THE FLAGMAN’S OCCURRENCE WAVE BAND

          

      < Situations And Revelations Of Passing Notice In Guyana >

       Locket #22   

       Heard there was a vacancy at the Georgetown hospital morgue. Usually you 
       hear about these things, you don’t always read a notice inviting applications for
       the work.

       My good friend Archie works there. Maybe he getting ready to leave; he hasn't
       said anything to me.

       We’re from the days of knowledge and order; respect for people deserving of
       respect. Past fifty now, we moving along through the next ten, and taking no
       chances; bracing for impact.

       These Georgetown people, with their vehicular lawlessness, have no patience 
       with someone not their age. Going down Regent Street, through that pounding
       noise called music, you taking a chance with your life on a bicycle; like nobody
       teaching manners anymore in the home and in schools.

       We understand the times, how out of the blue the end might show up with a
       message from the morgue.

       Archie’s father was the morgue attendant back in his day. When he got old he
       thought his son would want to take over the work. At that time father and son
       weren’t seeing eye to eye; plus Archie swore he wasn’t going to follow his
       father’s footsteps.

       For this morgue work, it’s usually one person, the same fellow doing the same
       thing year after year. They only think of a replacement when he pass away or
       retire. Today no young person would want this work, at least I don’t think so.

       I met this fellow from the Congo (don’t ask me how he land up here) who said
       he would rather go back home than take that job. Never explained why.

       And these days they asking for “qualifications”, for almost everything, like at
       least “secondary” schooling.

       Archie’s father (he was a tall, skinny man, looking like he had little appetite
       for food, and none for argument) had only “primary” when he started. After
       many years they must have moved him up. I could just see him coming home
       one afternoon and telling his family now he “permanent”.

       If you fly back home with “foreign” training and you apply, the locals in
       Georgetown might give you a hard time. They don’t like that you went away
       and improve yourself. They’ll steeups at your good intentions, shoo you away
       with their whippy pride sticks.

       Archie and I started “secondary” school, but he fell away and strayed, ignoring
       advice to mend his ways. Went to the gold fields, came back; worked on the
       North West steamer, stopped. At one stage, his sister told me, he was catching
       and selling crabs in the North West District; and he had a child with an
      Amerindian woman.

       Then his father died and left specific instructions about tending his gravesite
       in the Georgetown burial ground, Le Repentir.

       You probably heard about our Le Repentir cemetery, how vegetation and bush
       take over; how tree root drilling through and cracking the tombs as if jungle life
       returning to the city. A staggering sight, if you had relatives buried there.

       Back in his day Archie’s father used to cycle home on the roadway cutting
       through Le Repentir, with the tall-standing palms and blue sky. He said it was
       like passing though a valley of peace and forgiveness.

       If you felt stressed out after a day at work, passing through late afternoon you
       reach home the same way you left in the morning, fresh and ready.

       For many years, was like you driving or pelting through walls of vegetation,
       eyes straight ahead, agitated.

       Archie came home to visit one day and his mother told him she could no longer 
       locate where his father was buried. You would not believe what Archie did next.

       Went straight to the hospital, told them he was the son of the old morgue
       attendant. Said he knew everything about morgue work because has father
       taught him (which wasn’t true). Enquired if there was an opening.

       Whoever was in charge decided to take him on. Maybe out respect for his father.
       I don’t think they cared so long as somebody was doing the work.

       It don’t sound all that complicated. The pay is nothing to shout about. Your
       “office” could get overcrowded, if you know what I mean, and a call to duty on
       a night of cutlass-chopping might sour you up inside.

       No "morals" necessary. There is nothing at the morgue you might feel tempted
       to steal.

                                                        +                                                                            

       But hear this, according to Archie, along with the gloves, a certain “disposition”
       is required. The dead in this country have something they want to say before
       they reach “totality”. Let me explain.

       Just like when bodies arrive at a hospital, doctors and nurses have a way of
       handling and dealing with them, so when bodies reach Archie at the morgue,
       the treatment is different.

       On the trays they waiting for the next stage, the ground and shovel, the
       leaving ceremony. But some people here don’t always rush to claim remains. 
       And most don’t have a clue they might be hours away from blankness and ever
       afterness. (Others, you just glad they gone.)

       Archie would hear sounds from the tray drawers, like breath in a rush, coming
       from a distance.

       At first he pretended not to notice. It took him awhile to admit it was an alert.
       Some kind of transmission was about to take place.

       So he worked out a strategy. Lock the door right away, turn off the lights, pull
       out the tray with the sound; then sit motionless, his back to the trays, eyes
       closed, like in some kind of sight and sound insulation. After these steps he was
       ready.

       He heard voices from the trays, blaming or pleading, sounding faraway. First,
       hundreds of voices, all talking at the same time, jostling to be heard over each
       other. Then one voice broke through over the rest, sounding faint, like the
       person trying to speak but catching their breath after the effort to break
       through.

       He would wait, wait and hold! hold! The breathing from the tray slowed, then
       then settled down and became words. What he heard brought tears to
       his eyes.

       Just one twitch of his muscle, or some noise from outside, and the transmission
       ceased.

                                                         +   

       So what did the transits on the trays say to Archie? You know, he never gave
       me a straight answer. Only that he finding himself in “a strange situation” at
       the morgue. There was a strangeness to his work days, but he was getting
       used to it.

       I looked at the hard-life lines on his face, and I listened long enough to know
       he wasn’t making all this up.

       He started paying attention to his work clothes, keeping it clean and neat (like
       his work place, he said) and befitting a man of higher, hidden purpose. He
       massages his wrist and checks his wrist watch frequently.

       He used to be loud and vulgar, now he speaks softly. And I noticed he always
       end our conversation with the same three words, makes no difference.

       I decided not to pressure him when he stopped by my house (he’s a Guinness
       Stout man, using a glass now). Didn’t make jokes like, So what’s the latest
       you hear from the trays? And I didn’t ask him if he ever once heard from his
       father.

       Some situations you need to handle delicately, you know what I mean.

       I gave him his right to silence, to close himself off from others. I don’t think
       anybody else know about his “situation”. In any case, what could he say that
       would convince anyone?

       I look at it this way. At the end of life some kind of accountancy (I call it
       accountancy) takes place. Not the day to day explaining, which is like a pot of
       fart beans and fabrication, because people here don’t have the stomach to
       admit guilt or shame. Every man jack want you to believe they completely
       innocent.

       So at the end point on the morgue tray, all that’s left is some last breath
       attempt to explain what really happened, in one clean confession. They gone, 
       but like they searching now for a new balance, life and no life.

       So you see why this morgue attendant work important.

       It’s not for everybody, unless like people here you feel caught in the swirling
       currents, the waste of years past; and you desperate for something to hold
       on to, a floating log with title, anything.

       John Burch-Smith
       Georgetown, Guyana

 

 

FLY PAST SUMMER RHAPSODY

 

                                                                  “Yes, everything coincides.”
                                                                       – Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch (1966)

                  
            We crossed the street and entered this park;
            people were so sure grass turned the music on
            set : sunning half nudes said . the bee hive dreads. 

            Who on a chip kept count as aliens danced
            bending for every conceivable triangle?  knew what
            it cost from crawl to fly, boredom to 'rave > just pinch
            open Amazon mammoth jaws.

            Word sent forward about found metrics for civilization
            spook particles, vibes before broadband . not our
            Bob adjusting Nobel road tight strings.

                                   Play, It’s not what you think. Smoke
            like felony this riff, exhale great expectations
            like earth a new planet | the gene pool red
            blue cool . remains from tolls we paid. 

            Bad nights gave confession in noon stalls, oh yeah,
            first light geese wedged golden lays . dreams
            spoken for.

                                                                – W.W.

 

                

                 

 

           

             COMING TO PASS

        
             A straw of smoke
                in a vast bright sky
                is this moment  ̶  not
             so much passing
                  as pretending to pause
                  like a quivering hare
             on a crisp lawn,
                       each dreaming the other, both
                       busy at hearing the hints
                       of their swarming harmonies
                       of atoms always fading,
                       even as they're regrouping,
             ever prompted
                   by a disturbing breeze
                   drawing and erasing
             desire, pressing
                it not to settle
                for the latest chord
             of its leaning. 

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

  

 

 

Review Article: OUTSIDER INSIDE . GUIANA’S VINCENT ROTH

  

        
      Vincent Roth: A Life In Guyana: Volume 1: A Young Man's Journey, 1889 -1923:
      ed Michael Bennett (Peepal Tree Press, England, 2003)

      Vincent Roth: A Life in Guyana: Volume 2: The Later Years, 1923 – 35: ed
      Michael Bennett (Peepal Tree Press, England, 2003)

      For today’s unwilling book reader or browser, the remarks on the back cover
      of the 1st volume of these books more or less sum up the extraordinary life
      of its subject:

     "As an eighteen year old Vincent Roth arrived in British Guiana in 1907 to join
      his father, who was a Government Medical Officer and Magistrate. By the time
      he left for Barbados in 1964, Roth had spent thirty years in the interior working
      as a surveyor and magistrate until blackwater fever nearly killed him.
      Thereafter he contributed immensely to the development of Guyana as a
      journalist, naturalist, historian, rebuilder of the national museum and founder
      of the zoo in the Botanical Gardens.”

      Flip through pages, and there is this: “Another of the farmers in the Coolie
      Quarter of the Aruka River was Abdul Ghani. He was a Sikh and the mastermind
      of all East Indians in the area. He used to lend money to the other East Indians
      and close down on them when they could not meet their indebtedness. As a
      result he gradually acquired several tracts of land all over the Aruka district.

      "He also went by the name of Phagoo and once told me how this came about.
      Phagoo was his shipmate’s name on the voyage from India, but he died shortly
      after his arrival in the Colony. Ghani boasted that although he had come to
      the Colony as an indentured labourer to a sugar estate, he had never done one
      day’s work in the cane fields, having absconded as soon as he arrived and got
      away to the North West where he took Phagoo’s name”. (Vol 1: p.185)

      Further into the book you come across this: “During the morning, the distant
      beating of drums was heard as the masqueraders went about the village,
      arriving at the Government Compound at about ten o’clock. They consisted of
      a group of some dozen and a half Negroes, dressed in gaudy yellow and red
      costumes of every description, prancing and dancing about, and followed by
      a party of interested but naked Caribs.” (Vol 1: p. 238)

      The first volume of "A Life In Guyana" is not all about runaway East Indians and
      prancing Negroes. In fact, in much of its 300+ pages Roth writes passages like
      this: “Back in Bartica I met J.N. Humphreys, my predecessor at Christianburg
      and Arakaka, who was now accountant at the Penal Settlement and Bartica
      Magistrates’ Clerk. He invited me over to the Settlement and after Court we
      went with Walter King, the Magistrate and Superintendent, in his launch. King
      asked Humphreys to bring me along to tea later on. Humphreys took me to the
      Public Officers quarters, the finest in the Colony, most luxuriously furnished,
     with even a billiard table.” (Vol 1: p. 303)

       Names of residents found in Guiana registries fill-to-overflow the pages of
       Roth's journals  ̶  Van Sluytman, McTurk, Fiedtkou, Phang, Griffiths, Drepaul,
       Correia, Christiani, Van Sertima  (“a dear old fussy Dutch lady”), Prem Das
       (“an East Indian catechist”), The Zulu (“an enormous African lady who
       washed and did other favours”).

       Readers will need to be patient with Roth’s old-millennium words for
       Guianese Africans and Indians, his dry, bush-clearing prose; the careful
       delineation of features, accuracy of dates and measurements

       Working through page after page of his reports could be mind-numbing, but
       Roth provides ‘data’ that when analysed might add to Guyana’s understanding
       of the early formations of nationhood, the partial ties and aversions taking
       root in the colony.

       Wherever they worked or settled, off the sugar plantations or in the gold fields,
       Guianese were sinewy, resilient folk, alert to opportunity after emancipation
       (though Roth’s recordings don’t pause often enough to underline these traits.)

       He gives pure observations – on language, superstition, the management of
       our land resources; polygamy among the Carib Indians, black/white race
       relations in the 1920s, Indian/African relations in the 1930s.

       He comes across in the first volume as a benign administrator; unique among
       outsiders who come and go; driven less by a sense of ‘imperial’ mission, and
       not hard to like.

       Roth was at home among the governing elite (he was secretary of the Overseas
       Club) dressing up “in the garb of civilization” for formal dinners; at the same
       time he was prepared to cross boundaries, get frisky with the natives if the
       occasion presented itself.

       In Chapter XI he is in the Wape area of the Cuyuni. He’s drawn to the sound
       of merriment at a dance hall where Carib Indians are dipping into huge jars of
       liquor and dancing in the moonlight to the sounds of fiddlers and drums. He joins
       them and in conga line fashion follows them to another camp to continue the
       fete, the diarist in his head recording every move and shadow.

       Readers might stop and ask, how did he balance his across-the-country 
       surveyance and his after-duty pursuit of exoticisms. 

                                                                   *

       Volume I (1889-1923) contains most of young Roth’s discovery and mapping of
       Guiana’s topography. It also details his first encounters with tuberculosis, 
       the healing powers of the piaiman, the Arawak language; and close encounters
       with swarms of marubuntas and the land camoodi. 

       Volume 2 (1923-1935) begins on a reflective note. Roth admits to a little
       ‘cynicism’ about his journal keeping. He continues anyway, compiling his 
       observations, for like his father he has an eye on future publication.

       The writing is more anecdotal and interspersed with amusing ‘yarns’. (If there
       were rumblings of discontent among the colonized Roth remained tight-lipped.) 

       Still the tireless, well-meaning administrator, he has lost some of the Overseas
       Club exclusivity of the 1st volume. He is thoroughly familiar with the landscape,
       and he moves with smoother assurance among its diverse inhabitants. 

       These volumes will certainly find a place on library shelves – and perhaps
       a few home shelves – but they're unlikely to attract many new readers willing
       to be transported back 100+ years. Guyanese might protest there is too much
       disorder, too many issues of majority control to measure or shed blood over.

       For our heritage servers, keen to reinstall narratives of ethnic significance,
       Roth leaves a footnote about the fate of ‘his old acquaintance’, the
       entrepreneurial breakaway Abdul Ghani (Phagoo).

       "The last place I visited was the storeroom where the storeroom’s convict
       assistant turned out to be my old acquaintance, Abdul Ghani, once a
       prosperous shopkeeper and coffee grower on the Aruka River. He earned his
       sentence for stealing a sheep. This was, I believe, his third term in prison for
       stealing.”  (Vol 1: p. 304)

       His books were written, Roth said, “for the possible interest and amusement
       of surviving friends” and there are moments  ̶  harrowing or entertaining, in
       blocks of pages, whole chapters  ̶  when the Guyanese reader might feel
       distinctly like outsiders: written about, providing the stage for the enlargement
       of an extraordinary young life, its colonial good times.

              (A version of this article was published elsewhere in 2007)
                                                                            – Wyck Williams

 

 

 

 

07.17 : ‘SEABIRDS BLOWN OFF COURSE AND STARVING’

                   
               ‘The birds are usually lone adults or juveniles  
                 that strayed.

                They spend the majority of their lives at sea,
                rarely venturing in sight of land  ̶  sort of 
                an enigma for us to understand.

                 Fueled up at feeding grounds in the Caribbean,
                 and living off fat reserves, they glide up the Gulf Stream.

                 I’ve never seen anything like it.

                 Eventually I stopped looking and starting rescuing 
                 birds, a birder said.’
                                                         – W.W.

 

                    

              

             

 

                MY LAST ONE 

              
               The wind offers to relieve me
               of my habits and other drugs if
               my mind I let her feather. 

               Other, commonsensical folk
               see it this way: ‘There’s a storm coming’,’
               and close their windows and doors.

               I leave cracks in mine, to let in
               the wind that blows my papers about,
               making me dash to save these

               always being born: these I think
               I’ll keep – as though my whole bay would crash
               if I let go but one leaf  

               that anyhow belongs to her
               who signed it but for a few to read.
               My last drug’s the wind herself.

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

 

 

 

BREATH . CAST LAST DEBRIEF

 

                                                                            for Carl Hazlewood

                        
              Link all broke, Diallo hoped, toss at sea shilled                        
              folk : not like falling traffickers off ship mast . tempest
              pennant days and whales| nor rain then flood mud
              slide tarpaulin wrap.

              Wet shock . the cold Med swallow : one mother's grip
              child pried apart, chin last up . bubbles at the mouth 
              spare floaters tent scrapped under bridges| clear
              those café tables . rag tag les banlieues.

              Who here knows best their cobbled streets like river
              beds for make shift sleep . plait their loaf stretch dark
              trace race through the tunnel.

              [Mi kno' wha' you a talk bout . tire wiry Irie, passing 
              through . checking the evening Ethiopia update : Express
              eastbound delay.] 

              So we are at an end here . hail sails need wind . grief
              harbour. Our questions come this far of the world camp
              break truck queues . search satellites for air.

                                               Swim lively, metro tadpoles;
              paint the great wall. Mind the mate gap| of you to come
              not good| your nothing to begin with. On the rim rock
              steady as you go.
                                                                    – W.W.

 

                      

                   

 

 

              MISS DICKINSON ADJUSTS MR KAFTA'S CLAIM

                  There's a hierarchy of the sky  ̶
                  an accountancy of angels  ̶
               a Civil Service of the soul's clouds  ̶

                  to which any wretch may apply
                  for assistance with his changes
               on his climb out of one mold of clod.

                  It depends on from which level
                  of the spirit he will persist
               in the filing of his petition 

                  for one hearing  ̶  by a bureau
                  of saints trained in systematic
               attrition  ̶  of his argument  ̶  one

                  of a hundred billion, but his  ̶
                  against his lot of the long wait
                in line for his one moment in this

                  life  ̶  one private consultation                            
                  with the Ombudsman of the fate
               of complaints and appeals to the Light.

              (from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)

 

THE FLAGMAN’S OCCURRENCE WAVE BAND

  

        < Situations And Revelations Of Passing Notice In Guyana >  

         Locket #21   

         They announced her death on the radio. I was shocked. Mrs. Chote from Canal
         District. 

         I didn't even know she had fallen ill, or if she was in hospital. They said they
         were going to cremate the body. It would be laid out for viewing the next
         morning.

         I used to live in Canal District, then I moved to Georgetown. I knew Mrs. Chote
         when people were whispering behind her back, Five children? In this day and
         age? Or saying, What you expect? They like cows.

         The question uppermost in my mind was, how she managed to maintain her
         body weight. Five is a lot, but somehow Mrs. Chote didn’t get fat and fatter
         after each child.

         I decided to travel from Georgetown to pay my respects. I told my son (he
         drove me there) she was an old friend.

         Her face in the coffin looked peaceful as if her life work was over (like we
         have any choice). I didn't ask anyone how she died. I prefer to think one
         day she just stopped walking. From the time I knew her she was always
         walking.

         They had white plastic chairs under a tent, flowers and everything set out nice.
         Looked like they planned some kind of ceremony. I didn't know her as a Hindu
         person. All these years she was just Mrs. Chote.

         Her children were all there. I didn’t recognize them at first. Grown now, big
         men and women, with children of their own. I didn't expect them to remember
         me, but in the little time I sat there, three of them came up and introduced
         themselves. Hardat, Haimdat and Indra.

         Ma always talked about you. She said you were her best friend. That was
         Indra. Pushing her sadness pushed aside for a moment to greet me with warmth.
         Short and pretty like her mother.

         Mrs. Chote and I would meet when she came to Georgetown. We always talked
         about those three. Hardat, Haimdat and Indra. Her survivors now.

        "I wanted my children to succeed, but only three of them listened to me. The
         others take after their father." You could say Mrs. Chote had confidence in her
         genes.

         From the moment she felt the new child showing she was making plans. If she
         realized the child took after the father, she was measuring the months ahead.
         She had designs.

         She stayed with her husband, Mr. Sag Belly who snores; wake her up in the
         middle of the night, handling and wanting. “I wait till he slide off, turn on
         my side, try and get back to sleep.” That gave me a good laugh. As simple as
         that.

         When she was young she took a job in the city, in Queenstown, working in the
         house of a lawyer. She said she noticed how the family seemed so concerned
         with raising their two children to be proper and successful. The daughter
         would become a lady, the son a gentleman.

         "They were different from my family in the District. On the bus going home I
          used to think, I want my children to be successful." Her children (the ones
          who take after her) would grow up and leave their mark in the District.

          When the family she worked for her gave her a bicycle they didn’t want
          anymore (the children were moving around Georgetown in a motor car) she
          found a way to transport it all the way to Canal District.

          With one idea. As soon as he was finished with school, her son would start
          up a bicycle business. No cane field sweating for him. That was Hardat.

          Her husband complained, but the boy loved his mother and he listened to her.
          He learned everything. From patching tubes, to fixing chains. To fixing and
          selling his first bike. One sale led to two, two to four. In no time at all, he
          had his own bicycle business, fixing and selling bikes to people in the District.

          He brought the first two motorbikes to the District. Had them shiny and
          leaning outside his shop. Two bikes become four. Next thing you know,
          anything to do with wheels, contact Mrs. Chote son. Spare parts, accessories,
          whatever you want.

          Child # 2 took after the father. Mrs. Chote didn't talk much about him. He was
          his father's child. Child # 3 was another boy. Haimdat. As soon as he finished
          school she had a "profession" waiting for him.

          The well-off family in that residential neighbourhood, whose children went to
          Queens College, had family portraits framed on the walls and tables. She
          decide Haimdat from the day he left school would take up camera work.

          She bought him a camera, and sent him out to take photos. Family gatherings,
          funerals and weddings. She arranged the pictures in an album, and sent him
          off to offer them for sale.

          "I told him, when you take the photos you must make them relax and hold their
           head up. The boy must feel like a prince, the girl like a princess. And catch
           them sometimes when they think nobody looking."

           People really liked the albums. She told everybody in the District her son was
           a “professional”. He don’t just point and click. And don’t waste time with cell
           phone camera. He knew how to frame pictures, make a nice family album.
. 
           Haimdat became the Photo Album man in the District. Mrs. Chote’s son. For
           any occasion. "Professional" work.

           "Life does follow the laws of Mother nature. If you're the mother, you decide
            what’s best. If they listen to you, they do well," she said. I didn't argue with
            her.

            She didn't talk much about her parents, and about the other children, how
            life turn out for them. Her darlings seemed happy. She was filled with
            contentment and pride.
                                                                  *

            Indra was her last child. A child of circumstances.

            Mrs. Chote's husband was giving her problems. He had this accident. It put
            him out of action for a good little while. She had to keep him comfortable,
            cleaning up, attending to his moods. All of a sudden she felt unsettled, for
            the first time, in her own home.

            She used to travel to Georgetown quite a bit during that time. Told her
            children she was going to see an old school friend. She stopped by me, but
            she was visiting someone, a private arrangement. For the first time in her
            life, she said, she felt real pleasure ‒ gratification, yes, with this man.

            I don't think anybody suspect anything. Nobody would believe Mrs. Chote
            ever felt lonely, would take her friendly nature outside the District (heart
            in the right place) for a taste of difference in Georgetown.

            But knowledge and ignorance does share the same bed, backs to each other.
            I know from experience.

            Anyway, when Indra came Mrs. Chote was so relieved ‒ at least the child
            resembled her mother. I don’t know if Mrs. Chote ever told her who the
            real father was. (She didn’t tell me.)

            Indra was different. She got a job in a Georgetown bank. Moved up and got
            a desk. When her mother found out she was going around with the bank
            manager, a married man in Georgetown, she worried day and night.

            She gave me an address, and asked me to keep an eye on her. “I can’t talk
            to her anymore. She tells me, I’m old enough to live my own life.”

            But that wasn’t my responsibility. Besides, I didn’t know how to “keep an
            eye” on anybody much less Indra.

            That morning Indra moved around the tent, greeting people with her bank
            official pronunciation. From her clothes, her bracelets jangling when she
            raised her arm, it seemed she was in charge. Still not married.

            At one point I caught her looking at me, probably wondering how much her
            mother’s “best friend” knew about her family. And why Mrs. Chote would
            take someone like me into her confidence.

            I didn’t see Haimdat taking pictures.

            All this drama. People going about their business, they think they know
            what they're doing. And you there trying to mind your own till you get
            tangled up.

            Near twelve o'clock, outside the tent ‒ relatives, neighbours, friends (who
            only knew Mrs. Chote, the good mother) fanning themselves and looking
            around ‒ her husband showed up, at least I think it was him. Moving slowly
            from person to group, shaking hands; his face set like he decide now to
            frown in grief for the rest of his life.

            Before I left to go back to Georgetown, I went up to the coffin. Last respects.

            Her eyes and lips still shut, her hair brushed back. In the blink of a second I
            thought I saw her smile, and in my head I heard her say, Eh Eh, so you come?
            I have one story to tell you.

            Real drama in this world, yes. Crave and plan all you want, then lie down
            again, like Mrs. Chote waiting for her fire. You can't move or hide all your
            life. 

            Waveney MacPherson
            Georgetown, Guyana

 

                                                                  

 

NOTES MORE THAN MEET THE EYE

                                                                               
                                                                                                 
                                                                          "Rivers have no source.
                                                    They just automatically appear at a place
                                                   where they get wider, and soon a real
                                                   river comes along…" 
                                                                       – "Myrtle", John Ashbery

             Looking over your shoulder clips the scent of panther
            paw tracks. Looking at images not a sound in your lap
            trips similar shivers ~ run pause Who's there? surveillance
            on|off screen.
                                What harm they intend gets you who cared 
            not one dot for followers ~ boom! boom! right between
            so pointless.

            Shoulders left for pads cold cry now shrug chip size, 
            you might have noticed . to be continued.

            Don't ask where faith seems skirted next; the long and
            short depends when cut foreshock comes due.
                       Generations cheat roots, grow buffering; take
            note we're running out of hem wind high with veldt
            spoor . heaven forbid plug play! cleansing pods.
                                                            And if you think night
            time googles will levy fines for grab apple saucery,
            steeups and pray, bike tube pumprider.

                                    Hey, not to worry  ̶  tarpaulin
            roofers in the desert safe place bets on a new world
            rotisserie : right left the scraps plate wipe for grunt
            walk mount startovers . fired up clicks 'n' stones, eyes
            in tooth red carnations.

            How soon we'll know? three two One ~ 
                                                                   Princes Migrants
            Lovers ~ the moon is high . incense and betel leaves
            offer : so, Places, please, and No! no shine boot loose
            step goosing . scarf herding of washed feet.

                                                                – W.W. 

 

                           

               

 

  

 

               METEOR MISSING AN EMBER


               While the fountain is still flowing, current
                     staggerings matter more than past
                        passions' pain  ̶  which this day,
                        allowed to brim, redeems.

              Yesterday's harp needs tuning but you can
                    adjust it only through today's
                       disharmonic temper,
                       today's tension of touch.

              If 'the past is a bucket of ashes',
                 sift them fast to release the gift
                   of gold in the present
                   sacred ore of the Sun.

              Whole worlds are burning down from gold ignored:
                     The Great Forgetting: justice not
                         only blind but sublime,
                         pure matching of magnets.

              The cosmicomedy's carbon: aeons
                     in a flash transformed into soot,
                        ash of archives feeding
                        the Eagle's beak ever

              tasting, so to better know, and recall :

          (from "Within The Wind"  ©  by Brian Chan)
 

 

THE FLAGMAN’S OCCURRENCE WAVE BAND

         

        < Situations And Revelations Of Passing Notice In Guyana >

         Locket #20

         Our family gets together for public holidays here. July 4th, Thanksgiving,
         Labour Day. They drive in from New Jersey (my daughter) and Schenectady
         (my son). Seeing everybody in the house and in the yard  ̶  bright clothes, a
         newborn baby, the kids playing games on the television set  ̶  gives me a
         good feeling. How we hold together all these years.

         They have grown to be successful, my children, and respectful to the parents
         who gave them life. Which just proves, I always say, in life it’s not where you
         start chopping cane.

         Last July 4th things got a bit out of hand. My wife's sister came with her family
         from the Bronx. They get excited visiting our neighborhood, and the kids can
         be a handful.

         Soon as it get dark they behaving like they off the leash. Running around,
         causing mischief; tossing a football that bounce off parked cars, and have
         them running into people’s yard to retrieve it.

         They threw stones at the next door neighbour pathway lights  ̶  you know those
         front yard lights you stick in the ground from the gate to the front steps? They
         were aiming and throwing stones at them.

         I told my wife not to invite them back, with their "fun" pack behavior. After
         all, we trying here not to get entangled in issues with the neighbors. (Italian
         people, on the left and right. Polite and waving, but we could tell from Day
         one they weren't excited about us moving in.)

         Our last family gathering was not too pleasant. As a matter of fact, it got me
         really upset. More upset than I have ever felt in my life.

         It was after New Year's. Everybody in bright Christmas gift sweaters. We were
         at the dinner table, nice and warm, everybody digging in my wife’s cooked
         food. My son was looking at a device near him. Reading, smiling, then laughing
         out loud.

         This was at the other end of the table. My wife asked what was so funny.

         He decided to tell, but the way he presented it made it sound like the most
         hilarious event ever to happen in his life.

         It was news from back home. From Canal District, to be exact, where we lived
         and where the children were born. We left when they were still kids.

         We were relieved to move away. My son obviously remembered enough of the
         place to find this newspaper report amusing.

         Report: "The 47 year old linesman was at Belvedere Squatting area working on
         a pole when the incident occurred. He was in the area to reconnect the
         electricity, after an excavator which was clearing a canal accidentally hooked
         an electrical wire causing it to burst."

         [My son: "I don't get it. An excavator clearing a canal hits a pole that topples
         and kills a linesman while he's fixing the wires? How could that happen?"]

         Eyewitness #1: "I see when the thing hit the post and the wire cut and then
         the emergency people come and the GPL worker go up the pole. So me turn
         and show me daddy how the post bend, and they should get something and
         tie the post"

         [My wife: "That is so sad. The poor man."]

         Report: "He'd been working with the utility company for 25 years. Last year
         he was honoured for his long and dedicated service to the company. He was
         trying to loose his belt but it happen so quick he couldn't do nothing to save
         himself. He fell with his face pointing towards the pole."

         Report: "The man's wife said a friend was at the hospital when the injured
         man arrived. When I go there, they had him in the theatre. I had to wait and
         the doctors let me go in and see him; they were pumping his heart but like it
         was too late."

         [My Son: "Now, I don't get that part. Did they actually permit her inside the
         operating room? while the doctor was pumping his heart? I mean, that sounds
         bizarre."]

         Report: "He leaves to mourn his two children, ages 19 and 16, and his wife.
         Police have since launched an investigation into the incident."

         [My daughter, bringing in the dessert: "Launch investigation. You think
         anything going happen after that? You watch, nothing will happen. Here in
         New York, you should see how fast they arrest somebody or sue somebody.]

         Normally on these occasions, I would chip in a little joke to season the
         merriment. This time I got up from the table, put on my cold weather jacket
         (not the new one my wife bought me for Christmas. The old one was just
         fine).

         I don't know if they saw the frown on my face. And the agitation under the
         frown. I told them I was going out.

         "Going out in this cold?" Just for a smoke, I won't stay long. "Dad I told you
         about smoking. You have to give it up". Just outside. I don't need scarf and
         all that.

         The news about this dead linesman, this thing grip and swing me right back.

         I knew his father from the District. Not well enough to stay in touch. We
         used to exchange news about our children (with a jokey rivalry about whose
         child getting ahead.)

         He liked old clothes. Always the same washed again shirts. And making
         remarks about other people, like he smarter than everybody, and right about
         everything. His whole life spent shielding his family from people he didn’t
         trust, like Georgetown scruffy yard people.

         Twenty five years of dedicated Service at the Electricity Company. Then this
         happened. I never hear anything like this.

         If I had said something, anything, at the dinner table, my wife would have
         jumped in with a story. And everybody would start asking about other people,
         bringing up their bad luck stories, their faces flat with concern.

         I walked to the end of the block; turned on the main road with the buses and
         traffic lights; past the shop at the corner that my wife refuse to enter,
         preferring we drive to the supermarket. (She move from saving and saving
         to spending and spending here. Is Head and Shoulders now.)

         Waiting for the traffic light to signal WALK. And thinking about my family,
         about my life. How one minute it flowing alright; then the news at dinner
         table, the shock of the news, and next thing you know, I not feeling alright. 

         Across the roadway was what used to be a gas station, run by a Pakistani
         fellow. The sign with the gas price numbers was empty. Construction Hard
         Hat fence all around closed off the area ‒ ordinary, everyday space, getting        
         ready for a different activity.
 
         This city, I tell you. Sometimes you feel you're at its mercy. It can turn on
         you without notice.        

                                                               *


         Usually before I leave the house, I pat my pockets making sure I have my keys.
         I discovered now I’d left the house without my wallet. Without any
         identification. My body felt cold, all the air I had sucked in and ignored. I
         stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets and headed back.

         I noticed for the first time the house numbers of other people's homes, one
         house with a Realty For Sale sign on the lawn. I had no idea belts like beliefs
         can keep climbers tied to their poles right to the very end.

         The children had adjusted quickly to life here. Canal District was now a tiny
         part of what they know. My son, on his own now. So many barriers and cross
         roads waiting to test him ‒ men and women, quiet or furious, failure a tide
         mark on their lives.

         Thoughts like these and other thoughts fluttered around in my head like in a
         birdcage.

         I could be "found dead". Out on this street. This city so fast and fast, no
         witness to explain what happened. I could just hear my son (big ice hockey 
         fan, now) in the dining room, "I don't understand how this could happen."

         Something was happening. Something would continue to happen. I couldn’t
         even start a conversation about it with my wife. (Anyhow, everybody don’t
         have to know everything you thinking.)

         Is some kind of a condition. No, not “you getting old” condition. This thing
         goes back, far back to the District. Fear and overcautiousness. It comes in
         waves, you worry about everything.

         One block away from my front gate, I picked up my step, like I was returning
         from a brisk after dinner walk. Heading straight to my bed. Lie down and
         clear my head a little bit.

         They have prescription for every problem in this place. You can’t hide things
         away forever. I don’t think they have something yet for my condition, this
         resting and fluttering in the birdcage. I am serious. No drug store tablets can
         fix this.

         A. Ballancharia,
         Canal District, Guyana
         New York, USA

 

 

FRONT DAMS OVERLIPPING

                 

            This is our path, Our Path, the Grand Snail announced
            preparing to settle somehow a stand off with a parade
            drill of worker ants.
                                          Family members, meanwhile, get
            dressed : they can't afford to miss the bus . zebra blood
            cross pots 'n' pan strikers. They're too distraught for
            discourse : the Parsimony of Executions by Sword. 

            No, not on our island, though notions are known
            to blow like litter hate to state. Your starapple tree over
            hangs my front yard . Who's responsible? if crapauds
            fall.

                Tired of growing older men feel mission positioned
               to pass laws on girl marriage, full steams
            our Pandit with an acceleration that trips everybody.
            Wisdom feet don't get hard enough to plant and leap.
                                Here, just one Brahmin
            votary is required to veto 'n' waist dress down, send
            in security memes to lobby the bubbies . swollen
            the womb up holds an orb glow for palmsters.

                                        All the screen                                                  
            pat vetting 'n' pinning at border hems, how fare
            slips breed Cain and bad taste  ̶  What's the tip felt 
            capping point?
                                        Better perch
            cerulean grip, our kiskadees chorus, feather shedding
            this caveat : the core unmelted helps us choose
                                        Play poker 

            slow . or tango last with A'toinette found on the fly
            rod ~ only one chance you get ~ for, Oooh, that
            green light ~ peel dive feeling
                                                               – W.W.

                     

               

                  

 

 

                 ALTHOUGH AND BECAUSE

            neither happiness nor ease nor contentment
                   pushed or pulled me in my search or hunt, but
                   love was the only reason I went 

           out of the overlooked goldmines of the soul

               and into the world's overgrown deserts

                   with my heart masked as a beggar's bowl,

 

               bliss and peace and gratitude have bloomed in me

              ̶  shy orchids that sometimes become my tongue

                or angels that kiss my forehead free

 

          of its grooves of disappointment  ̶  and of pain

             in spite and because of which no mother

                worth her salt of milk and gold complains

  

         about the difficulty of giving birth

             and bread to babies with nothing to look

                forward to but the diamond of Earth

 

                   with its perfect flaws.

 

          (from "Within The Wind"  ©  by Brian Chan)

 

 

 

  

THE FLAGMAN’S OCCURRENCE WAVE BAND

  

         < Situations And Revelations Of Passing Notice In Guyana >

        Locket # 19:

        Some thoughts you put aside as you grow up like a shield you don't need
        anymore. Some find holes to fill, or erase themselves on arrival. Others wedge
        themselves in your thinking, and at first you think of removing them, then you
        let them stay.

        One day our English teacher, Miss Hemphell, told us our country was a country 
        of fools. Titled and entitled. People who can't read and people who stopped
        reading. The only way to escape was through education. By which she meant
        not just passing exams, but learning as much as we can. About human folly.

        We thought she must have been angry and frustrated at us for not completing
        an assignment. And exaggerating for effect. She expect everybody to be
        perfect.

        At that moment I saw her as a survivor, surrounded by all our foolishness, but
        holding up somehow. What a relief it must be when her day was over, to go
        home and drop everything.

        Miss Hemphell liked giving us new words to help build our vocabulary, words
        like "contingency", "narcissism", "synchronized'.  Words that sounded foreign
        to our day to day lives in Canal District.

        One word that worked itself inside me for a good while was "eureka".

        Miss Hemphell explained what the word meant. She urged us to search for a
        "moment" in our lives to apply these words. 

        No one reported they had found a eureka carrier. We heard of weird things
        that happened, but Canal District was too boring for eureka moments. Besides,
        we had better things we wanted to do (we didn't tell her that).

        Weeks later she said, "If you hang around here waiting for a eureka, you'll die
        waiting." What was she going on with now? "You better off doing something
        simpler. Like trying your luck in the interior. With the porknockers searching
        for gold."  

        Vijay came up behind us after school that afternoon and said, "That English
        teacher always talking nonsense. She only talking like that because she has
        no man her life. And no children. And she getting old." 

        He was all worked up. He swore Miss  Hemphell had looked straight at him
        when she talked about porknockers.  Also, he wanted to impress Vanessa, my
        best friend.

        I said nothing. Vanessa smiled. Her toes were already in his canal. She was eager
        to be impressed.

        Once she said, giggling as if about to break a promise not to say anything,
        that Vijay considered me a sulky person. If I continued with my attitude (and
        considering my small breasts) I would live a lonely, miserable life.

        A breach appeared between us. I made a vow there and then, not to marry
        someone like Vijay; not to develop a squat body with neck folds from
        bearing children like Vanessa. I was learning to be patient; defiant in my own
        way.

        Miss Hemphell said something else that day that flew over all our heads.  
        About the colours around us, the blues, browns, greens. "They turn off and
        on, did you know that?   Sometimes they go hue-less, and they mingle and
        disperse in the atmosphere".

        She was off on a tangent. We looked at each other, wondering what was
        bothering her now.   

        I tried to follow her. Once she said to me, Be prepared, young lady. At the
        fault lines, hands will reach out and make a grab for your legs if you try to
        leap. It sounded like the kind of warning I got from my mother, about boys
        and "consequences", about pride and safety first.

        It was an awkward moment. I should have said, What do you mean, Miss?
        right on the spot. I didn't feel confident enough to open up a line of personal
        conversation.

        I felt there was something else she wanted to teach us. She knew so much,
        but with no constant companion for conversation (as far as we could tell) it
        came out indirectly, in bits and spurts. And she was not the type to get on
        stilts and broadcast how much she knew.

        Grown up, and wiser now, I think, it dawned on me the other day that a 
        eureka moment  ̶  that "suddenly understanding a problem that was previously
        incomprehensible" thing   ̶  might have happened, but not in some dramatic O 
        My God! way. 

        I could have told Miss Hemphell about my father.

        He owns one of those tall buildings you see in Georgetown, and when you
        cycle past you wonder where the owner get the money to put up a monster
        like that, in your neighborhood, and call it Hotel or a Business Establishment,
        with space and prospects to rent.

        Anyway, on weekends Pa used to invite friends and uncles to bring their
        families, hang out in the dining area on the roof of his building. He didn't 
        allow me bring my friends. They wanted to put on clothes, come and pretend
        they were enjoying "luxury".

        One evening I overheard him carrying on like he was this self-made
        "businessman" who worked so hard to get where he was. He was telling 
        someone how his dream of one day owning this building started.

        It had to do with his father, a paunchy, sweaty shop keeper who complained
        about electricity in the District. He was always coughing when I saw him, like
        he had some serious health problem. Saved up all his money, which Pa
        inherited.

        But here's the thing. One day he gathered his children (including Pa) for a trip
        to Georgetown. They were going to visit the Lighthouse near the seawall. "I
        have a buddy working there. He will let us in. They have stairs like a spiral
        winding all the way to the top," he said, overexplaining what could have come
        as a surprise.

        When they got there one of his daughters refused to go inside. She was worried
        she might feel dizzy. Her father shouted at her, "Stay outside since you so
        frighten. Stand right here, and don't move till we come back."

        Pa went ahead of his father and was the first to step out at the top.

        He discovered he could look in every direction; out to the sea, the zinc roofs
        tiny below, the straight line roads stretching for miles. "The only high height
        I ever climb was a coconut tree. But up there, everything was so clear."

        That could have been Pa's eureka moment.

                                                                *

          I live in Edmonton now. I left the District years go for college in Toronto. 
        Graduated, got a job straightaway, lucky me. Spent two years working with
        an Insurance Company. My first real job.

        Some people in the office referred to me as the Asian girl; quiet and punctual,
        with deep, brown eyes and a strange way of speaking.

        One man became more than interested in who I was. At my desk, leaning over
        my shoulder, he said softly, "Shall we go out somewhere?" My response, with a
        smile, threw him off balance, I don't think we shall. He dropped word I might
        be friendly and efficient in the office, but "behind the veil"  ̶  behind what veil?  ̶ 
        there was nothing. I just didn't take them on.

        One day my supervisor who is Canadian asked me to marry him. I said yes. He
        got transferred so we moved to Edmonton.

        I know what you're probably waiting to hear. Most explanations are truth
        deficient, and often get taken the wrong way.

        Back in Canal District, because there was no prior notice or family involvement,
        my decision was heart rattling news, But what is wrong with her? They can
        stay there with that. Though they might eventually come around and accept
        what's done is done.

        Honestly? there are days when I think this man came into the world intended
        for me. Don't laugh. Who hasn't sheltered thoughts like that, about life with
        its twists and turns? the moment like a post to which you tie your canoe?

        We own a small, ranch style home which I love. A son whom I love. I told Jack,
        my husband, one child is enough, I didn't come into this world to be the mother
        in a house of screaming children. He and I are certain of one thing: there's no
        point dwelling on the past (he was married, divorced).

        Sometimes he comes home, tired, it's the end of his day 'bossing' people. We'd
        sit down for dinner and he tells these little stories, about people and what he'd
        observed. He'd sigh and say, "Unbelievable!" as in, How could anyone be so
        careless or naive?

        I'd shake my head and say, Incroyable! borrowing from Miss Hemphell's District
        vocabulary. Incroyable! she'd say, in a low voice, looking through the window,
        as if she needed a moment, a little break from looking at our faces in the
        classroom.

        I woke up one Sunday morning and told him about a dream I had.

        I had flown a helicopter, back to Canal District, landing in a cleared area near
        a cane field, all by myself. I started off on foot to find my parent's home. I
        couldn't find it. I gave up searching and walked back to the helicopter. It was
        not there.

        All that was left were the rotor blades. Some one had dismantled the plane
        and taken away the parts. Everything but the rotor blades.

        That was truly amazing! Jack said. Next time, take me with you, please?
        Then he put his arms around me and we squeezed each other. 

        Moments like that, the sauce pan on the fire, I feel unbelievably trusted and
        loved. The "frisson"  ̶  yes! Miss Hemphell  ̶  of elsewhereness. You can only 
        imagine how good it feels.

        Savi Lalljee-Stewart
        Canal District, Guyana
        Edmonton, Canada