CHURCH MOTHER ASIDE

  

                        
                    Up from cradle, woman wife they striding; slower
                    to firm, prime gone horn down they blowing.

                                                     Exchange their stock in trade,
                    house maid their quick relief  ̶  plump up that résumé 
                    like pillow!  ̶  some kind of first snip Chief in command
                    assuming.

                    I sing and dust and walk around the room talking
                    to the door knob. Where else could they put it, this in
                    significance? over done fall off lips left still rippling.

                    Matrons of needles thread bare pointing  ̶  Look the devil
                    there!  ̶  knit veins enchant clap start hell furnacing.
                                                                                                Prayer
                    lets us heal what needs flesh needs to be prepared for.

                    Like termite bite so hard to tell where blade tip ends
                    faith leak begins. And, hear this, elsewhere the behead
                    making a come back.

                    Lord of lords! but look how long, child after child, I
                    waiting for deliverance.                                              
                                                                              Move closer
                    to me, spread on this altar. Take my days, on my side
                    fill my nights dwell deep not flame out slide away.

                                                                                                      -W.W.

                      

 

                                                                                     

                   

                          
                    PRESENT TENSE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
                    HORSE SENSE

                    Into the bush on a bronco
                    and out of the bush on one half-
                    tamed but willing to listen less
                    to the stings of your kicks and whips
                    than to the rhythm of your blood
                    saddled about their memory, now
                         revised, grooved into his hide.

                    Not to be ruled, no transitive
                    verb, no name doing this to that,
                    but, in a cage, something like smoke
                    between its window-bars sliding
                    towards the fenceless zone of breath's
                    resistance-surrender-transcendence,
                    triumph of deténte to no one's.

                     (from "A December Snail"  ©  by Brian Chan)

 

 

 

NY SLIDE 9.9: LINCOLN HEARTS

          

                     Outside Lincoln Hospital he had to wait for Judy Wiener again. They'd
                     traveled in separate cars, it seemed the best arrangement, and he'd
                     got there first. It occurred to him she might get lost once she came off
                     the expressway. There would be a parking problem in the narrow local
                     streets; she was probably driving around looking for a spot. He'd been
                     standing outside the entrance a full twenty minutes and still no sign of
                     her. 

                     The temperature had fallen. A cold afternoon wind had sneaked up. 
                     What had started as a balmy night and then a warmer morning was 
                     taking a chilly turn that would surprise everyone coming out of offices 
                     at five o'clock. Weather aside, the traffic flowed, the stores and
                     sidewalks seemed active; people in the Bronx had their reasons to be
                     out and about. 

                     We wake to situations altered while we sleep, he started thinking: a
                     bullet-pierced body, a door lock broken, drug capsules like scattered
                     seeds on the stoop. Something keeps creeping closer as through a
                     mist, always hard to detect.                 

                     He looked up at the hospital and imagined Xavier waking up, waiting in
                     bed for the doctors to decide what to do so he could be out again in
                     the streets. The longer he stood waiting for Judy Wiener the stronger
                     his irritation grew.

                     People all about, most of them jobless at this time of day, he had to
                     assume. Vanishing specks. He was a speck waiting to vanish, too,
                     amidst the movement and noise and odors swirling around on this
                     Bronx street. Xavier, too, was a speck. How many people were even
                     aware of his condition up there in a hospital bed? The hospital was a
                     speck. But for its name on the outer wall it was fairly indistinguishable
                     from most buildings around.

                     And who was this guy standing across the road, a strapping young man,
                     dark glasses, gold chain gleaming on his chest, his chin jutting out as if
                     to discourage scrutiny? And beside him a heavy panting fleshy dog? 

                     It was exactly as he'd imagined  ̶  Judy Wiener had gotten lost. She'd
                     stopped to ask directions twice, and she was parked on a side street
                     two blocks away. She explained all this on the sidewalk, going through
                     her bag again like a squirrel. She looked up at the hospital as if
                     surprised to find it actually standing there. 

                     Inside the doors they hesitated. Xavier's mother had said she'd be
                     waiting to meet them in the lobby. There were rows of chairs in a
                     waxed waiting area, but she wasn't there. 

                     A security officer, a youngish, balding man standing in a corner
                     chewing gum, studied them. Two stern-faced receptionists at the
                     reception desk listened as a doctor in white coat handed over a folder,
                     whispered instructions, clicked shut his ballpoint and headed for the
                     elevators. 

                     They approached the reception desk; but then someone called her
                     name and rushed toward Judy Wiener and it seemed Xavier's mother
                     had found them. 

                     She'd just come off the elevator; she'd been upstairs to see Xavier;
                     they weren't allowing him visitors at this hour. And he lay there
                     handcuffed to his bed. Handcuffed to his bed. 

                     Radix stood aside watching the two women embrace after a flurry of
                     smiles and exclamations. He was introduced as a teacher who knew 
                     Xavier very well. "He's from the West Indies, too." Judy Wiener
                     added. Xavier's mother extended a limp hand and smiled a wary island
                     smile. Then she turned back to Judy Wiener.  

                     Radix had expected a mild-mannered, good-hearted lady gripping a
                     handbag, her face a mask of distress. Xavier's mother  ̶  Mrs.
                     Haltaufauderhude!  ̶  was a short woman, in her thirties, he guessed.
                     She wore a blue beret, and a London Fog  raincoat unbuttoned to
                     reveal her shimmering corduroy pants outfit and Nike footwear. She
                     carried a Channel 13 TV tote bag with a magazine sticking out, and
                     her perfume hung like a protective mist around her. 

                     With animated gestures, her bracelets jangling, she explained her
                     intention to protest to "the proper authorities" about Xavier being in 
                     handcuffs. "I mean, come on…" , she kept saying, in a tone of ladylike
                     outrage. Judy Wiener, arms folded, nodded and shared her outrage. 

                     For awhile Radix could think of nothing to say. He sort of hovered over
                     the two women. At times he looked from one concerned face to the
                     other, and he tried to wedge his own concern somewhere in the heart
                     of the conversation. 

                     At some point he sensed silence around them, a lull in the conver- 
                     sation. Perhaps feeling they ought now to include him in their 
                     exchanges, the women turned their attention to him.

                          (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D. Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

 

FESTIVAL FOR ISLAND CROWS

                            

                     It had faces baked in macadamia nuts, accents fine
                     tuned to play pen civilize; stand up drone home run
                     come rally from the cold, hugging up in short sleeves
                          hot sun prose.

                     It had prizes too embarrassing to keep; panel heads
                     nuancing desire through fern gullies of surge. The old
                     lion of the sea laid back among his palettes and trophies,
                         cub text mates like anemones on his reef.

                     It had genre divas accessorizing, spritzing Noir skin
                     fragrance on island crime. "What do readers want?
                     shots fired chopped heads pay back madrassi hoods?
                       a night watch man skill set from Scotland Yard?"                            

                     So much gone wrong, harmonium or steel; blank white
                     page fenced for fabulous Marley grazing, while in Mas
                     tents hand maidens kneel setting jaws dressing nation
                         wounds in water colours; not for dry eye. 

                     It have waist band just wake up from carnival iron.
                     Those wind tight couplet cheeks! what riddims
                     rhymes they passing? whose temper swings incense
                         Ash Wednesday bells? 

                     It have bawling and seeding, scorning and healing;
                     fame pale facing the beach time sharing; memories
                     like sugar cake wrap tight for road side tray; dance
                         hall turn styling hunger bass man thunder. 

                     Not paid to come, topped up to leave, give trombone
                     regards to Miguel Street, the Israelite Twelve. Sweeter
                         than ever this year, compère; light house
                         switch down, catch the wave next year.
                                                                                        – W.W.

 

                           

                             

 

                                                                  

                                 
                      DESERT

 

                      Something to say, you think? But an urge
                      of sand at the mercy of the wind 

                      that pelts every attempt at meaning
                      into storms of vanity and scoops 

                      of the impossible realised.
                      And few know how to listen; how's that 

                      for bathos? But frustration, failure
                      and sheer cussedness are your hardest

                      masochistic addictions and so
                      here you go again: Beyond the reach 

                      of paper ladders sagging with worms of words
                      slipping down one another's backs,

                      and over oases of moonlight
                      attesting to the somewhere sea as source

                      of sand and wind, its temple-masks, hang
                      the ripest stars, unmoved, staring down

                      at these lovely dumb dunes, these deaf men
                      stifled by their latest wriggling word.

 

                    (from "Scratches On The Air", by Brian Chan)

 

 

Review Article: WHAT JOHNNY SAID TO THE QUEEN

  

                    England's Queen Elizabeth II visited the colony of British Guiana in
                    1966. The visit, recorded for storage by a British film crew, went
                    according to plan and protocol: with lines of local dignitaries
                    extending gloved hands; bouquets and dance presentations, the
                    exchange of proprieties; crowds lining the streets, some breaking to
                    run with the motorcade. In its own way an official visit packed with
                    the orchestrated expectations of its time.

                    The "progressive" forces of the day, exhibiting what might be
                    considered a passive defensive (and turf patrolling) mindset, had called
                    on the populace to boycott the occasion; perhaps fearing any display
                    of public enthusiasm for royal visits might distract from the ideological
                    march to anywhere, coast clear of colonial markers. 

                    British Guiana became Guyana in the following year, and for a short
                    period after that the nation witnessed an upheaval of cultural
                    expression. John Agard was part of a creative movement which culmi-
                    nated in the showcase of regional talent during the seminal
                   "Carifesta" event in 1972.

                    He moved to England in the 1970s and has lived there ever since,
                    publishing poetry collections for children, garnering awards; and
                    performing "hit" poems on tour to delight and applause.

                    One crowning moment must have been his visit with Queen Elizabeth in
                    2012 to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (an achievement, it
                    bears pointing out, that was grounded in those formative years in
                    Georgetown.) 

                    Agard's development as a poet started with his youthful involvement in
                    the theatre arts. It bypassed the customary path through University so
                    that text and author have found a "voice" unaffected by the bland duty
                    that sometimes tasks language; as might seem the case with, say,
                    Guyanese professors Mark McWatt and David Dabydeen whose poems,
                    happy to revisit and review the passage of human suffering and
                    time's dust, accomplish much with collegial ado but feel safer sticking
                    to the home office grid. 

 

 

Queen shares a laugh w John Agard

                                                 [Poet John Agard shares a laugh with Queen Elizabeth II] 

 

                    In the 1990s a stint as Writer in Residence at London's South Bank
                    Centre cast Agard as that weirdly successful "Bard at the Beeb" whose
                    words became suddenly available to beebish listeners. In his latest
                    collection, "Travel Light Travel Dark" he pokes around the baggage of
                    imperial geographics for truths undeclared: "Is that the blood/ of the
                    Gambia/ flowing under a Thames aria?"  "What light can your green
                    darkness, Atlantic,/ shed on a traffic that has scarred your waters?"

                    He assembles teams of celebrated players for a friendly (pre-season
                    like) game of  questioning assumptions and probing paradoxes. There
                    are star performers like Prospero, Caliban, Jimi Hendrix & Handel
                    (from "Water Music"), Sussex, Chelsea, Georgetown (from Guyana),
                    Mayfair (from London), cane fields & horn pipes, King Lear & the Moor ,
                    Christopher Columbus, Michael Holding.

                    Some readers might cavil: this manoeuvre, set apart from modern-day
                    spikes of street tension, creates space for high culture cruising. And
                    the word play (the "hoodie in the hood", "the ship in citizenship")
                    makes nice rap moves, quickly taken, but seem designed to titillate
                    receding commonwealth sensibilities.

                    His metaphors might strike others as too easily summoned and put to 
                    work. Take his "Colour Poems", for instance, in which colours ring out
                    fresh (and not so fresh) twists of meaning: red, he writes, "makes an
                    art of bleeding slowly"; and  green "thrives on a single leaf's trans-
                    figuration".

                    In the wider Caribbean context, Agard's poetry calls to mind the
                    ground-raking "folk aesthetics" work of the Barbadian scholar-poet
                    Kamau Brathwaite (minus the shouter fonts, the return-home sense
                    of "mission".) You'll note the effort to disrupt patterns of thinking,
                    the shift towards new centres of creative energy; and the poet's
                    not-fully preparedness to embrace the literary legacy passed down
                    through the English tradition and old colonial schools.

                    "Travel Light Travel Dark" seems more like a contemporary dance
                    between the Queen's language and its creole relation; carried off here
                    with the level of clarity and responsible revelation you find first in the 
                    poetry of Guyana's Martin Carter.

                    Agard might have sensed that circumstances were perhaps right to
                    trigger a new conversation among not quite equals, across language 
                    borders, in a new interdependent framework  ̶  "I'm here to navigate
                    -/not flagellate/ with a whip of the past."  ̶  putting aside the recent
                    history of patronage or indifference; even as the issue of "reparations" 
                    with its long memory surfaces, and transAtlantic souls buckle up for
                    unfinished business.

                    "Travel Light Travel Dark" with its readiness to "engage" raises again the
                    possibility of open new gates for otherness. If you follow closely when
                    the poems are read  ̶  and Agard brings a weathery charm on stage for
                    his readings  ̶  you'll discover his roguish wit; thought loading when he
                    pauses; intensity as the old angst searches for new outlets, and today's
                    sea-crossing survivors attempt to wire a new connectedness.

                     It's a stimulating collection in its own way, far in front of the one-eyed
                    unrelenting banality of "progressive" thinking and practice in his native
                    land. It offers versions and conceits that might well sparkle on the
                    coffee table of England's now older monarch.   
                                                                                                 - Wyck Williams

                     Book Reviewed: "Travel Light Travel Dark", John Agard,  BloodAxe 
                     Books Ltd, (UK, 2013), 95 pgs.

 

           

 

NY SLIDE 9.8: THE DOWN STAIRCASE

  

                     Radix spent the morning pondering his future  ̶  what might happen if
                     he were excessed; or reassigned to another school, say, in Brooklyn,
                     miles and bridges away. Would he have to consider moving? Did he
                     really want to continue teaching? 

                    When he saw Judy Wiener in the cafeteria, sitting with a teacher he
                    didn't know, he lost no time moving toward her. he pulled out a chair,
                    nodded politely and sat tight-lipped. "What's the matter, Michael?" she
                    asked, quick to sense his distress. He waved a hand as if the matter
                    could easily wait. 

                    All around him, the cafeteria noise; tense white faces leaning forward,
                    talking to each other, scooping up food with plastic forks. 

                    The teacher sitting with Judy Wiener abruptly shrugged and sighed in a 
                    way that suggested there was not much anyone could do about what- 
                    ever they'd been discussing. "Talk to you later," she said, remembering
                    to smile at Radix. 

                    And before he could utter a word Judy Wiener said, "That was  Mrs.
                    Summerhays, Xavier's Guidance Counselor. Did you hear about Xavier?"
                    Radix shook his head. "He's in a hospital…with gunshot wounds." Radix
                    looked at her, his heart going cold, his own discomfort fast dissipating.
                    "He was shot by a police officer in a subway station…resisting arrest…"
                    She said resisting arrest as if she didn't believe it, not her Xavier.
                    "What happened?" Radix asked.
                         
                    It seemed Xavier was on a subway platform, somewhere in Manhattan.
                    He heard a train rushing in; he had to go down a long flight of stairs
                    which was crowded; it meant he'd miss the train on the lower level.
                    There was an up escalator not in motion; without thinking he charged
                    down the up escalator. When he got to the bottom a police officer
                    tried to arrest him. "For walking down an up escalator?" 

                    What happened next was not clear. Xavier started to walk away,
                    protesting he'd done nothing wrong. The cop tried to stop him. Xavier
                    dared the cop to arrest him for something that stupid. There was a
                    scuffle, the officer's gun went off. The next thing they knew he'd been
                    shot. 

                    He was in an Intensive Care unit, his condition critical. The bullet had
                    lodged somewhere near his heart. The doctors were afraid to operate.

                    Radix' stomach stirred, reminding him he had forty minutes, no, thirty
                    minutes, to eat before the bell. He didn't have the will to move. Judy
                    Wiener had spoken in a low intense voice which transfixed him. Not
                    just her voice. The look on her face, the moistness in her eyes. A 
                    student  ̶  her Xavier!  ̶  had been shot.  

                    What could he say to her? He returned her stare. He could see right
                    down to where she kept her feelings for the Xaviers of this world. She
                    managed a week smile and she told him his teaching break would soon
                    be over.  

                    When he came back to the table, with a cup of coffee and a Danish
                    roll, her lips were compressed, her shoulders rounded; and her body
                    seemed to sag with the weight of this fresh calamity. "Where is he, 
                    which hospital?" His voice was sharp with concern. "He's at Lincoln     
                    Hospital."

                    Judy Weiner took a deep breath, then reached for her bag, taking out
                    a mirror. "I'm going to see him this afternoon." And Radix said, "I'll
                    come with you, if that's alright." "Of course, we'll go right after
                    school." 

                    She got up to go. She wore a red dress which hung down her body like a
                    sack. He'd never really paid attention to the body inside that dress
                    until this moment,in this sack dress. She launched into chatter about 
                    things she had to do and perhaps they could meet in the lobby and go
                    off to the hospital together; or would it make sense to get there in
                    separate cars?

                    He waited for her in the lobby as the school streamed out. There was 
                    some sort of Art class display, artwork stuck around the walls by the
                    Art teacher, with the title, The Joy Of Spring. No one seemed in the
                    mood to stop and look. Judy Wiener was taking her time.

                    She didn't exactly rush from the elevators, frantic and apologetic.
                    Radix saw her walking toward him, self-absorbed; stopping to
                    put on her dark glasses, rummaging in her bag, her lips moving
                    nervously. And he found himself studying her again. The legs seemed 
                    fairly confident under the sack dress. Something about the face,
                    though - a little too passive and unlucky; the face of someone who
                    spent too much time worrying; who found little reason these days
                    to exert herself.

                     (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

              

 

 

SUMMER FEEDING THE FISH DAYS

                                                       

                                                                             for Yonette D, back in the days

                             

                    This office worker on the 17th floor in this movie
                    would perch on the window sill, during lunch break,
                    working to impress this girl he wants to sleep with;
                    tossing dollar bills like brand tissue from a stock
                    he grows for parley. 

                                    Guessing the gold bait would land at the feet of
                    juggle jobbers down town up streaming; though some air
                    lift like hems get snagged in tree limbs; or settle behind
                    a dumpster; get stuck like pigeon marks on wind shields come
                    unstuck brake miles away at traffic lights or toll booths;
                    last to palm.                              

                                                                   Feeding the fish, he tells the girl
                    whose nipples peak lips cheery nibbling the view: he's
                    up load funny, can afford to take her out to dinner;
                    make her laugh hard on court play.

                    Aha! you tee off  ̶  knowing Fore! how cloud borne
                    poems find you: at an attic window stuck in mood swing,
                    girl friend in limbo under rumpled quilt; a snow event
                    out butterfly flake initials, uncatchable  ̶  as when crowd               

                      funding fingers click
                      the muse in cat scat heat swipes world wide altitudes;
                      your sky code blue.
                                                           – W.W.

 

 

 

                          

 

 

 

 

                                  THE MUSE

                                  
                                                              cannot admire every
                         jewel she inspires in men
                         who are after all nothing but
                         (even when gods she makes them feel)
                         and so sometimes produce nothing
                         but polished tediums or bright lies
                         which they, like brats, demanding atten-
                         tion, drop in her lap, expecting
                         for their efforts no less a reward
                         than her love and continued blessings
                         for each and every one of their
                         beautiful complaints about her
                         unjustified neglect of them.

 

                    (from "Scratches On The Air"  by Brian Chan)

 

 

NY SLIDE 9.7: SPRING SPRUNG

  

                     
               Chapter Chair Quackenbush sent out a fresh bulletin to his troops
               assuring them the battle for John Wayne Cotter H.S. was ongoing; talks
               with the Board of Education were continuing. All was not lost, something
               would be worked out. In the proposals for change, the interests of the 
               teachers were paramount and would not be compromised.

               All of which had a nice ring of defiance, but did little to lift spirits. 

               Two teachers in Radix' department were among several who went on
               extended sick leave. The word was they were cashing in their accumulated
               sick days and, fearing the worst, looking for jobs outside the teaching
               profession. Their absence meant that substitutes were sent by the Board
               to man the classrooms. This led to frequent scenes of disruption, the
               mobilizing of school Security. 

               There was a huge commotion one day that nearly grew into a riot. A 
               substitute teacher had  "lost control of her class", as the dean of discipline
               explained later. 

               She was from Nigeria, and she wore a bright patterned robe whenever   
               she reported for duty. She didn't have a classroom key, so her class was
               usually found milling around outside a locked door. And she was tired of
               asking other teachers, who smiled but seemed irritated, to open doors for
               her. 

               The students couldn't pronounce her name so they quickly settled for "Miss 
               Mandela". They mimicked her accent  ̶  You children haavve no risspec!! 
                ̶  they drew chalk pictures of her on the board, exaggerating the tortoise
               shell glasses on her nose. They asked her questions about Africa, and made
               monkey noises which, she reminded them, were "very racist". 

               On the day she "lost control" she'd told a student to Shut up! (Later she
               argued she didn't see any harm in what she said, didn't understand why Be
               quiet! would be the preferred choice of words.) The offended student rose
               to his feet, threw down his chair in outrage, came up to her desk, and 
               screamed  ̶  You telling me to shut up?  YOU shut up! You shut the FUCK
               up!  ̶  his hands menacing, but not touching her. The class went  ̶  whoo!
               whoo! whoo!  ̶  and drummed on the desks; a few more chairs got thrown
               down. The commotion spilled out in the hallway, triggering an exodus from
               nearby classrooms of students thinking there was a fight". Worried
               teachers, fearing "loss of control" on the entire floor, called for Security. 

               Spring days, still cool but warming up, led to a breakout of seasonal
               colours and  fashion among the students, prompting Principal Wamp to
               issue stern warnings  about exposed mid-sections and the general tone of
               the building. 

               Despite the overhanging gloom some teachers seemed strangely energized.
               Bill McCraggen had switched to season (army) green tee shirts, short
               pants, sneakers and tube socks, and a Yankee baseball cap. His Girls
               Soccer team was out on the field getting ready for the season. 

               His commitment to task attracted smirks from teachers who couldn't see
               the point, since soon there would be no John Wayne Cotter H.S. To which
               Bill McCraggen would retort,  coolly swinging his coach whistle, that come
               what may, they would be really "stoopid" to shut down the sports
               department. Not after all the years of winning trophies. If nothing else,
               the school could boast about its fine sports tradition. There were plaques, 
               awards, teams pictures and memories going back decades. Doing away
               with the sports department would be plain "stoopid". 

               Jim Lightbody switched to blue jeans (under which he wore his long johns)
               a checkered shirt and cowboy hat. He kept saying he had a new job
               already lined up "out in Texas", but nobody believed him.

               There was now, more frequently than before, the strong aroma of 
               marijuana in the stairwells. Somebody was smoking marijuana in the
               building. No one was ever seen, no one was ever caught; and everyone
               suspected those quick-tempered, foul-mouthed Jamaican students who
               walked the hallways and hung about on the sidewalk during morning
               sessions because the weather was really nice.

               Radix tried not to think about what would happen come June.  He
               expected to be excessed; last hired, first to be laid off. Not much he could
               do about it. He carried on dutifully. He even took time out to quell
               student fears about their future, explaining there was nothing to worry 
               about, education in one form or another would continue. He avoided
               hallway huddles and didn't say much of anything to anyone.

                    (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

  

TREASURE ISLE TAXI OCCURRENCE

   

                            
                    Picked them up at the airport (unbundling) in the hotel
                    lobby post cocktail (imbibing) weed rolled tight on
                    the beach (untangling). We stopped often, and looked
                    though not for long.                        

                    Children school high royal smiles; ginger flat bread
                    painted not For Sale; brooms in motion stand pipe yards
                    grown over; sun things to behold. On skin bone shoulders 
                    HENRY 14  ̶  hallowed be his game. 

                   "Sweetsop, coconut, breadfruit, mango  ̶  not one ice
                    cream vendor." Preachers parrots bowling State House
                    harbour view; heavy at times pain glancing blows, and
                    Notice: our chop to crush cane currency won't tax tears
                    held in check. 

                    In the back seat like a tip he'd left "The Middle Passage"; tan
                    sand run mate clutching "Les Liaisons Dangereuses": handles
                    to rock Teacher Francis, old school beam, verandah Chair.

                    Get away gorge and valley filled from snorkel in out ocean
                    air; scarlets saved for laptop in pajamas surfing (+ "God
                    Bless" taxi & me); strangers friending fast to silhouette swear
                    the transport's booked when cruising flag ship routes still
                    they return.                 

                    Kite winds maypole round our immortelles: "Mercy! Is so
                    you pass by my house and couldn't stop?" Miss L'Angevine
                    at the front gate. Is work I was working. How you feeling?
                    Fungus still browning the banana leaf?  

                                                                                          – W.W.

 

 

                            

  

 

 

 

                      ISLAND COCKTAILS CALYPSO

 

                      Man, I not joking: the woman from Oilsand Island?,
                      smiling from ear to ear as though she knew some secret
                      nobody else could ever start to see through, waited
                      for this stranger to reveal his subhuman status.
                      Something I said made her say:  Oh you're a One-of-them!
                      (This was more important to her than what I had said.)
                      Your ax-cent! she gushed, and I sighed: not that I would mind
                      talking about accents if I believed it would lead
                      to more than two 78 r.p.m records
                      spinning side by side with dull needles stuck in their grooves.
                      Regardless, I said: Over there, I changed mine a bit,
                      just to stop people saying Pardon me? all the time.
                      Not me! the woman swore. When I live in Toron-to?
                      I use different words. But change my accent? Never! Not
                      me! She of the intractable first and final tribe
                      demanding constant affirmations of membership
                      (and I think of white-hooded cowards burning crosses),
                      so secure was she, her smile of triumphant sphinxhood
                      would not fade till she climbed in her car to drive back home.
                      In the meantime, she and a flock of other women,
                      in further proof that they would never betray their tribes
                      (there are as many on each island as grains of sand),
                      keeping the drinks and the jokes and the kisses flowing
                      (one woman, showing me how not to be cool, nearly
                      strangled me by pulling my face into her warm bust),
                      shifted their heels to the beat of Gaston's steel-band tracks,
                      like a corral of broncos restless before a storm,
                      till the whole room became a pulsing aspic of air
                      f
rom which words stuck out like flags unfurled but frozen stiff,
                      as in a wintry wind staggering silence's breath.

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

 

 

NY SLIDE 9.6: MAMBISI COLON’S LOSS

         

                    We must work harder. We must keep stirring the pot, Mambisi Colon
                    exhorted, trying to keep the family spirits up. 

                    But anxieties were mounting among many of the John Wayne Cotter
                    Pyramid players. It was looking bad for everyone still in the game.

                    Judy Wiener felt the acute embarrassment of having to admit she 
                    might lose her investment. Some teachers, the sensible non-players, 
                    formed huddles of their own. In the hallways, in the cafeteria she 
                    could sense them smirking. Mrs. Caratini didn't drop by as often. And
                    the students, surely they must think something was going on. What did
                    they make of someone knocking on the door, interrupting the lesson,
                    calling the teacher outside for a hasty conference?

                    One morning Xavier came into the room, handed her an envelope and 
                    said brusquely, "Here". When she opened it she found 10 hundred dollar
                    bills. She looked at him, confounded, trembling. Where did you get
                    this?  He said one of the teachers gave it to him, told him to deliver it
                    to her. "I didn't ask any questions." What did he mean, One of the
                    teachers? "I didn't ask any questions." She looked at the bills, she
                    looked at Xavier. What did he mean, he didn't ask any questions? But
                    Xavier had retreated to his desk; his head was down, as if after hard
                    hours at his night job he didn't want to be disturbed.

                    Did he know what was in the envelope? Which "teacher" in his right
                    mind would ask a student to deliver an envelope with a thousand
                    dollars? What was going on here? 

                    Minutes later, a knock on the door. When it opened, Mambisi Colon
                    walked in. Her manner suggested unhappiness. Judy Wiener looked up
                    and her face must have betrayed bewilderment and fear.

                    "I was robbed last night" Robbed? "Yes, robbed. Three men came to my
                     house late last night and demanded money." Judy Wiener's face went
                     white with shock. Did she call the police? "Hell, no. I don't want the
                     police meddling in my business. Nobody's going to pull a stunt like this
                     and get away with it." What stunt? What was she talking about? "I'm
                     saying, three people barged into my home and demanded their money
                     back. One guy, I know who he is, wanted his money back. Which was
                     fine. But then he called the names of two people and he said they
                     wanted their money back too. One of the names was yours."  

                     Judy Wiener felt pierced through the heart. She uttered a half-
                     credulous laugh. "Me?…my name?" "Yes, your name." Her wide open,
                     not yet accusing eyes studied Judy Wiener's face. "But that's im-
                     possible. I didn't ask anyone to do anything like that. In any case,
                     my group split off from your family, remember? We meet in Queens."
                     "That's what I figured. It doesn't make sense. And you're near the top.
                     So why would you want your money back? Anyway I wasn't going to 
                     give them anything; but then these two other guys, they were
                     wearing these snow-day face masks so you could only see their eyes
                     and nose, they had guns in their waist bands." Judy sat down slowly, 
                     horrified. "Yes, guns; they unbuttoned their coats and I saw these
                     guns. And I knew right away I'd be dead, dead, if I didn't hand over the
                     money. So I gave them the money. $3.000. They wanted it in three
                     separate envelopes. I gave it to them"

                     Judy Wiener was now speechless. She hoped her face conveyed the
                     proper sag of commiseration, didn't give away anything else. She
                     sensed Mambisi Colon's eyes still looking for clues, for some give-away
                     flicker of complicity.

                     Over at the computers her class was pecking away at the keys. Xavier 
                     looked up from what he had written and said, What a predicament! as
                     if the words he'd just typed had given him great satisfaction. "I'll be
                     with you in a minute," she shouted, deflecting the watchful suspicion
                     on the other's face, and giving herself reason to breathe.

                     And Mambisi Colon turned and walked away in a flourish, showing off
                     what she was wearing that day  ̶̶  shiny black pants, shiny black shoes,
                     a turtleneck sweater  ̶  as if to suggest the loss of $3.000 in one night
                     had not in any way devastated her wardrobe. "I'm going to get to the
                     bottom of this, " she shouted at the door. And Judy Wiener looked
                     down at her desk and said, "Well, let me know what happened."

                     She looked at Xavier. She knew that inside his shiny skull lay answers
                     to all this. She had only to walk over there and gently tease the truth 
                     out; but would he be willing to talk to her? Maybe he was writing it all
                     down in his Journal. From his hunch over the keyboard she sensed a
                     surly concentration.

                     At the end of the class, without another word, Xavier left the room.
                     She restrained an impulse to call him back.

                     For the rest of the day she felt wretched with guilt and worry; it was
                     difficult to concentrate on familiar tasks. She muttered fretfully to
                     herself; and from a distance she sensed in the hallway the alarm
                     among teachers generated by Mambisi Colon who must have told her
                     story a hundred times and mentioned Judy Wiener's name; so that, like
                     it or not, her name was now linked to some alarming gun-brandishing 
                     incident in the Bronx.

                     She braced herself expecting to be stopped and questioned, with
                     unctuous smiles from the questioner, about rumours of her
                     "involvement". She was ready to protest, I really don't know what this
                     is all about.

                         (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

 

 

 

GAME ISLAND MAN

   

                                
                      Not me and England chip cod cold; coat keys metro
                      habits he could never master  ̶  always counting board
                      room costs; how rain does make damp cling to skin
                      and stumbles poise to scuff your good good shoes. Is
                      joke he jooks like that.

                      Bow leg moonlight callous noon  ̶  trade marks not all healed
                      over  ̶  he works at his nets, the caulk fix; his boat with Greek
                      warrior name. He'd sever range unseen for weeks, come 
                      home with mambo siren tales; arms tattooed bone cross
                      beard black  ̶  last pirated edition.

                      Catch him down town target for dust faith harriers lime,
                      angling the junction for signal as left right mamselles stroll
                      roll ripples making style. He's squirrelly for horn that way.
                      If you hear the salty swell up words he does use. 

                      It's his porch to world wide blueness, his Scandinavia
                      in palm tree sway, point our pursers at debt redressings,
                      making of the island top deck voyage material; a portfolio
                      his years at rudder.
                                                                       He knows where fire flies send
                      shore lines receive; rip chords try hooks, shark waters feed;
                      his solitudes split only with night rum hounds.

                                                                  Allez, viens!  sea skater, beach
                      your blades; view find not green, grapes sour from fiction
                      bowled; white caps embossed in twilight. Brush past
                      that schooner flight hand's peacock plumage for face
                      fans  ̶  our home Gauguin renovator.  

                      Yes, pathos drips from sweat in his scampers; his ground
                      swell leaves rude exit clues. Like draughts he plays tribe
                      tempers. Empire fame's the same  ̶  What happening
                      there, Bogart?
                                                                       – W.W.

 

 

 

                                  

  

                                     

 

                           

                              

                           LA PAROLE, LE MOT, LE VERBE

                      
                           Rock, grass, tree, beast, man, bird, angel  ̶  we are all
                           slaves to the waves of our veins  ̶̶  whether silent
                           or whispering or loud. Or we are uttered
                           by the embers of some meteor of thought
                           drawn to the mirroring magnets of our souls
                           already aglow with their own sparks  ̶  restless
                           anvil-souls that cannot dodge the word-hammers
                           that never stop slamming down but whose blows are
                           tempered by our own willingness to think
                           beyond the immediate source of each strike,
                           beyond even the source of all meteors.

                           Devotion to such fire is as crucible
                           a love-affair as all other thoughts made flesh:
                           the Word transfused into these veins and this voice.
                           You may think these mere words outside of Real Life
                           which in fear you want to limit to gossip
                           of its rigmarole-phenomena, the knots
                           of flesh and breath that can't untie themselves  ̶  would
                           not, as convinced of their own vice as drunkards.
                           But our sparks rise to link with the sperm of stars
                           in tangos of eternity's embryo 
                           gestating refined fates, even as we speak.
 
                     (from "Nor Like An Addict Would"  © by Brian Chan)