POEMS FOR MOBILE TONES (& BELL RINGS STILLED)

 

 

                                                                                    for John Mc T. & Zulaika A.

              Time was, papi still sighs, you'd shout
              after a purse snatcher – back when it carried
              your personals, cash (now credit cards): the quiver
              of signatures.

              Today an angry young woman blocks the car of a man
              who snatched her iphone, glares his getaway.
              NYcity kids turn back, refuse front entrance search,
              brood in class if told hand over mobiles.

              You must tell me what? you can't hold, eye to eye display?
              take back, retouch before your message finger
              scrolls or sends?
          
              Ah, papi,
              radiant chat could stack & smoke in the head
              that must be emptied. My time, your space not measured, brewed
              could serve an instant gamer. Dark villages awaiting postcards,
              footsteps pick up now; ol' folk walk & call like new;
                 like fireflies cells blue glow
                 like cicadas long distance beeps.

              Besides, new solitudes require
              offsets wired (& pharm domains). Not enough the wind,
              naked lip strolls; paint & brush myth making
              by the sea; your pet fur combed. 
                                         
              Bed mates betrayed dare not now swear – the evidence's saved!
              – that love was hardly there. Each suspect
              breath's now snapped & filed; we have visuals;
              smart cursors will track you while you dance or sleep.

                Hold on one sec
                That's my ring tone
                Minutes cost, I must answer
                  "Hola…
                   You know what time it is?
                   Traders, day for night, is who they are.
                   Si…si...que madre!  
                  (These nets of need, this planet of desires)
                   I'm on the train now
                   On the train.
                                           -W.W.

 

 

 

                   CLOUDWALK

                  The wind and sun collaborate
                   in a kindly balance, the grass
                   nods and points towards a new church

                   still being built whose steeple draws
                   me on along a ridge towards
                   you. This is one way of being

                   within you as you drift away.
                   So the wind dandelions know.
                   I think of picking two for you

                   but decide against offering you
                   bleeding things and leave them to breathe
                   without fear. Near the church

                   I can't yet get past the facade
                   of an old beauty taking new
                   shape too early now to enter.

                   But now's the right time, late enough
                   to turn and hurry back to you,
                   making flowers wince as I run

                   to meet you dripping green rain
                   through cracks of the new spire pointing
                   in the clear distance that we share.
                          (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)


                 

 

 

NY SLIDE XXXVII: POWER PLAY

 

   Her office on the second floor permitted Mrs. Haliburton a view of the front entrance.
  She was reluctant to give up this view. She was able to observe everyone, students and  
  staff, coming in, and report on their morning disposition. Case in point, the incident
  that developed from the fracas in the car park across the street, where a student was
  stabbed while onlookers jumped on the cars for a better view of the fight.  
    The car park had been used by some teachers without formal permission. It was
  intended for residents of the apartment building but since they owned very few cars
  there were always spots available. For years teachers, glad for the feeling of security
  the enclosure offered, drove in and parked in the empty spots.
     Imagine their surprise, the shock, one morning, when they arrived to find the
  entrance blocked.
     A group of residents, mainly women, were walking up and down in what seemed a
  kind of protest action. They lowered a chain to let a resident car out; they raised it to
  block teachers from entering.
    Mrs. Haliburton was at her desk observing the situation, and reporting developments
  blow by blow to Noreen at the Board of Ed.  
    "Here comes…I think it's Mr. Estwick…teaches Biology…a young man, he started
  last fall, his wife had a baby the other day…um hmm…he drives in from the Island…
  he's been parking right outside the front entrance which nobody in their right mind
  would do, these kids don't think twice about sitting on your hood when they want to
  hang out after school…well, he had his sideview mirror broken, and the antenna bent
  …you'd think he'd learn his lesson by now…no, he continues to park there…on the
  same spot…um hmm…Now wait, this is interesting…Mrs. Karnipp just drove up…
  they've raised the chain…she's getting out the car…she's speaking to them… My
  goodness! she's really upset…she's backing away!…Lord knows where she'll park today." 
     Later Mrs. Haliburton couldn't resist asking Mrs. Karnipp about the encounter. They
  were in the teachers' cafeteria. Mrs. Karnipp was sipping coffee and pulling on her
  cigarette.
    "I noticed you had some trouble this morning…with the people across the street…in
  the parking lot?" she probed. 
     "You know, I've been parking there for years…never had any problems with those
  people. It never occurred to me I was taking someone's parking spot…I mean, there
  are more spaces there than people own cars."
     Mrs. Karnipp's eyes were wide open with pain and distress for all the world to see.
  Her fingers with the cigarette scratched the air. She searched Mrs. Haliburton's face
  for some understanding of the chaos she'd been thrown into.
    "Well it is their parking lot. They can do whatever they want with it," Mrs. Haliburton
  said matter o' factly. 

    

NY SLIDE XXXVI: VIOLA HALIBURTON (SPECIAL ED.)

 

    Mrs. Haliburton arrived at the school at about seven in the morning. She was driven
  there by her husband in their Cadillac Seville. It idled for a few minutes at the front
  entrance while its occupants, looking straight ahead, exchanged important reminders;
  then Mrs. Haliburton stepped out. She was among the first to arrive, and often the
  first to leave.
     Her departure, about an hour before the exodus of the three thousand students,
  was also through the front entrance. The Seville was not there to take her home. She
  walked. Sometimes she stopped by the post office; chatted on the sidewalk with old
  ladies gripping shopping carts; then she caught the bus. A lady of social standing, she
  felt at ease in the streets of her community.
     Once in the building she attended to paperwork for half an hour; then she picked
  up the phone and called her "girlfriends", women who like Mrs. Haliburton worked at
  a desk; single or divorced black women, like Noreen at the Board of Education, or
  Thelma at the Superintendent's office. They formed part of her valuable network of
  information. 
     Networking for Mrs. Haliburton was as important as the underground railroad back
  in the old bad days. She had her sources, people she relied on to leak information
  from downtown. Often she learnt in advance about new proposals for John Wayne
  Cotter H.S. She'd pass on the leaks to astonished colleagues with a wink and a smile,
  and "Don't tell anyone you heard it here first."
     Other bits of information she filtered to people in the community, folks she met on
  Sundays at her husband's church; influential grassroots people whom the Bronx
  politicians courted and turned to for votes.
                              (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                                                                        

POEMS FOR INFANT REPUBLICS (& NURSERY LIMES)

 

 

                                                                                 for Carroll M. & Joseph P.

                While shepherds watch, what choice? what chance?
                our grounded brown black flock: dreaming
                of pastured futures; weary
                of crabgrass from the past.

                The Skipper, we tried, all cricket-sweatered; the cracked field
                strips not level;
                plus now the roster's not for gentlemen at play.

                The Captain recaps those first tossed ocean renting
                timber ships; bulked labour in irons below, the stomach turns
                anchoring here.

                The Chief spreads fear of fat bricks and lying rumps; dogs in cartridge
                garlands, must wear shades; plus natty public servants plotting
                panty raids.

                The President, Prime Minister? skull caps for Trust me,
                I studied overseas! They talk bowl smooth like stool
                softener, making life so easy to pass.

                The Boss – dem fellas ride hard, boy! overseeing
                what we do with warning cuss and stop watch; can't
                catch a quick break with doudou.

                No, no don't mention the King, and don't try the gender thing;
                yes, Auntie K and Sister P
                folk friendly and carnival is we ting.

                O, the Shaman – well, hear nuh,
                this writer chap camped out in the forest with that
                to feasibly survey; he came out hearing voices, grabbed wing
                for doctors mapping ghost trails faraway. 

                Our last big shot > the space ship > crop circles
                in the sugar cane fields: when it land spindly-legged
                fellas, tendril
                arms wave wide, will appear offering work and party.
               
                Call them what you will, come along;
                and roll out red carpet today;
                and smile,
                'cause if they fancy they might promise lift up & away.
                                                                        – W.W.

                        


 

                         NOTIONS OF A NATION

                         A Problem somehow to be solved
                         by our achieving a Consensus
                         then turning back to our unsolved lives.

                         A Future we cannot afford
                         not to invest in, lest our children
                         curse us for leaving them less than heaven.

                         A tribe we must worry about
                         before it's Too Late and it breaks up
                         and we're left wandering in a desert.

                         Strands of rock and river and road
                         woven slack by the keepers of light
                         that confounds the terms of earnest men.

                              (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan) 

              

                
                         

 

 


NY SLIDE XXXV: CHINESE POT LUCK

 

      On Friday evenings Amarelle would urge him to take her out to dinner. They'd  
    gone out twice before, crossing a bridge into Manhattan and dining at a Greek
    restaurant. She smiled and made small talk, commenting on the decor and
    overdoing her excitement when the waiter took their order; while Radix, quiet
   and stiff, looked around and wondered what was no longer appealing about dining
    at home as they did on the island.
         When he stopped their eating out evenings – the one weeknight of dressing
    up, getting away from the decrepit neighborhood and dining like people with
    money to spend – Amarelle never forgave him. Now on Fridays there would be
    for him only "pot luck". And this evening she hadn't even come home from work!
         There was a Chinese Takeout on the next block.
         He stood on the stoop, buttoning his jacket, and he stared across the road
    where hours before someone had been killed. Strips of yellow police tape left
    behind flapped about on the sidewalk. A little girl emerged from the bodega
    with a bag of groceries. The Budweiser neon sign glowed and promised fun.
         At the Chinese Takeout the woman took his order without looking at him.
    Numbah 34, right? He hesitated; he changed his order, wanting something
    simpler. Okay, you want Numbah 35? She seemed eager to take his order, get
    it bagged, take his money; her eyes were cast down, her hands busy with
    detail behind the counter. And behind her – wearing their white chef hats and
    labouring over steaming bowls and pans – her Chinese helpers.
        He stood still looking out at the streets, arms folded, pondering the price of
    existence out there. The Chinese shop was next to a supermarket, and adjacent
    to a place for cashing checks. On the other side of the street, a towering
    apartment building, through whose glass doors a steady stream flowed – children
    babies in strollers, overweight women.
        Two young men came in and instantly swept aside his reflective mood. They looked
    at Radix, at his clothes, his shoes, all in one quick measuring motion; then they
    looked away. They came up to the plexiglass partition and rapped hard with knuckles.
    The Chinese woman looked up from her counter in terror; she pulled a pencil from her
    hair and waited.
        "Numbah 36!" The Chinese woman repeated the order just to be sure. "Didn't I
    just say that?… Wha's the matter…you fucking deaf?…Didn't I just say Numbah 36?
    That's what I want…and a side of fries. I don't know what this chump here wants."
    And his friend – bulky, babyfaced, wearing a bubble jacket – grabbed him and tried to
    put his head in an arm lock for calling him a chump.
                    (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
 

      

NY SLIDE XXXIV: THE SUPER’S DOWN

         

   When finally he got back home there were police cars and an ambulance in
      front the apartment building across the street, and knots of people on the
      sidewalk. What was going on?
        Someone shot the Super of the building. Put a bullet through his head. How
      did this happen? When did it happen?
         The two overweight women didn't recognize him in his jacket and brief case;
      they shrugged their shoulders. He didn't speak Spanish well, and he appeared
      to creep up on the women, startling them. Like everyone they waited for some
      sort of closure to the excitement; the dead man taken away; the police cars
      and ambulance driving off; the apartment building with its graffiti and broken
      doorway handed back to its occupants.
        When did this happen? Radix asked again. The women shrugged their shoulders
      again, shifting their heavy bodies. Hey, I live on this block too, he wanted to
      shout.
        He had an urge next to see the dead man's body. He remembered vaguely a
      stocky man with a cigar stump in his mouth and a bunch of keys at the hip,
      going in and out the front door with a mop and pail; and arguing, always
      arguing, in defiance or defence, with tenants in the building.
         He crossed the road, ducked under the yellow police tape and peered into
      the entrance. He saw a covered body, just the shoes and socks on the man's
      feet. White men in dark suits stood around; they turned and looked at him,
      struck by the jacket and tie, the intense curious face. They asked what he
      wanted, did he live in the building. Radix shook his head and backed away.
         Down the block four kids were playing street basketball; the hoop, an old
      milk crate nailed to a lamppost. Two police officers, no longer needed,
      ambled back to their cars, smooth white faces grim. They had the air about
      them of men called in to put down some local disturbance, leaving their cars
      up on the sidewalk, just about anywhere until this nasty business was over.
         The basketball got loose and one of the officers caught it, did a quick
      dribble, then shaped himself to take the shot. The boys froze where they
      stood and watched. The shot hit the rim and went wide. His partner cracked
      a thin smile and shook his head like a disappointed coach. Radix went inside.
                       (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

POEMS FOR YOUNG LOVE BROWSING SIGNS UP THERE

 

                                                                                                                 for Jean-Ann F-R

 

                          Heard from a young man the other day: about his girl,
                    Savitri, and her aurora moment: she walks into a store,
                    the Bazaar Bombay (no, in Georgetown's Regent Street)
                    intent on buying some lovelaced wispy thing to cache
                    his eye in her green heart's bursting folder.

                    Back among the bolts of blue, the layers of crimson spangles: a bony
                    neckless face, earrings of metal, eye wells of abeer, cries Holi,
                    Holi. She flees the store into midday streets stuttering from heat,
                    straight to his front door, his couch; stripped speechless –
                    what just happened?

                    Limb tinder twined for fires that curve and calm the eyes
                    stared at the ceiling as the mystery spread. He worked,
                    a drill shift, vowed to root all spirits unsummoned out; spike
                    & beam a faith up down like girders for their love.

                    After she'd gone, he logged, he said, on to a soccer match:
                    ballers at London's Wembley Stadium, after halftime; trotting
                    back on the field: making signs of the cross,
                    pointing to the sky, touching the ground:

                    So sure someone is watching…that cruising satellite
                    eye, or, after the first star ignited, the undivided
                    One in front a galactic plasma screen, Chair
                    of the grand design – from microbe to first breath. 

                    The Bombay girl? seems now she knows – the first
                    communion saved – how longings interned hold and surge;
                    what profiles sleepless roam the earth. With navel bare
                    come March she'll spray coloured water powders flowers
                    of shielding; she'll chant to chase shadows & shudders
                                                                                 of lingam away.

                    Did what?…her young man see the light…nah..
                    stopped playing the field, though.
                                                                                                – W.W.

 

 

 

 

                 

 

 

 

 


                                       RECOGNITIONS

                    Scraps of the soul drifting over the river of my eye,
                       each on his or her angled way of essential
                           forgetting of the threads linking us all,
                              shred my heart into sparks of fear

                      and of joy that leap with the finding, and fade with the loss
                        of links frayed by the tension off seeing too well,
                          the impulse of recognition staggered
                             by a relentless remembering

                     both the finest stitch and the most ruthless unravelling
                         of a quilt still spreading, impossible to check
                            whose patches of light are too brief to be
                               held and too sharp to be ignored.
                                                           (from "Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)      

 

 

              
              

 

          

             
                 

            

NY SLIDE XXXIII: ROAD RAGE

 

          He felt first the surprise of impact; he saw the head of the driver snap back,
     his hands raised in the air a little theatrically. The lanes beside his kept moving;
     vehicles behind him tried to manoeuvre out of his lane, honking in frustration at
     what his apparent carelessness had caused.
         The driver approaching him wore a baseball cap and sneakers; his shirt was
     unbuttoned; he seemed not to mind the cold temperature; he had a beer
     drinker's belly and a very annoyed manner. Radix watched him, ready to admit
     it was all his fault, waiting for the first indication of how the matter would be
     resolved.
        He sensed someone else watching: across the road, standing on the cracked
     asphalt, a man and a ferocious looking dog. He was dressed in a grey sweat suit;
     his face under the hood looked grizzled, gaunt. His dog sniffed the grass and
     tugged at the leash, wanting to move on; but the man wasn't ready. Radix caught
     his eye, felt his anticipation of something dramatic about to happen.
        Meanwhile the driver had inspected his rear bumper which looked dented but
     was otherwise intact. Radix' vehicle had gotten the worse of it, a smashed head-
     lamp; and as he tried to gauge the extent of the damage the man raised his arms
     in a gesture of disbelief and anger.
         He came up to Radix, "What the fuck?"… staring, waiting…"What the fuck?";
     then he walked back to the front of his car and reached inside, for a cigarette
     pack.
         Though not threatening this behavior left Radix uneasy.The man lit his
     cigarette and with his arms bracing the car appeared to be pondering his
     options. At intervals he said "Shit" with strange vehemence, as if building up
     emotional steam. He seemed to be waiting for Radix to say something, and
     Radix knew that the tone and choice of his first words would determine what
     happened next.
          He glanced at the man with the dog across the street. He could feel the man's
     knowingness, his amused appraisal: Like fish out of water… Don't know what 
     the fuck you're doing, right fella?  He looked back down the road, at miles of
     backed up traffic. People driving by gave him quick looks of fury. A wind gust
     sent dust in his face.
        A woman's voice from the man's car, screamng "For chrissakes, Angelo, shut 
     the door!" shifted his attention from Radix. He answered her in Spanish. They
     had a fierce rapid exchange, the accident forgotten for the moment; then the
     woman got out and came around to inspect the damage.
         She moved briskly as if accustomed to taking charge in mishaps like this, when
    her man wasn't sure what to do; and she smiled at Radix and commiserated, "Hey,
    it's not so bad…could have  been worse." Then in a firm tone she said, "Get in
    the car, Angelo,"  annoyed, muttering  "…the fuck outta here."
         Angelo came back to inspect his bumper one more time. He pointed and shook
     an unhappy finger at Radix: "You better learn how to fucking drive!" And with
     that the matter was settled – the man getting into his vehicle, moving off with
     sharp loud revs, daring anyone to hit his car again.
                                                (from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

  

NY SLIDE XXXII: ROADWAYS HIGH AND LOW

 

           Approaching his car Radix noticed a tiny pool of what looked like…what was
    most certainly…green engine coolant fluid near the front tires. Panic with tiny
    fingers gripped his heart. He bent down to inspect the fluid. How could he        
    be sure it came from his car?
        He got in and turned the ignition. The car started after the third try but the
    engine shuddered and rattled ominously. At the second traffic light, with the
    interior warming up and everything else sounding normal, his anxiety faded. He
    drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked out at a city heading
    home under grey skies.
        On the overpass he looked down and saw four lanes of traffic jammed up on
    the highway, stretching for miles, crawling forward. He'd have to go down there;
    he'd have to ease his way into that crawl. There were alternative routes but he'd
    never taken the time to explore them, knowing only one road home; hating
    roadways, the time-consuming need to travel on them; drivers who showed no
    concern for human limb and life.
        At the access road to the highway other drivers were having second thoughts.
    One fellow, already half way down, threw his car in reverse and came barelling
    back, the driver's head craned round, he didn't give a fuck what anyone thought
    as long as you got out his way.
         Radix decided to stick to the local roadway. It ran parallel to the highway
    until the highway went up and above ground and ran for a mile or so on concrete
    reinforcements, offering the convenience of not having to pass through local
    communities.
         But the roadway, an uneven strip, its lanes not clearly marked, soon backed
    up; traffic lights at intersections up ahead kept changing, from red to green
    then back to red for long minutes. Yet nothing moved. He began to regret not
    taking the highway which he could see above him, cars moving slowly, but
    moving; there was flow up there, and order; no bumper poking and jostling for
    space. The cars up there seemed… and before he could finish that thought his
    car struck the rear end of the vehicle in front.
                                        (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
 

POEMS FOR SUMMERS GONE (& LEGENDS FADING)

 

                 
               They came to the city park – the heat that windless day,
               browning up the grass! – to hear the grandmaster sing
               kaisos up from the islands. Was heritage week. Round
               the bandstand home hungers blazing, sun spot powdered
               body pasts chafing, people shaking hip in half
                                                                             a moon of devotion.

               "But why he sitting down to sing?"  "He getting old, you know."
               "And where he party clothes?"  "He getting on, you know."
               "And why words dropping out from that song? I getting old,
                       I remember every word from that song."

               When he wobbled or he fluffed, the horn crew grinding stopped
               to pick him up, didn't miss a beat, thank God
                        for  lay lay, lay lay, aie aie, aie aie
                       and  pim pim, pim pim, bambamyuhbumbum.

               Booming the master of ceremonies asked over and over,
               Areyuhready?  And once:
                   Any driver who park their car inside the park
                       better move their car outside the park
                           rightaway   is a NYCity violation   Are you ready?

               Off at the tree shaded south end this road torqued woman,
               her life close by in swollen plastic bags, slept through
               like yorkie on rug; till the anchor line. How you jammin'
               so. She jump up, rub she eyes, look 'round,
               then start one wining bad beside she self.

               Scattered on the fringe los verdes ramas, unlucky to be hired
               that day, pulled down dream hiding baseball caps
               and watched. The sound system pounded
               their haze, with treats seasoned for fiestas, and tricks
               like wrapped hot burritos for the route-crossing soccer ball.

               Inside the high fenced basketball court the rim rattled
               & rang from misses; black sweat gleaming torsos huddled
               feinted, twisted through reverbs & scrimmage, raked
               back, then, with drummers'  wrist, swished for the rain withholding sky.
                                                                                                           – W.W.


               THE CANADIAN OCTOBER TREE

               in this lobby knows
               no season but a standardised summer
               to oblige with greenish branches. Only
               a few leaves puzzled
               by the tree's seed-memory of autumn
               have drained their colour. A few others, less
               unsure (more faithful)

               have already leapt
               down into their new status of rug-stain.
               But the tree, a mother by now resigned
               to her solitude
               of an eternity in soil without
               depth, stands well-clad still, saving nature's face,
               if not her full fire.
                               (from "Gift of Screws" by Brian Chan)