tagged . so near
                    miss invites a halo round . the date
                    no one plays bass . for such is our relief.

                       \ Dense forest helps you find your center
                    anchor birds chirp This way ! our shaman
                    counsels Not your time with wolves | good
                    place to hide from roam chargers.

                                                  +

                    While clocks toss streamers at his office
                    shadows mark pawn moves his back lines
                    bank . files to vault sliding.

                       \ Mile post 69 . moistures North South warming
                    kite hands tremble like at Easter, frame
                    to wind | last lick rapid like @Our Kaie^
                    Falls . paddles stop repeating.

                                                   +

                    G’way, my bumper fine so ~ from country
                    cart man just assume ~ fair skin, hips honor
                    rose rolled tight ~ Wheels up, this house^
                    husband climbs | the give^take sway.

                       \ First song, first penetration, grade report; first
                    Gun! wound Win, exclusion > the algorithm
                    how it stitches, bills ! instills, hands out balloons
                    Arrgh.

                                                                   – 

[ In mem: Chuck Mangione . 1940 – 2024 . Gave All He Got ]

                    YUH RAP SO (5.3) 

                    Was this really the club Dilys had needed
                    To join? or was she as stray-doggy to God
                    As she suspected the other nuns thought her?

                    Yes, God fulfilled all his creatures, but never
                    Enough, since His mind her mind could never be
                    Satisfied – as that Emperor-of-Ice-Cream
                    Wall-ace Whatsisname had warned her in a book
                    Small + pale like a slice of escapist cake –
                    Not quite Light Reading like those pure love-stories
                    Which Mother Joseph didn’t find out-of-place
                    In her rectored coven hallowing Mary
                    Magdalene loved by Jesus in his pure way.

                    (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

                     

                   

       
       
             But maybe all he needs is a good night's sleep 
             after which everything will be dawn-rosy^
             if only i could convince myself that’s true –
             i have enough money – oh no i forget –
             though it’s still a popular trope that you can’t
             take it with you – its promise and investments
             and dividends have clung to and followed me
             here where nothing can be bought hoarded or sold
             except the mind buying into and hanging
             onto and selling itself more of the same
             assumptions of finality and safety
             that are sold into money’s risky fictions^
             you don’t know the half of it! the scribbler says

                  (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem 
                                            by Brian Chan,  2023

 

 

                 

             Sign post at the Hub : ‘Deliver or Perish’ won't
             refine Estate bred steuups; nor guide the child asleep
             fast in the basket on his mother’s arm.

             Nights when pillows pain! pain! dampen 
             plantain wielders sneak to breach | into noodle^
             slurping brutes  <  Crank! safe we want Boom!
             holes you take; fence repaired.

                                               +

            Buddha statues work harder than city tower^
            screen panels, Be advised ! still active wallaba
            totems steer you clear; don’t scowl rub blink.

           ‘Im show up at our door, old Miguel Street^
            like pardner; promise to install a Tech stream
            version of time flies : Press here; and here.
            And there you flow, see?

                                              + 

            Reema raised shy in heritage pen < Please pray 
            stay wipe my brow, her mother’s end > arc
            Angel waive the hair braid test | 321 Alarms 
            go off?  who vex so vex.

            As climate spumes our Kaya fumes My life 
            bit bites this I must bear ? gully^ bending^ purse^
            flood watch | eligible navels bathe ‘n’ sun;
            that beacon on the sea ! her sanatorium.

                                                                     – W.W.

 

         

         
               [ In mem: Sly Stone . 1943 – 2025 . ThankYouFalettin ]

 

              YUH RAP SO (5.2)

              Moksha had essayed a satire about her
              Culture of ducks, cows and horsemen in T-shirts
              Word-pushing stuff nobody ever heard of,
              & Teacher Judd, by then his pupil’s lover,
              Had been properly horrified that the gyirl
              Was blind to her best of all possible worlds
              Whose people were simply different from those ants
              With their busy nests + petty hills he had
              Outgrown in the capital of God’s country
             (As though He had only one) with its bounty
              Left over from Sun-blind pirates’ Dorado

             (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

             

                                                        “From things unseen
                                                         to things forever watched 
                                                        From hidden stone
                                                       to naked delicate heart”
                                                      – Martin Carter . Returning, 1953

            Heart questions go search bowl in hand
            stretched out of print ‘n’ hunger | habits like veil
            naturalize the panic women front parts feed.

            Offline heaven ‘n’ hell room knobs connecting ~
            at the bar toes tip the floor ~ pure mind tight
            panting swizzle sticks ~ bottom raise or punish. 

                                               +

            Start up their Country line dance . guess who 
            single step’in ! cyan take that likkipan surge
            en masse | fireflies from shift > make wish
            on file? Gwan suh! yu ‘n’ yuh VSN.

            Domain in mud . for crab catch shirtless    
            down limb spread ! See how, pride in limbo
            bamboo shoot grip any slide^lock message.

                                              +

           My shark nose wakes up to ripples . wine or
           blood or vinegar trail scent; end grain sleep^
           like in snow globe shaken.
                                                     Yes, four five
           early morning ! Wait, your ocean cross too?

          ‘Like! no don’t come^wedge by me’ cavity    
           curtain call ? pleats to horn | more power
           to quivering tonals heard > their red
           of blood rush much like ours.

                                                            – W.W.

 

 

       

 

 

            YUH RAP SO (5.4)

            Webs create spiders as much as spiders webs:
            Judd spinning, obeying his survivalist
            Nature, became his own despised colonist
            Finding himself lost at the core of his own
            Avid projection of his blind assumptions
            Of what needed to be trapped (while he stayed not):
            He became stunned to feel his web spun about
            Wings he, spider, had sprouted while defying
            Dust-unto-dust gravity: he was waking,
            From a dream of Freda’s otherness, to his
            Web as map of his own face, of pain as price:

            How cheap Judd’s conquistador spider now felt          
            For having trapped his dorado in that web:
            Or had he reached through her crack for gold hidden
            Only to feel his greed stung by scorpions?

              (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

       
        
            On one stair below mine a sorry figure    
            is crouched with his head down and knees together^
            in an age of hurried clickety-clickers
            he’s a dodosaur of harried handwriting –
            his whole frame quivering from its jerky thrusts^
            out of many selves he’s mocking up a one –
            a quick angel seduced by Matter’s slowness
            whose rhythms he magnifies to scrutinise
            by the scribbling of his left hand connected
            by the two rods of his arm to his shoulder
            that’s also determined to collaborate
            with its owner’s tight obsession to release
            himself of the burden – some of it at least –
            of the lava of awareness bubbling up
            inside him before his volcano erupts^

                     (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem,
                                       by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

                                                           

                                              
                                                   “Orbiting, the sun itself has a sun 
                                               as the moon an earth, a man a mind.
                                             And life is not a matter of a mother only.”   
                                             - Martin Carter, The Great Dark (1973)

                   
            All those years good parts of him kept
            shackled till . leaning in full cleavage opens
            over his dull brain | a tiger child pokes its head
            out . proGod fearers call in law ‘n’ fodder.

                 \ Hours angle fast while bowl gold fishing.    
            On our island dog food for dogs expensive so
            groomers make do with corner calls (+ haul
            yuh bottom scraping).

                                              *

            Bass line booked contracts swell @horn
            alert Now Boarding | apps clipped@hip
            set to dub the world; wipe plates together.

               \ Embedded tales – suiciders in saffron last
            wrap, the Resurrection – beep longer than forest
            birds in the flight plans of Office obstinates.

                                              *                                         

            Dome safe . what issues wriggle in the air, yeast^   
            like for whose infection ? whose crows for hire
            dive^strip orders waiting.

               \ For history ignored costs mount @portals                
            forward webbing. See what happens ? in heat
            itch annals twerk head scratch . @fowl^
            coop stern wings flutter, gripping.
                                                                 – W.W.

 

         

                  YUH RAP SO (5.2)

                  The impersonal perfume of the hollow 
                  At the centre of all personhood was now
                  What at first wafted then zigzagged like a bolt
                  Through his veins + into his core + he felt
                  No real shock, only disappointment that he,
                  A prince of detachment, he of all people
                  But of none of their superstitious tribes, should
                  Automatically gasp a cry to God
                  For a stay of execution – for it was
                  All a knot of murderers + murderees,
                  The sadomasochistic contract of breath:

                  The trees nodded, but to their parrots’ bald yes
                  Was added what already flowed through their veins
                  A banal no to affirm the innocence
                  Of all tenants of the jungle’s simple nest

                  (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

                 
             From under Empire^mildew flats our mountain
             crabs emerge, stretch graspy airs ~ paused
             till the moon gets the angle right for fables.

             Like juveniles they move out^in till the catcher  
             looms; stick pins, numbers click. One more
             lock on the treasury. Eat growth, no mercy.

                                                  ^

             Clustered on slim branches orange berries unzip
             flowers open for the broad daylight of the world.
             Fruit from fameless trees fall . birds ‘n’ bees
             follow odours take the floor.

             Heavy rain, the moon just right, mulch
             of fruit not cherished | the crab ‘n’ catcher hunger
             trade . mates@midnight change side ways.

                                                  ^                                   

             Give thanks to the forest, pray the cell’phane    
             chain saw keep away, spare our quilts | out^  
             wit wild beast perfume, bois^men at bag ‘n’ play.

             From identity hold to steaming pot blue backs
             like aliens on the plate . legs snapped fork^
             lift configuring ! Nature’s dish winners.

          * A scuttling deficiency?  Gethatalligatorouttahere :
             pirate gut ! wanting more than we take.

                                                                   – W.W.

 

 

         

 

 

             YUH RAP SO (5.1)

            So the book begat Khan who begat pictures
               & forged fables for funeral-services,
            Prayers that stood up well beside St. Francis’s
            Although Indian Inky Khan was no Christian
            Propheteer (he locked Jesus to the Qur’an)
            & felt no need to follow even The One
            Nor believe any stuff he scribbled down
            To console (for a few dollars) crying clowns
           (The way his father sold rum to the heathen
            Niggers stchupit enough to spend to have fun)
            Showing up to confirm life’s circus of games:

            Inky who thought, nay knew he was beyond themes      
            Of morality + such (mortality
            Was a different money sprouting matter he
            Willingly paid lip service to

            (from “Raponani”, by Brian Chan, 2023)
                                                

 

               
           No less international the scribbler – done 
           with proffering me^masks – looks back down to his
           busyness of masking himself against tides
           of erosion by small talk or his being
           no longer tactile though his shoulders are hunched
           as if to re-stretch the fitting of his flesh
           over their bones still bearing too much weight – that
           of the world and of worrying about it – 
           that club which – even after he has refused
           to renew his membership of it – he means
           to keep as part of his bothering-business
           of trying and failing to unclock the club
           from time’s insecurities of measurements
           and labels – glasshouses and cages

                (from “Limboa”, a sentimental anthem
                           by Brian Chan, 2023)