FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

                                                                                              
                                                          "I have never seen the beast," Cristo
                                                           confessed miserably.
                                                       “You ever see you mother with a man?” Magda
                                                         spoke viciously.”
                                                              – Wilson Harris, The Whole Armour (1962)

                 
            Not in villages with roadside groomers, manatee     
            moods | class masters @lectern lights have no idea;
            charade & Co How yuh toss ‘n’ turnin’! ship tight
            dildothas slidin’. 

            Not island chest pride^puffed with pigeon peas  
           + turdles splat! in state show window | hunger
            game? drain the river, grab ‘n’ bake fish jumping
            so.

            Not the soldier on old battle fields . sees a farm  
            girl from the truck rushing his company
            to the front | in Death valley ‘im blood teeth Caw!
           ‘im double back; plucky, grim sign reaper.

                                                  +

            For funeral events for whispers friends for arms 
            in silent clutch . church bell, briefly their sorrow
            ours.

                                                  +

            Our tower glass cleaners making sure from room          
            to foyer to car top open over miles of old sea
            wall . not one dam shoe mud tracking | carpet
            retro fit for princes.

                                                                  \ August entry
            ocean splash not verified; September platform
            narrow so. Watch, nah! ripples mark.  
                                                                        Pan season
            here, hems to hoist^up stars far flare | bon nuit
            pitit mwen! blouse unbutton nipples steuups,
            down link bed sag always so.           

                                                                    – W.W.

                        
                   

             

                                     

       

               YUH RAP SO (4.2)

               The projection + reception of signals
               Of spoken words broken into digital
               Information-shards of an invisible
               & incurable virus of sheer babble
               Linking a detached pair of ego-bubbles
               Rainbowing their pasts through an uncalled-for call:
            – Oh hi there, C, Dilys had answered her cell
               As though there was no distance or time at all
               Between them as bright young things + dull old fools
               & as though she + he had been bedfellows
               Of any kind down in the Mission:

               She’d never liked C, that black son of the gun,
               As she once spitefully labelled his person

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

 

 

 

                 
             (From Notes towards an Autobiography 
             Handwritten by Dilys at the suggestion
             Of Judd after her depression-confession):

             From then on the child Dilys tried her utmost
             To charm the pants off (one old lech let her taste
             His tongue) otherwise no-time-for-nonsense folk
             Who just had to stop to hear the sweet ting squawk
             Her nth parroting of The Ugly Duckling
             Or cluck her tongue-tied aping of The Click Song
             (In my nateev veelage in Johannesburg):
             One prim old bird demurred her praise thus: My word!
             Hearing her, Dilys was shocked that the word word
             By itself could behave like a kind of curse-
             Word: it was written, in the lines of the face
             Of that granny, that nothing small could impress
             Her + at that moment Dilys felt her own
             Fat smallness

          (from “Raponani” . a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)

                   

 

                                                                          
                                     " A man was catching crab one day and suddenly
                                        he see his right hand walking away. He look
                                         again and see four five crab carrying it away.”
                                                           - V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street (1959)

                
           Start with the GPS that can pinpoint the pimple
           on the nose of Sairas hiding in the weeds of foreign
           exchange | mobile?  peek sneak, confirm . Not Prepaid
           to care. 
                                                                    \ Whose tracers
           dye inside tree lines ? where memes the fastest brooding
           steam | up near our stellings Gao Ming forklifts stack
           snake inyuh cutgrass drums.   
                                                                        Village walk 
           ways shudder under truck wheel hubris; passers
           like on plantation grid hog ! side^scrape my middle
           ride you try! mud^lock my Lastname.

                                                    +

           Matched like old wood house frame baby face 
           daughters @love^sixteen disappear . for soft
           serve again not seen.

                                                   +

          Beach runners + our raftsmen done with river
          tours warn ! flat on your stomach brace for dragon
          fish racing up ‘n’ over castles, under sand skin
          teeth.                 
                                      \ Limbs husk^free of coconut
          sippers they’ve found sea lanes Whose walls accept
          our back stroke reach? swim champions now.

         Meantime this aging millionaire offers trade – half
         his fortune for ten youth^fresh years | lines of give^
         takers; some transfer details to be worked out.

                                                             – W.W.

 

                 

           

 

 

                YUH RAP SO (4.0)

                                                                   Now real parrots
               & macaws were at their wordless squawking lot,
               Their racket of pretending to give a damn
               About the earthbound passage of the dumb worm
               Of a man beginning to snake his way through
               The base of their upper-realm hullabaloo
               Neverendingly celebrating their gift
               Of being able to wing away – aloft
               Not quite up to heaven’s height, but to their bright
               Feathered brief relief from their own dust-bound fate

                (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                                             

                
             
           Take a wild guess, as croupiers in the cloud place              
           cards for bettors down on earth . bluff alert, the cicada
           last ditch call | prayers noted! sheep hands chest
           tight eventually fold.  

                                            \ Here's a challenge : travel
           the bowl, sample native fruit you find vegetation
           learn | tie down octopus arms, blood count suck
           cups off^skin.

                                                   ^

           iPhone hype keys snapping for attention, face +
           buttock grind tinnitus^like @cranium base. What
           mass you say play against for?

                                               \ Here’s a mission : forest 
          floors swept clear of chain saw dusters; iron
          rakers who scrap accounts @ paradise bird stops;
          carbon pool drain.

                                                  ^

          Grass raise bush to cover every precious crevice
          straddled; crapaud eyes peel as grounds reboot
          long after air + sky light raiders finish. 

                                           \ Here’s an app : the swamp
          or garden croak that rattled even mount^maul
          mammoths ? who says child^curious rhythmias can't
          over war^grown centuries leap; deep set to beep.

                                                             – W.W.

 

           

         

 

 

           YUH RAP SO (3.9)

           Theirs was already a zone of walking stars
           That required no baptism by guilty tears
           Mixed with the blood from a sacrificial Cross,
           Yet it was an Eden about to be lost
           Down the mindless maw of the beast of wheels and
           Boots + guns + trailers + other prefab
           Assumptions about its right to take over
          (Over ever the perverter of power)
           Whatever ripeness makes it ready to be
           Plucked + washed + peeled + swallowed, all its seeds
           At the core of its flesh of custom thrown out:

           But can’t-be-helped colonisation was not, 
           Thomasson knew, a notion that was needed
           From a leftover paleface, white sheep-keeper
           Whose red flock slept sounder than he of black thoughts           

                 (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                                                   

 

                 

                                           Loneliness sublimated
            to sentimental heroics of gesture
            as much to afform (sic) his Noble Nature
            as to disrupt, in trust, the ruts of others’ :

            Those were more shards by which Sister D. bothered
            To take Brother J. seriously enough
            To forgive his disrespect for all the Cloth
            In general and the starch of her habit
           (Vatican II a dream not yet come through quite)
            Still grimed by his slight shove that had made her drop
            Back into the chair from which she had got up
            To think on her toes while rebutting Ladd’s last
           (But of course only his latest) bombastic
            Attack on the very church that gave him work –
            Down from the Pope through the priest + up in her!
         – Yes, you, you! Phonies like you! were Ladd’s exact
            Words exacting like cracked-mirror reflections
            Demanding more of their reverse that fed them.

         (from “Raponani” . a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

                                              

                                            
                                   “Ironical master, passive mistress. Unseen hand
                                   shaped by and shaping the grind of the elements.
                                  Craft of possession and dispossession."
                                         – Wilson Harris, The Waiting Room (1967)
                           

                Assuming few take notice then frightened move
             away, the head makes up inmates to chat with;
             like our hotel cleaners who rip fiction pages for wipes.
             Eh eh, gyurl! that pineapple skin^clean ripe so.

             Told one day You could lose those eyes! become
             a princess, the toad girl follows the wand
             waver Just one touch, you’ll see! Start Over
             404.

                                                 ^

             This gringo ! wanting to take their only daughter
             away | some Artificial magnet links at work
             the mother fears. Skinny so! peck peck iPeas on
             his plate. No soft Ursala boileggs for you.     

             Dulcie looking out her window ‘til this kiskadee
            ‘wing by. Think you doing better than me?  Closer
             to the heat source, why bother ? explaining
             Ethiopian umbrellas; the ether cable attachment.

                                                 ^

             The town square ! setting life time sheets on fire
             taps cell phone capture | long after the last
             breath curls they say the pain remains. Relax!
             gullets blow ash hot You get used to it.

             Filament at its frailest, ours^theirs; partners
             wondering what went right then wrong; pronoun
             horns locked in deer trail devotion. A lot to process
             here, our quill top skullars would submit.

                                                                    – W.W.

 

                   

             

 

 

                 YUH RAP SO (3.7)

                 Looking back over its shoulder at every
                 Shadow of its progress round every corner
                 Of the mind’s maze whose whims shadows swerve to serve:

                 How he envied his sheep + their ffflocking ways!
                 There, far from Guyana’s two big-ish cities –
                 Those backwaters content to seem backwaters
                 While informing the rational headquarters
                 Of world views which Caribbean islanders,
                 Reared on splinters off the two Americas
                 & locked to the hubris of seas sometime-ish
                 (He had first heard the term in the West Indies
                 As applied to others’ me-me moodiness)
                 Were too proudly particular to digest,
                 & might spurn as Guyanese pretensiveness

                  (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                                                     

 

 

                
           Lines crossed leave dark lord skid marks +
           orphans | signs of constancy we grew up under
           alert travel tutors . See? rope ankle^hanging subjects
           from a bridge, homework like.

           What eats shore vultures clutch ! sea changers    
           paid to serve stakes high in asphalt waves | hard
           to sustain . our island wide mouth breathing on
           which crude rise makers + millions depend.

                                                ^

           Moth fitful . N’Indira half year past her last
           trimester, latch^feed account still active, googles
           How to wash^wipe leave . this All he care about
           cow milching; brain methane squirts.

           Lovers roast taste . fire place in a state
           G’wan so ! cyan just dice off every stick^cheating
           carrot | pray the capuchin^like stray pokes end
           bamsi reset in a pinch.

                                                ^

           Couching balls men chat about the game, never
           fine with loss | dandelions used to child’s play
           field invasion go Take, take whatever you want
           Please don’t

           Pimps van^shipping flesh crop + savings       
           live – for skin care job car child piano lessons – 
           stream like ‘others chancing ocean swallow
           panting for whatever the ‘uck those pots host.

                                                         – W.W.

 

                 

       

 

              YUH RAP SO (3.6)

              Unlikely reader, does it seem unlikely, 
              Not to say unethical, that Conrad had
              Managed to start an Affair with Amanda,
              A tough Prairie Gal thirteen Years his Senior
              Who must have known that his caring Demeanor
              Was just his bluffing Way of trying to get
              Her to speed up the Bureaucracy-Process
              That would lead to his Emigration Papers?
              But, having no influence whatsoever
              On the Outcome of his Application,
              She simply indulged his masked Supplications:

              Naturally those had boosted her Ego but
              Don’t get her wrong (her whole Life was locked to not
              Getting – not being seen as getting – Things wrong:
              Her blood wasn’t also German for nothing!)

                  (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

                   

 

                
           Not that he couldn't show kindness, but forgot
           To not reserve that act for cute customers,
           Some of whom he would even smile at, yet curse
           His wife + daughter as though they were trying
           To suffocate him rather than help him
           On the ups + downs of the fate-wave of life,
           Theirs they all shared:  Wait, you tink dem young tings give
           Two hoots about you after they use yuh tail
           Fuh a free bottla Phensicks now + again?

           What had Dilys’s mother meant by that hoots?
           Words like that which the child heard her parents shout
           At each other literally flew over
           Her head, like blurred balls, only to smash into
           & between the walls of that couple’s divorce
           Masked as Hard Work, Drug Store, shuffling about: fierce
           Caged tigers who couldn’t help grazing against
           Each other’s bristling fur every now + then.

       (from “Raponani” . a verse novel by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

                               
                           “…rearranged naked premises…naked features… 
                                  rearranged exposures of the susceptibility                                  
                                     of the future to the past.”
                                        – Wilson Harris, Companions of the Day
                                                                   And Night (1975)

                The sum of fight, surrenders . smart or bare
              head^pillowing legs; songs hummed to hush child
              fears; the Minister, curve grooming. Who bears
              the cost of air jackets . dotted ties?

                        \ Prayers for smile + note exchange in hotel      
              rooms; gunmen seen in cars chewing lunch break
              choice; desert crossing genders. Who watches
              over these numbers?     

                                                    +

              Keeping pace + head on neck – not since
              the clearance of Genghis Khan, horse ‘n’ blade
              rib rabble scything | now as if just one year pass
              new Order shipped. Who waits that long for closure?

                                   \  Elsewhere, chest vests that boom
              loose bricks + IDs flying | unhappy with love print
              device . Ave Maria! first fetus growing. What
              happens in your country? 

                                                           +                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
              Island role players’ make up cast for part
              world folding – work sleep, lines repeat; single Acts
              bag feeding. What’s left with life to hew?

                                             \  Ice melt, sun burn signals             
              sent like plea bargain; see Folder Old | mon Dieu,
              What’s this ? stumbling out back furry, phone
              light on rubble point | pants up . no, don’t look away.

                                                                      – W.W.

 

                      

             

 

 

 

              YUH RAP SO (3.4) 

              The world's warring wheels were greased by unnamed spite
              & yes, this priest was jealous of that girl’s youth,
              Theirs – why the very thought of Judd’s one big mouth
              Silenced for once by this girl’s two small mouths glad
              To drown the dross of low words in the high tide
              Of the milk of ecstasy et cetera –
              The very idea of infants who would dare
              To go beyond the pale of paleface-fences
              Incensed the priest’s sense of the limp impotence
              That broods at the root of death-denying rape
              – The threat of which the girl now seemed not to fear:

                     (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

                    

     
         

                Eyes that close near the end of a sentence 
                as if in prayer, as if in touch with outer space
                messengers – how to verify ? skip past on ground  
                We not supposed to play near centuries of wave follow.

                         \ Hands once cuffed to Estate fate, form
                good on ball^bat day | on state of the rack souls in enamel
                knots hang; else why would anyone care ? butter
                flaps mud baked; servers down.

                                                         +

                Pebbles build mountain trust; our tree toppers
                code branch ‘n’ leaf in hair pin numbers | still
                tower rung cow bells for wondering flesh . MEENA, yu
               ‘LUT  yu ‘other ‘UNT! 

                        \ Willing to fly, like bees fixed^wing furious
                from flower to flower; clueless how to guard
                fern trails, young women < Come! admiring ripe
                ol’ sage.

                                                        +

                Not vested, circles of rotor^roused Empire
                dust cloud altitudes; blood settles, bones run
                for outlet points | few scores to hose away, thank the earth
                solid mercy.

                          \ Locked in ? the One all style ‘n’ user
                fame; him^her in windowless phone destitution | see
                what matters, tide low ? limbo stick, see.

                                                                – W.W.

 

                          

                 

 

 

                YUH RAP SO (3.3)

                Such concerns never needled Conrad (Doctor:
                He became a dentist here in Canada)
                But, as his word-sponge, am i lying through my
                Teeth by telling what he told me of this life
                Before he became a decent dissident
                & had to seek status as an immigrant
                In this elsewhere?  If i lie, i lie after
                The masked man mouthing tales of his time down there:

                What happened was, was how he often began
                The latest segment of his installment-plan
                Autobiography – as he himself deemed
                His answers to people’s Where do you come from?
                    – But, he said once, most of them think it mek no
                Difference + them that ask do suh to keep you
                Different

                   (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)