NY SLIDE 7.6: a.k.a THE EAVESDROPPER

 

                 At the start of the new week Mrs. Caratini would enter the room and spend ten
                   or fifteen minutes with Judy Weiner, exchanging weekend gossip. The students
                   were told to boot up the computers and start work on their journals. Mrs.
                   Contreras, the teacher's aide, kept them on task, while Judy Weiner fixed her
                   hair and applied makeup using the tiny mirror in the teacher's locker; then she
                   joined Mrs. Caratini who sat in a student's chair, legs crossed, filing her nails.

                       They spoke as if it hardly mattered if students overheard, though Mrs.
                   Caratini lowered her voice when inserting the word fucking. They believed
                   their conversation had no meaning for students in the room and required little
                   privacy.

                        In fact, no one paid them any attention, except Xavier.

                        He had a late afternoon job that sent him home after midnight. Some
                    mornings he'd arrive and promptly put his head down on the desk. Since Miss
                    Weiner was never ready to start the bell, he saw nothing wrong in catching up
                    on lost sleep for the first 10 minutes.

                        He referred to Miss Weiner and Mrs. Caratini as Bologna & Cheese. Without
                    wanting to, he overheard much of what they said. At times he dozed off only
                    to be roused by Miss Weiner speaking in her slow refined way, explaining some 
                    mishap. Things always seemed to happen to Miss Weiner. She left her keys in
                    the teachers' bathroom; a car rear-ended her car and the insurance people
                    were refusing to cover the entire cost of repairs; her mother wasn't feeling too
                    well lately. On and on, one sad story after the next.

                        Sometimes he'd groan in frustration and mumble to himself, Get a grip,
                    bitch, get a grip! At other times he followed the conversation  ̶  when, for
                    instance, Miss Weiner was telling Mrs. Caratini about the Jewish cocaine gangs
                    at the turn of the century, and how she understood what was happening to kids
                    who were pulled into the drug business in the Bronx.
      
                    But Xavier saved his contempt for Mrs. Caratini   ̶̶  a conceited little bitch with 
                    a skinny butt. Always going on about herself. And talking shit. He couldn't
                    understand why a sophisticated person like Miss Weiner would have as a friend
                    someone as stupid as Mrs. Caratini; always, Oh, let me tell you, last night I
                    made myself a huge salad, it was like huge, and I ate it all by myself…Did I
                    tell you, I went to a model home Open House last Sunday? Just off the Grand
                    Central, past the airport? Anyway they had these model homes, two bed-
                    rooms, three bedrooms, kitchen, bath, really gorgeous houses. They were
                    asking 170 up. I tell, you prices are literally going through the roof these days.

                        On and on with this boring shit. And Miss Weiner just sat there sucking it up.

                    When he'd had enough Xavier would stretch his arms and make a roaring sound,
                    like a rested lion stirring itself; signaling he was ready to work. He'd been
                    ready all along, he implied, but these two teachers sitting there jawing away   
                    didn't seem eager to start. This tactic always worked. Mrs. Caratini would
                    throw him a frantic, worried look; then she'd glance at her watch, gather her
                    keys and leave the room.

                        And Mrs. Weiner would declare in a cheery voice, "So are we ready to work
                    today?… Xavier, how're you feeling?

                    Always she deferred to him with a curious tenderness, at times treating him
                    as if he were the scion of a very important person whom she'd been asked to 
                    tutor.

                    "No eating over the computers. You know the rules, Xavier."

                    "Calm down. You see any crumbs on the keyboard?"

                       "Xavier… you're squinting."

                       "So."

                       "Maybe you should get your eyes examined."

                       "I have glasses."

                       "You own a pair of glasses…? So why don't you put them on?"

                       "Don't need them. I can see alright."

                       "Xavier, if you don't wear the glasses prescribed for you, your vision will slowly 
                     deteriorate…to the point where, well, as you get older you'll need them all 
                     the time."

                        "It don't matter. Don't plan to live that long anyway."

                       "Please, don't talk like that."

                       "Why? Ain't nothing you can do 'bout it" 

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

Review Article: ANATOMY OF A MARRIAGE: QUEENSTOWN, 1920s GUIANA

 

                 A newspaper columnist in British Guiana writing a Sunday column (February 1922)
                 makes the following statement: “Georgetonians are of two kinds: those who live
                 in Queenstown and their unfortunate neighbours who inhabit the remaining part
                 of our garden city.” That newspaper columnist is a fictional character, and the
                 statement sets the stage for Roy Heath’s first novel From the Heat of the Day
                 (1979).

                    The Queenstown part of the city was apparently not fully developed at the time.
                 From a home on Anira Street you could hear the “incessant roaring of the waves
                 at floodtide” coming all the way from the seawall. Heath describes the area as
                 “the unblemished district with its tall houses and blossoms on year end, and
                 painted palings like flattened spears embracing yards darkened by thick branches
                 of fruit trees.”

                 Residents hired gardeners to tend all              __________________________
                 those blosoms. New Garden street was
                 remarkable for its fine houses with large          FROM THE HEAT OF THE DAY
                 gardens in front of them, "in which they                        by
                 flourished roses and dahlias, their stalks                  ROY HEATH         
                 maintained by a staff to which they were           Persea Books, New York, 
                 tied". A pipeline sewage system was set                   1994, 150 pgs 
                 up in the early twenties foreseeing dignity     _____________________________
                 for the fortunate (and the end of posies
                 under the bed). Who could resist the dream of moving one day to the good life 
                 in Queenstown?                                               

                 Over decades, and rapidly since the 1990s, the beauty and social mores of the
                 city have deteriorated. Parcels of dilapidation and vacant grassy lots remain;
                 clogged drains and ocean threat defy permanent solution. New fire-proof struc-
                 tures tower over old places (neglected, and now eyesores); and new migrant
                 and vagrant occupiers have established a kind of pell-mell opportunity ethos – a
                 modus vivendi that tends to discourage the best in people.

                  On Peter Rose Street, jostling with once elegant homes, there’s an Auto
                  business, cars or vans packed tightly in a paved yard, with streamers flapping in
                  the wind across the road. Of interest, too, is a mosque, and a house turned into
                  an office for taxi service; and a fruit vendor’s shack set up at the entrance of an
                  Oronoque Street home.  

                  You could argue these are buoyant signs of post-Independence development in
                  the city; a messy kind of free for all residential zoning that disdains vestiges of
                  colonial order and respectability, even as a new moneyed and political class
                  finds finer prospects of manicured grass elsewhere.

                  Today minivans take short cuts through Queenstown’s narrow, quiet streets, 
                  honking to get the attention of evening strollers. And Bastiani (“the under-
                  taker” in Heath’s novel) and the smell of horse manure from the shed housing
                  his funeral carriages have long gone; his Forshaw Street business has been
                  replaced by a more upbeat entrepreneur selling bridal accessories.

                  But colonial Queenstown was where Roy Heath situated his main characters, 
                  Armstrong and his wife Gladys, in his novel  From the Heat of the Day;the
                 1920s Queenstown, its alleyways well-maintained by “men spraying the gutter-
                  water with cisterns of oil”.  Heath examines what happens when their marriage
                  falls apart in the Forshaw Street property they occupy.

                                                                   ≈ ↨ ≈       

                  After two years and two children, the flush of cohabitation worn off, a rift
                  develops in their relationship. Gladys Armstrong, a woman of healthy appetite, 
                  gentle, pledged “to breed and obey”, cannot understand what she’s doing
                  wrong. She must cope all of a sudden with “a wave of irritability" sweeping over
                  her husband, "that seemed to have no cause” .

                  Her husband is doing very well by colonial standards; he has gained promotion
                  to Post Master at the Georgetown post office. But he wraps himself up in uncom-
                  promising “silences”; and her attempts at conversation are cut short by
                  reminders, for instance, that he is "reading”; a hint at his interest in personal
                  development through knowledge. 

                  Beneath the newly-married love routines, Heath suggests their union was 
                  anchored in sexual passion. Gladys Armstrong recalls “the sweetness of cop- 
                  ulation which became for her the heart of their marriage”. What she finds
                  hard to take now is her husband's growing indifference, the cold bed at night.

                  Heath offers her no religious faith for solace and strength; she doesn’t consider
                  returning to her father’s home. She chooses a long-suffering wait for her
                  husband’s self-isolation to end, absorbing his “outbursts” and irritability.

                  Armstrong is somewhat mystified at the downturn of his marriage. Alert to his
                  wife's inadequacies, he finds fault with her “passivity”; he notices “her thighs
                  becoming thick, and her breasts flabby”. Libidinal urgencies overwhelm his
                  thinking, and most nights he stumbles home sullen and inebriated; sometimes he
                  slips into the servant’s room.

                  Armstrong's conversations with himself stir doubt and self-pity. He wonders if he
                  had married above his station. He had plucked Gladys from a well-to-do
                  household respected for its piano playing, embroidery and sketching. Maybe he
                  should have settled for a woman from his village in Agricola, “one of them big-
                  batty women with powerful build who kian’ tell a piano from a violin.”  He
                  suspects he’s being constantly “judged” by his wife’s family, viewed as some- 
                  one lacking an acceptable “background”.

                  To deepen his dilemma, the colony is plunged into economic turmoil. The 
                  collapse of the sugar market spreads fear among workers. There’s talk of
                  “retrenchment” (a word as frightening then as “recession” today) among Civil
                  Service employees. Armstrong hangs on, but his job security eventually falls
                  victim to budget cuts. Gladys responds with belt-tightening courage, holding
                  fast to her vows of love till death; and hoping her patience and sacrifices
                  would salve Armstrong's closed-off inner seething.      

                  Just when you wonder how long she can remain emotionally cut off from her
                  husband, Gladys Armstrong dies; and Heath's prose seizes the moment to turn
                  damp and maudlin. Pages dwell on and depict scenes of the husband’s grieving
                  disbelief: “the tears trickled through his fingers, down his chin to fall on to
                  his shirt.” Images of his remorse pile up, and after the funeral, “desolation
                  in his heart”.

                     Queenstown 003
                               [Roadway to Queenstown, Guyana 2009]

                                                                          
                                                                   ≈ ↨ ≈   

                  Heath is not a stern moralist, but the school-teacher side of him sometimes
                  nudges his narrator to offer "lessons" from tragedy. Readers might empathize
                  with Gladys, or feel dismay at her unwearied virtuous waiting. And Armstrong
                  comes across as a curiously tormented, though not wholly unfeeling family man;
                  certainly a notch or two above other men in the colony who in similar situations
                  might have ceased quickly to care.

                  Heath suggests, too, that marriage (of the average, or below average couple) 
                  in the colonial 20s was often no more than a simple self-serving arrangement
                  based on mutually accommodating roles and expectations, which did not  
                  include the possibility of change. As Gladys mused: “Things were just so. There
                  was a sky and an earth; there was the wind and the sun; and there was
                  marriage.”

                  Readers today might hope to find some causal insights in the novel, though there
                  was little public understanding then (and little now) of human impulse and 
                  intimacy. Heath chose simply to present the unraveling of a 1920s union in
                  stages: withdrawal, drinking, outbursts; stifled goodness, the misery of the
                  cold bed; the male impulse to roam outside the roost. Children, like molasses
                  from sweet cane, were often byproducts of unbridled passion, lucky to be 
                  cherished in extended family folk ways.

                  From the Heat of the Day is the first in a trilogy of novels. Old Georgetown
                  neighborhoods are faithfully restored in Heath’s patient (at times, plodding)
                  prose. Readers can follow the tribulations of the Armstrong children and their
                  grief and guilt-burdened father in the follow-up novels, One Generation and
                  Genetha.

                  Heath’s 1920s Guiana is in essence an imagined world, but many of the issues
                  explored in From the Heat of the Day could throw light on marital (and extra-
                  marital) relations in Guyana today  ̶  if you pay attention to distress signals
                  that sometimes breach community walls; if you listen to male talk about
                  copulation.   
                                                 – Wyck Williams

                 (A version of this review article was posted elsewhere in 2008)  

                                       

 

                 

 

 

 

 

POEMS FOR RITE TO SPRING LAY LAY SIDE WAY

 

 

                                                                              for Linda & Carroll & Zulaika

                      
                      Man, the first light snap feeling, the slip run
                     away, flogged rags on your back, a band going
                     your way. Bare bronze bad in flight, your hip
                     beads low riding vuvuzelas you hear, myths
                     shak shak bones raise; crow shadows you fear.
                     Yuh done dead already? might as well kilkitay.

                         
                     These flag days, illusion the reigning monarch, players
                     make sea salty moves on tracks duty free; chance a pirogue
                     from a fine bone poet's prize catch. Bodies booboolooping
                     ruffle the old cane rows; sky blaze braising ebony glow
                     genome flow deformed on the merchant ship scales.

 
                     Staked out for strip data voyeurs and passeurs
                     frame rivers on mobiles, decline the coarse rump   
                     up way  ̶  watching the sugar; would kneel at carmine lips
                     thrust me! jumpers in white robes; would screen
                     touch you here, in heat waylay there; on fire
                     pour altar wine, very suitable family fear.

                           
                     Under sun feel drum fantasias, steel sutures 
                     for repair. World weary? one last lap, Mardi,
                     Dingolay. Chip tunnels on bass line, love sweat
                     salt away. Knock iron  ̶  night slits tight  ̶  Ash
                     bells warn  ̶  wire wing feathers fall break the day.
                                                                                       – W.W.

 

                                        

   
                            DREAM-REAL WOMAN

                      I surprise myself by dreaming up
                   a bold and open woman with no flags
                to wave but with a thousand questions to sprout.

                         ̶  and I thank her for her refusal
                to be bothered by how her boldness looks
             to the fear-shifting eyes in household mouseholes

                   ̶  and bless her beauty she is the first
                 to celebrate, without apology
              polishing its temple's walls into outer

                   mirrors of the flame that burns within
                ̶  and share with her the sadness of her strength
             that strides the Earth as one shepherd of the blind

                  and must take pause to wash its own eyes
                with their salty rivers that erode rust
              ̶  or with Heaven's rain that stings them into stars.

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

 

 

   

NY SLIDE 7.5: THE RELATIONSHIP COUNSELOR

 

 

                    "What happened to you? I tried calling you last night," Mrs. Caratini said. She'd
                    been waiting in the main office near the time clock for Judy Weiner. And much
                    to her relief, here she was, looking pale, a little tired, confirming her
                    suspicions something had happened.

                        Mrs. Caratini (Math) was Judy's closest friend in the building. They were the 
                    same age, twenty-nine, but Mrs. Caratini looked younger, and walked with 
                    frisky quick steps; and seemed always ready for fun.

                        Mrs. Caratini had been married, and she liked telling the story of her 
                    marriage. She'd flown out to Las Vegas with her boyfriend during spring break; 
                    and there, one evening, as they strolled on a crowded sidewalk, he suggested 
                    they get married; on the spot, right there. Why not, she responded, giggling.

                        Back in New York her husband  ̶  an Italian businessman, ten years older, 
                    good-looking, "with a nose for money", she said  ̶  turned into a testy, 
                    unbelievably coarse man. Mrs. Caratini didn't wait for things to settle down,
                    for problems to work themselves out. One day she was married, the next day,
                    boom! it was over; she was single again, just like that.

                    For Mrs. Caratini to emerge unscathed from what seemed a moment of naive 
                    reckless decision, only to resume her life  ̶  a fearless soul, full of carefree 
                    chatter and lean-bodied energy  ̶  seemed to Judy a feat just short of 
                    miraculous. If she, Judy, were to attach herself to this woman, who was 
                    already exploring new possibilities, some of those transcendent qualities might
                    rub off; her life might be changed.
                           
                     Sensing patches of emptiness in a colleague's life Mrs. Caratini was only too
                    willing to take Judy Weiner under her wing. "You need to get out more, make 
                    yourself available," she kept saying. "Some work on the hips, a little toning of
                    the thighs, fix your hair, you'll be fine."

                        Judy Weiner, in some ways more sensitive and intelligent, began to question
                    all the things she'd always believed, like her obligation to her ailing mother
                    (meaning, Judy was stuck in the house a lot). She deferred to the other 
                    woman's experience, the neat dramatic entrance and exit from marriage. Mrs.
                    Caratini (everyone in the building, for reasons unknown, continued to refer to
                    her as Mrs.Caratini) had gone through so much, in such a short period of time,
                    she just might have the answers that eluded Judy Weiner all these years.

                        So began, in a flurry of hope and desire, their joint excursions to Manhattan
                    nightclubs, on weekends, wearing tight fitting or revealing clothes. Mrs.
                    Caratini, who had a preference for leather outfits, assured Judy there were
                    guys out there, they were sure to find someone; not Italian guys who prefer
                    women with long hair, and in any case weren't worth the effort, Trust me on
                    that! Yes, nice Jewish guys, if Judy preferred; not your regular Orthodox,
                    but nice. And those new Wall street millionaires, looking for the perfect mate,
                    they weren't too intellectual, but you can't have everything, can you? And
                    there was always the stranger from nowhere who might turn out to be the 
                    one, who knows?

                        At some point, just as Judy was ready to give up, thinking the Manhattan
                    project ill-advised and irresponsible (she had to leave her ailing mother alone
                    for hours) she met someone she liked.

                    His name was Mike; he was fortyish, built like a warm cuddly bear; he had a
                    salt and pepper beard, chubby arms and soft hands; and he was half-Italian,
                    which surprised Mrs. Caratini who thought she could spot even half an Italian
                    a block away. He had a sense of humour, a gentle manner and he held a fairly
                    decent conversation. And he was a Pet Shop owner.

                        They'd stroll about Manhattan sidewalks; take in a movie; enjoy dinner at a
                     restaurant, talking all the time. He talked about his pet shop; ever since he
                     he was a kid he had this love of animals. Judy listened with keen glowing
                     wonder. He helped run a little league baseball team out in Queens; and he
                     was still single because, well, to tell the truth, he hadn't given any serious
                     thought to settling down.

                     They met again the following weekends, another movie, another restaurant. 
                     One Sunday afternoon he drove out to her home to visit, bringing her a
                     Tibetan dog. He said it had been house-broken. Judy was overwhelmed. No
                     one had ever given her a dog before.

                    "This is a big signal, Judy, biggg signal," Ms Caratini said, visibly more thrilled 
                     by the gesture than Judy. " Now here's what you need to do. You play him for
                     awhile, don't make him think you're needy. Just keep him interested, see what
                     happens. He gave you a dog, Judy, a dog! Now me, I'm the shallow type. I   
                     return all presents. Give me money. My ex-husband used to buy me jewelry.
                     I'd toss it in a box. Whatever he gave me. Into the box. Give me money."

                          Soon after that visit with the gift of the dog, Mike suddenly stopped calling;
                     he just dropped out of sight. Judy was baffled. She imagined him disabled and
                     hospitalized; maybe he was out of town.

                     She called the pet shop. A young woman, who spoke as if she was Mike's
                     assistant, told her in an odd knowing tone that she'd give Mike the message.
                     She said Mike was busy; there was a lot of shop business to deal with right
                     now. She added, as if she knew more than she should about Judy's relationship
                     with her boss, that Mike would get in touch with her as soon as he'd gotten
                     over the hump.

                         "Gotten over what? the hump? What did she mean by that?" Mrs. Caratini
                      couldn't keep her voice down. "She's got some nerve talking to you that way, 
                      the bitch! and as for Mike, he's a fucking idiot, disappearing on you like that.
                      Just like all Italian men. I knew this wasn't going to work out. Judy, listen to
                      me, you're going to have to forget this man…" 

                     "I can't think of anything I said. Maybe it was …" 

                     "…and forchrissake, stop flagellating yourself. It's not like you were hoping 
                       to marry this guy. If I were you I'd go right down to his pet shop and give
                       him back his fucking dog.  I'm serious. I told you I didn't like gifts. I had a
                       feeling this wasn't going to work out."

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

 

 

 

 

NY SLIDE 7.4: OTHELLO THE MOOR (Pt. 2)

 

                  Most of the play is about Iago messing with Othello, getting into his head with
                  the jealousy stuff. The man is like a dog with rabies, evil to touch. But
                  Shakespear makes Othello act confused, like he don't know what to do. I'm
                  saying, get mean with the bitch! Niggers don't take crap from nobody. He don't
                  need to ask Iago what to do, telling him go spy on his woman, "bring me the
                  ocular proof". Get straight up with the woman, ask her what's the deal.
                  Shakespear have him falling down with epilepsy, and now Iago playing him
                  for a sucker.

                      See, Shakespear didn't understand niggers. This Othello travel around the
                  world, he tough and silent like Chuck Norris. The man decide to make a home
                  for himself in Venice. Aint easy to migrate and start a new life in a strange
                  country. People don't want you cause you different. But a man got to stop
                  moving around some time, put down roots somewhere.

                      And Desdemona, she kind of migrating too. Moving out of Daddy's home, and
                  starting a new life. Stepping out of "no man" in my life, crossing into new
                  territory. People don't like when you do that. And since it's a black man and a
                  white woman, she got to watch his back, he got to watch her back. Only way
                  they going to make it.

                  Othello was right to tell her, you hang with me, everything's cool, you mess with
                  me, then "chaos is come again". Nigger got to know his woman is there for him
                  100 Percent!!

                  So when Iago start getting into his head he should have settled the matter right
                  there. Get mean with the bitch, that's what any nigger would do. Got Othello
                  saying, "Arise black vengeance", like now this is some racial thing. And saying he
                  "won't scar that whiter skin of hers than snow."  Can you believe, Othello kissing 
                  his woman, at the same time getting ready to kill her, and don't want to mess 
                  up her snow white skin?  Make no sense.

                     He shouldn't have trusted that sly dog Iago, calling him "honest Iago", like they
                  were buddies. Trust nobody, I say. Your best friend will sell you out if you give
                  him a chance. Trust nobody.

                  Well the handkerchief, Othello made a big mistake with that. Came back to 
                  haunt him. He should have given the woman jewelry and stuff, not a hand-
                  kerchief. Desdemona didn't understand how much the handkerchief mean to
                  him.

                      An Egyptian first gave the handkerchief to his mother, who gave it to Othello
                  to pass on to a Moorish woman, who would understand about the "sibyl" and
                  "magic" and stuff. Desdemona didn't understand all that. I think that's what 
                  flipped the Moor, when she lost the handkerchief. It's like losing a bird you care
                  for all these years. You wake up one morning, you hear no sound, the bird cage 
                  open, the bird that used to sing to your soul is gone. Othello trusted Desdemona
                  with the handkerchief. She didn't take care of it. Lost her man right there.

                     I rate this play a B. My reason for giving it a B grade is because I learned a lot 
                  about what could happen to a black man who's on his own in this world, even 
                  though Shakespear didn't get it all right. I think teachers should teach plays 
                  like "Othello" more. I had "Romeo and Juliet" in my freshman year, it was 
                  alright, then "Macbeth" with Mr. Bilicki which I didn't like (didn't like Mr. Bilicki 
                  either).

                     This play has taught me one thing, which is to get through all your adolescent 
                  stuff quick, then settle down with some woman. I don't plan to wait like Othello
                  till I'm in the "vale of years". Might end up marrying the wrong woman. Anyway, 
                  first I got to shake off stuff that's on my back right now.
                  The End.

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

 

 

 

                   

POEMS FOR FULL BLOWN TREES DOWN FIRST RESPONDERS

  

                                                                                         "….between the storm and the calm
                                                                                          between the nightmare and the sleeper
                                                                                       between the cradle and the reaper."             
                                                                                 – John Agard, "Bridge Builder"                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                       The oldest tree on our block came down as the last storm  ̶
                     "a nor'easter, turf crosser!"  ̶   swept through on buffalo wings.
                      It fell to rest on Mr. Sanchez' roof. Easy to assume its root
                      system was all surface, no heart. Mrs. Bourdy stepped outside
                      swinging: tenured trees feel locked in by city sidewalks; and vanities
                      like Mr. Sanchez' front lawn. The payback? hooded shoots infiltrating
                      his sewer lines, she tittered. Thy neighbor, your love.
                  
                      Mrs. Bourdy watched the storm from her attic window. The tree
                      withstood 30 years of wind battery, leaf hang, her marriage
                      to Mr. Bourdy (deceased). One mounting last push, over the top,
                      the pleasures of grounding up ripped. No sap weep, willow
                      style. How long can long standing allegories be sustainable?

                      Mrs. Bourdy hadn't noticed bird nests in the tree. Squirrels, yes,
                      playing tag and performing homeless traffic scurry. And some
                      times a tacked Lost Dog note. So goes the neighborhood.
                      Anyone could harvest tree bark make wine corks, she'd read
                      somewhere, though no one shows up in her dead of night
                      with plug or bark carving knife intentions.

                      The tree fall dealt a 10 foot slash in the sidewalk; it leaned in
                      branching daze, earth crust privies exposed; drivers stopped 
                      for Increíble! camera shots; a young man, they heard later,
                      not the screams, stepped on live power lines, cell sending
                      views. These new fangled hand devices, Mrs. Bourdy tsk
                      tsked, cradles so full of ourselves.
                             
                      Back inside she heard a chain saw buzzing her bow
                      windows. Heaven's gorilla! how did that fly thru pass the particle
                      screen? And what was taking the sanitation trucks so long,
                      gathering passed overs for bagpipes? fixing years left how limbs
                      were, give or take a bed mate, a tree hug.

                                                                             After awhile nothing seems amiss.
                      So your house roof leaks! catch a falling chord: cloud howl ruin 
                      day clean take turns like on line ancestors; bare mortals, we classify
                      leaf vacancy, Move on! Let mediums search parallels for clogged
                      artery parts, the walnuts you stock in that wind breaker chest.
                                                                                        Not freaking funny,
                      you find? Quantum poetics? Please. What news of footprint
                      pillars sand you don't follow? Thy neighbor's kingdom come,
                      will be done.
                                             -W.W.

 

                    

                          

 

 

 

                                   THE WIND REVEALS

 

                                                      that on Earth's merest surface
                                     all things interdepend
                          in a tango of bending and standing still,
                                   bending while
                             standing within the tugging silence
                                of depths that trust themselves.
                          What it cannot show is what only a man
                               can start to tell of an inner bell
                          that sways to ring in rhyming with the wing's swing

                          – a sounding that does not need to wave a flag
                               as proof of membership
                          of any knot of roots only weakened so.
                                   Do branches
                             of flowers and fruit point to their roots - 
                                or reach up to their seed
                          of the Sun? Does the squirrel or robin bow
                             to its own tail or wing – or, stopped short
                          by men's fences, kneel to ghosts and bones of trees?

                          I let the wind in the hand go where it will,
                               let the hand be a cloud
                          or an unlabelled feather or flower or
                                   stone of light,
                             let the themes of my dreams remember
                              themselves like steam rising
                          from the Earth's core only to become her rain
                            whose fingers interlocking set free
                          all her tongues to bridging Silence's chasms.

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

 

NY SLIDE 7.3: OTHELLO THE MOOR (Pt. 1)

 

 

                                                            Report on OTHELLO the MOOR
                                                    Written by William Shakespear
                                                       Prepared for Miss Wiener by
                                                     M. Xavier H. a.k.a. the X-Man

                     Well first of all, I was surprised to learn there were Moors in Venice who 
                     invaded Spain according to my teacher. Seems like niggers were everywhere
                     in the world in those days. Just like they everywhere in the world today. You
                     can't keep a good man down all the time. My grandfather from Jamaica
                     would open his eyes in his grave if he heard I was in New York. Seems like
                     niggers is everywhere fighting for respect.

                           Well, Othello, I have great respect for that dude, seeing as how he was a
                     soldier of fortune who offered his services to the Venetians to fight the Turks.
                     Aint nothing wrong with that. A man's got to do something to make a living in
                     this world.

                           So he far away from home fighting for these white people, you think he'd get
                     some respect. But no, there is Iago and Roderigo plotting against him cause he
                     black. Calling him "old black ram" and "thick lips". Not to his face. They won't
                     dare say it to his face. Othello would take them out quick!!

                           Well, it seems they jealous of Othello cause of his big you know? White folks 
                     have a serious problem with the big you know. Personally I don't see what the 
                     problem is. Make no difference how big the nozzle once you get it in there 
                     and start filling her up. But Iago and Roderigo, they go brontosaurus with 
                     jealousy.

                           People be quick to say it got nothing to do with race. But when he hook up
                     with Desdemona it's like, who's this nigger messing with a white woman?
                     Making "the beast with two backs"? Bet the Venetians never heard of the 
                     beast with two backs till Othello rode into town. Takes a black man to show
                     some people a thing or two.

                    Well Othello, he wasn't going to run nowhere when Iago warn him the girl's
                     father looking for him. Cause running aint his style. "My title, my parts and
                     my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly." I say, go for it, nigger! Let them
                     show you respect. You got just as much right to a white woman as any man,
                     specially since there aint no black women around. I mean, what's a nigger to
                     do in Venice with no Moorish women around? Jerk off in the bathroom?

                     Now as for Desdemona, she knew what she wanted from the start. "She loved
                     me for the dangers I had passed."  She fall in love with a dangerous man,
                     cause she tired of being cooped up in her father's castle, bored out of her
                     skull, cause aint no good white boys around. Then this Othello come riding
                     into town and it's like Wow! Where you been? He been all over the world,
                     fighting cannibals and and all those weird anthropophagi people. This here
                     was one crazy nigger! "She loved me for the dangers I had passed."  Othello
                     got that right! Got all them white boys in Venice so spooked, they figure he
                     getting busy "twixt the sheets" with white chicks.

                     That Desdemona knew what she was doing. Only one way to get out of that 
                     no-life castle her father kept her in. She had to cross the tracks, get on the
                     wild side. Went all the way to Cyprus with her man. Knew what she was doing 
                     alright.

                     But check this, now Shakespear makes Othello say lines like "Rude am I of
                     speech", like he apologizing to the Venetian court cause he don't speak good
                     English. Aint nothing to apologize for. Let the man speak his own way. I'm
                     saying, some white folk got this thing about speaking proper, meaning their
                     roundabout chicken squeak way of saying things. Aint nothing rude about
                     being direct, saying what's on your mind.  (I'm sure you understand what I'm
                     saying, Miss Weiner, even if I forget to indent and stuff. By the way the spell 
                     check on this computer don't know some of my words!!!)

                     Then Shakespear make Othello fall down with epilepsy. Can't have a nigger 
                     who's strong and dangerous in his play. No, something got to be wrong with    
                     him. He talks "rude" English, he old and "declined into the vale of years", and
                     now he's got epilepsy. Make no sense. A dangerous nigger with epilepsy? How
                     come he a soldier, fighting all those Turks, and suffering from epilepsy? Falling
                     down in the middle of battle, shaking and frothing with epilepsy. Make no
                     sense. 

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

 

 

NY SLIDE 7.2: PROXIMITY AT WORK

 

 

                 For the parents' conference Radix was assigned to share the room with Judy
                 Weiner. She sat at her desk at one corner of the classroom, while he pulled 
                 chairs together at the other and made himself accessible.

                     Judy Weiner gave herself completely to the duty of meeting parents. She had the 
                 kids design a WELCOME banner on the computers; she pinned writing samples of
                 their work on the wall; the computer screens flickered in readiness for student
                 demonstration of competence and grasp of the new technology. At her desk her
                 mark book was open, with student folders and texts nearby; and as the parents
                 walked in – nervous, uncertain or sometimes visibly angry – she'd put them at
                 ease with a cheery "Hello! nice of you to come ". She had no problem with the
                 Spanish-speaking parents who studied her face and seemed to understand every
                 word she spoke.

                      All of which intrigued Radix who couldn't decide if Judy Weiner was a consum-
                 mate actress putting on a show for anxious parents, or a true professional who
                 did what was expected of her; who followed the guidelines set out by Principal
                 Wamp for these conferences: saying nothing that would injure the self-esteem of
                 student and parent; reinforcing the positive; projecting a future of accomplish-
                 ment and success for the child.

                 Because they shared duties and space he kept bumping into that other side of 
                 her, the vulnerable, anxiety-ridden side. Whenever this happened she'd look
                 away, or busy herself with some desk-straightening task.      

                 Their joint "Special Education" classes were limited to a maximum of twelve
                 students. On good days they were lucky to see six students, all of whom needed
                 individual attention. Then there were snow days when no one showed up, and
                 there was not much to do but catch up on paperwork.

                       Not surprisingly there developed between them an awareness of each other,
                  silken threads that connected them, but which snapped the moment their eyes
                  met. She would look away and the conversation trailed off as she scurried
                  back to her rabbit hutch of duties. Or so Radix imagined.

                  What was she afraid of? Was she seeing someone? How old was she, where did
                  she live, why was her face so blanched with worry while her body, clad often in
                  tight trendy clothes, looked firm and youthful? And how to explain those
                  mornings when she seemed affable, buoyant, on top of things, then the next
                  day apprehensive, dogged by some hidden distress?

                       He couldn't bring himself to enquire about her; he didn't want to appear prurient
                  or "interested". Still he worked alongside her, partners on task, aflame with
                  with curiosity.

                       As the weeks passed, the distance, the strangeness between them, seemed to
                  widen, then close, then widen again. They talked easily as teachers, but he
                  had to be careful with that other sensitive side which surprised him like cobweb
                  he'd walk into. Maybe she sensed his spirit hankering after something, and not
                  wanting to be rude she'd let him approach but only so far; then she'd let him  
                  back off, peeling the cobweb from his face.        

                  So they sat at two corners of the room, waiting for parents, preoccupied and
                  apart. 

                  At the end of the evening, as they prepared to leave, she took her time tidying
                  up, switching off the computers. And when Radix offered to help she assured
                  him he needn't worry. Besides, she was sure he wanted to get home. A smile
                  broke out on her face, and she said, "I was hoping to see Xavier's mother. I
                  wanted to show her his book report. He wrote me a wonderful book report."
                  Radix knew and understood her fondness for Xavier. "Would you like to  a look at
                  it?" she asked.
 
                      Radix hesitated. English Literature wasn't his field; and Xavier was a strange
                  moody student who liked Miss Weiner but steadfastly ignored him. "You could
                  take it home with you, read it over the weekend," she insisted. And because 
                  this was the first time she'd pressed anything on him, because she was alone 
                  with her hidden passions, wanting him now to share this one, he agreed to look
                  at it.

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

 

 

 

 

 

FIRST SUN HOME SET WORLDS APART

  

                           
                On Dad's island, our meet your Grandpa trip, the village
                      bath ritual meant some down dip splashing; a shock to our
                      up reach chrome handling. Dad made me leave the camera
                      phone home. We'll walk and talk the trees the sea night creature
                      noise sun lime. Pan chippers like forest on road winding, catch 
                      sweat beads off breast bounce gleaming, my wish list.

                Grandpa's hand trembled pointing flood and land marks;
                      no patience with passwords, he prefers his walk man's inked
                      transactions. Comrades circuit short at corners, scratchy voice 
                      like Dad's vinyls, their dry season. Crossing streets his fingers
                      on shoulders felt bone grippy. This mobile generation, profile
                      glaze on pocket screens  ̶  who'll mind run save the nation?

                Visiting from London Grandpa's old friend observed 
                      from the verandah wickers: towns & villages here reassemble 
                      tempers caste in Delhi and Nairobi; sunsets dive fast through skin 
                      textures into same text estates; night shifts of snake beats suckle
                      wail. Manners bypass service like retired diplomats. No bell ring
                      run from rape into the sea. You can watch rigged ships
                      harvesting at gated harbours.

                How's Samaroo doing, Grandpa's neighbor's son? came back
                      to play with his English girlfriend last Carnival. They heard
                      he'd smear Chinese dip sauce on her forehead, Sindoor
                      style, before they went to bed. Like he’s some Hindu
                      gangster, they clinked glass rims. Cool licks, my hit list.

                Dad's island home seems spared crowd Square death tolling. 
                      What difference did it make to you, Ma wondered. All that
                      we are is more or less returnable, he snapped. I told Grandpa
                      maybe I'll come back before his sun watch stops; richer
                      or poorer; faster, truth be told, up feeding blood
                      links, don't misunderstand me.
                                                                              W.W.

 

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

                                      TO THE EARTH OF INEVITABLE ASCENSION

 
                               I, your partial son, praise the whole of you
                            as I have praised some brother tree or man, and
                               hosts of sister grass-ears or bird-tongues, and
                               our one seed, your spouse, our father the Sun.

                               Now I admit and honour at last your
                            rich graveyard of compost and manure of birth,
                               and so encourage your slow pilgrimage
                               whose Mecca and Jerusalem will be

                               not only your own end of starhood but
                            also the willingness of men to allow 
                               in themselves the seeds of stars, seeds that will
                               sprout and pulse in harmony with Light's breath.

                               So now I plant such rhyming seed in you
                            and sense the receptive ripples of your womb,
                               and trust such innocent incest shall prove
                               new husbandry of all our shining fate.

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

 

 

 

NY SLIDE 7.1: MOOD INDIGO

 

 

                 "Be careful," Meier spoke up. "There's a patrol car behind us, if you're thinking of
                  going through another light."

                 "Well, whaddaya know! Bob, why don't you stick your head out the window, and
                  tell that officer he's going the wrong way. We're the good guys in the Bronx. The
                  bad guys are the other way."

                 "Speaking of which, did any of you teach Rosie Contreras…? graduated three or 
                  four years ago," Brebnor said.

                 "You're lucky to see anyone again once they graduate. It's adios amigos! and
                  they're gone," Lightbody said.

                 "Well, I was on my way home a week ago and this police cruiser tucks in behind
                  me. I changed lanes thinking he wants to pass. He tucks in behind me again.
                  Kept following me for miles. So I'm wondering: what does he want? Next thing I
                  know he pulls me over…May I see your license and registration?…So I ask,
                  what's the problem, officer?  The officer lifts her hat and she says to me, The
                  problem is you can't teach!… Yes, Rosie Contreras! I couldn't believe it. That
                  girl always said she'd be a cop one day. So Rosie, I said, you finally made it. Yes,
                  she said, I was following you from way back in the Bronx. waiting for you to
                  make one mistake so I could arrest your ass."

                 "I think I know who you're talking about…short and feisty, with these big busts, 
                  well-harnessed and…" 

                 "No that's not Rosie Contreras."

                  At the Bravo piazza place Jaime Bravo waited at the entrance to greet his
                  teachers, wearing an apron, and making exaggerated gestures of readiness to
                  serve. Eventually his father came over to say hello.

                  The group concentrated on the pizza, chewing and sipping, listening and 
                  nodding respectfully to Mr. Bravo who hovered and said over and over that he
                  was not a college-educated man, that he knew what it took (he pointed to his
                  forehead with index finger) to make it in New York city. He waved his arms
                  around his pizza place to indicate how hard and long he'd worked to build up his
                  business. When it was time to leave Mr. Bravo, feeling topped up with fresh
                  self-regard, shook everyone's hand at the door.

                       Usually when they trooped back to the car it was in the rowdy spirit of sailors
                  who'd gone ashore, had a good time in the town and were returning to the ship.
                  This time, the night cold and dark,  they could think only of getting back to
                  John Wayne Cotter and its uncertain future; getting through the parent
                  meet with little agitation, then going home.

                      "Does anyone know the trick of getting selected to go on the senior trip," Brebnor
                  said, breaking the silence in the car.

                      "Now there, Senator, is something worthy of a congressional hearing," Lightbody
                  perked up. "You know, last year I submitted my name. They told me I couldn't
                  go. They said it was up to the students; and apparently the students didn't want
                  me along."

                      "So who gets to go?"

                      "That's what I want to know. And get this: certain teachers get to go every year.
                  Always the same people. And I've heard of all sorts of… goings-on that… go on
                  up there."

                 "What do you mean goings-on?"Brebnor said.

                      "Well, strange things do happen… certain liaisons, shall we say..? The students 
                  talk when they get back."

                       "Aw, c'mon."

                         Lightbody was relieved, the bon vivant carpool mood was back. "Listen, you 
                   guys, there are things happening in this school that, if word ever got out…" He 
                   wagged a finger, and lowered his voice. "I know for a fact there's a tiny    
                   prostitution ring working in the school." Laughter, incredulous laughter.  "I'm
                   telling you… it's a teacher's job to listen to what the kids say. "My sources…"
                   More laughter.  "You see, everybody's so busy looking out for the bad guys
                   with the beepers and the drugs and guns in schoolbags. Meanwhile, there's
                   this little cell of…shall we say, forbidden pleasure… run by three Jamaican,
                   you might know them, the ones with the big earrings? and jangling bracelets?
                  
always hanging out in the hallway? I hear they've got a little bordello business
                   going. They cut class, they go home, parents are at work, they're open for 
                   business. You can even get a little marijuana on the side if you like…it's
                   happening, guys!…and from all reports these girls are expensive."

                         "I think Mr. Lightbody is in the wrong profession," Mr. Ghansam said, amused 
                   but absorbing every word. "He'd make an good undercover agent, don't you 
                   think?" 

                         Back outside the school, feeling reinforced by the pizza meal and the buddy
                   talk, they looked up at the building they worked in, massive in the dark, all lit
                   up (they rarely saw it at night); and waiting now to receive parents, students
                   and teachers, as it had over decades; seasons of graduates streaming through
                   its doors, filing up on its auditorium stage in caps and gowns, then pouring out
                   into the working world.

                         Out of nowhere something sparked and stirred inside Bob Meier, a sense there 
                   might be some purpose after all in his profession. It stirred right at the 
                   moment they came through the main entrance, mingling and shuffling forward 
                   with parents and students, some of whom smiled and pointed him out to
                   mothers with grim set faces.

                         And there were the seniors dressed formally in white and black, smiling at
                   everyone, handing out schedules and programs. A group from the culinary
                   classes stood behind their display table in shiny aprons. Oh, Mr. Meier, you
                   have to buy something from us!

                         Yes! And no wonder we keep wanting to come here every day, Meier thought.
                   Never mind the hellish classrooms, the hair-whitening grind; the fear that flays 
                   the spirit. John Wayne Cotter, old stone quarry of a school. Welcome back.

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