FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

 

              
          Digits pure bit fixtures sure . misses the pluck
          as bowl hands whisk fate numbers ~ ever since
          the globe bees stop @flowering ~ combat brows
          horizon eyes.

                                \ Of course, It is written! matters.         
          See Shakespeare who triggered Rebellion in the 90s,
          it might interest Androids to know.
                                                                    Line hard
          Why you dressed up so, Miss Silverstein ? sheet
          white, quotations in head garland + ankles
          like homework notes swollen.

                                                 ^    

          Planet verified ! nude chips don’t recognize
          the nude, hibiscus bulb updates | on the school
          bus riders steer pause Send . the speed past
          air horn pastime.

                                                ^
       
          How then to shield sun miracles ! at stake
          our central intelligent engines that stream
          turn vitals on to screens . down Skoden Wagwan
          cool text slopes; constricted so.

                                     \ The tremor when planes
          ploughed into the towers made dull our built
          in body shudders.
                                             Brush fire browning      
          forest fascia Arrgh! + paper white bills pecking
          at appetizers off the table Arrrgh!

                                                               – W.W.

       

 

         YUH RAP SO (1.2)

                                            While trying to keep up
         With the latest variations on the theme
         Of Modernity as obvious summa
         Of evolution and as flaccid platform
         For men’s next potent projection to the stars
         – trouble is, Thomasson now thought – there are no
         idealists left to pay attention to
         any stars but the cheapest in the long run
         the most expensive while the nearest free one
         Earth’s reliable source of light-energy
         is back-burnered to an old ring in the sky.

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

 

               
          
           Who wasn’t a gladiatorial slave
           Or uniformed whore like her in the phony
           Label-enforced empire of abstract money
           Imposing the materialist belief
           In veiled towers of power over all life?
           Thinking stuff like that, she would wish she’d never        
           Learnt to think at all but had stayed regular
           Like the other Sisters not constipated
           By the Big books they wondered why she needed
           Still:  wasn’t she done with University?
           All them whys + wherefores a blessed pity!

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

 

                          
                  
                                       "the incomplete discovery of the world
                                        in the blueness of its delicacy…"
                                              – Wilson Harris, Heartland (1964)

               
            Who can sense purpose ? in the buffalo first
            thundering the earth | at centers of yearning wind
            swerves riffle clothes line devotion.
 
                                    / Fork ready, our orchid care
            takers wait at cloud^fills for buried souls, corpse
            past life reheating; fault lay.

                           / Children playing near the manatee   
            pond learn not to stare strangers in the face;
            crows talk to crows – from the bus stop they will
            shadow you verklempt ‘n’ easy.

                                              +

            Up from desert strand ? gender slash intact
            Tell us everything . this way, speak to the cameras.
            Bitch dream ! over ‘n’ over sand snake binders
            inside cicada night court.

            Boxes of warriors ferried on a thousand
            shoulders, streets choked | iPhone bystanding
            swipe new fertile points . vinyl scratch
            ol’ sperm hits on parade; heart hold.

            Your face means nothing Not unveiled. Lamp
            constancy I know no other shade chill out
            wood fires | always something there to remind
            you . robed men pray^hawking in their beards.

                                                          – W.W.

 

              

           

 

 

             YUH RAP SO (1.0)

             That Freda liked listening to Robb’s radio
             With its shortwave portals to other foreign
             Tongues + songs + News (This Is London Calling)
             & suchlike distractions of propaganda
             (But the Internet not yet) made him wonder
             Whether his baby was then city-ready:
             But there, her otherness-rainbows would fast be
             Fleshed out as Fun or verbosely aborted,
             Coming true – dreams, love – or coming through – delayed
             Emigration-permits 

                   (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

              
           Advantage rungs for mango pluck scale so
           our legs splay favor bad | dreams ‘n’ fears shuck
           this, take that storm ocean horde^like our starry
           drift nature.
                                                         / Evening lime
           calls assume all snakes respect the rules
           of the garden  > core the apple, curl round
           next the tail ! you don’t have to Like it.
           Smarmy business.

                                            ^ 

           In the city house the Expats rented Ma said
           they worried about scowls or smiles crossing
           local lanes. The heel of cows?  in black sauce
           made to simmer promised pleasure Fingers
           again!
                                                       / Molecule dance
           break high . place + order worked till missing
           the space bar at their zoo they left our jungle;
           snap not so Ma let go her wish^serving virtue.     

                                            ^

           Village huddle . father selling daughter shares
           how this could happen ? yield^trust petals flat so
           to this day pesticide removes the ring.    
                                                            / No rope plain
           text explaining . remains papaw^like left outside
           for seedy carrion beak House keeping!

           Borders wired Agua Agua! midday salting
           meat; night wraps cold around Turn back
           extremities | futures moan so even the cactus
           males reach for female blankets. Spine deals.

                                                     – W.W.

 

               

             

 

 

 

           YUH RAP SO (0.9)   

           He had grown up with death all around him, yet
           None of the wheel-crushed dogs + cats he had known
           In the streets of Georgetongue had prepared his bones
           For their rattling recognition of his fate,
           A recognition now felt as a fit, swift
           & everlasting at once, with its fevers
           Rushing through his postsomnial brain to leave
           Their punctures + scabs + scars as record and
           Rehearsal – of things gone + things gone beyond

               (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

 
             

           Later Othello’s wife’s fate of Married Life  
           Made Dilyd toss out her own lace-handkerchiefs:
           When white lace, in this or that starched trim, began
           Jutting out into her eyes in the haven
           Of her Order, she begged Bishop Gee to let
           Her go to teach little bucks to read + write

           Down in the Bush up in the Interior,
           One more rung to High Heaven on her ladder
           Of God-lust odd in an otherwise docile
           Gyirl trying her best to keep a low profile –
           More so after the thing behind the sea-wall
           Which had made her flesh feel like a cannibal’s
           Bloody treat + turned her off all males for good,
           Including her lover, though he too had bled
           As part of the wages of their lapse of lust
           As shameful for its haste as for the rapists’
           Voyeur-into-vampire perversion of it

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

    
     

 

                           “…difficult to tell where the veined grassroot    
                             of one’s life commenced and the rocking
                               cliff of illusion ended.”
                                    – Wilson Harris, Heartland (1964)  

          Nude for truth . we can't find keys to harbours
          safe + the passwords for your computer | your wife
          hired a lawyer . that loose block in the basement
          wall?  prayers track stuffed sin.

               Planet population beeps . guess where numbers
          falling?  Wake to work from home . outside skin
          tent in muddah millions | someone came forward
          about lambing meets you said meant nothing.

          Moments of silence mark nations missing stand up
          comedy; + nutrient-rich dinners that look like poop
          on the plate | Oh, the Admin room for intermittent
          Couples Only . enter Take nah.

                                               ^                                                

               Birds in glow worm pursuit crash into Tech
          towers; with pork rind bait fish^hook men cast
          passage lines.
                                                                / Our Davina
          Liksamber running for President . likes science
          social reads.
                                                      Look out the window
          navels point show grafters hostin’ shake hand
          licks . ask no question exam passing.
                                                                 \ Swing miss 
          deceived, pitch désolé . reset the play, duck worn.

                                                            – W.W.

 

 

           
                                       [ In mem : Rooplall Monar . 1945 – 2024 ]

 

            YUH RAP SO (0.7)

            All intelligence, first + last, will obey
            That perverse gene informing all of Nature
            From cloud to seed: the buried seed splits, eager
            To sprout + keeps shooting up + branching through
            The gnarls of its demanding mind as it moves
            Towards both the cloud + the Sun their source still
            Haunting the course of the seed’s intractable
            Urge to burst beyond its skin so as to stay
            True to its pulse that cannot unlearn its law

               (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

 

              
           Well being in ocean clutch . coast side shamans hedge
           the shore so . watch them monster truck wheel rolling
           raptures ‘cross our lot | back dam alert : Upgrade!
           our cutting edge will print you . world game head.

                               / Thank God for pain relievers, Grandma
           sighed | off show fair daughters traded, bosoms
           rising at demand . stomach hybrid proof.

                      / As things got worse we held tongue loss
           vest close | + chair campers on heritage grounds
           jook jiggling what’s left in us of those days.
                                                                Grandpa smiles
           when we strip ‘n’ dip into his dried ol’ grain.

                                               *

           First monologue?  from Shakespeare in the class
           room | cells they wouldn’t leave home without help
           followers walk on water; pronoun star turn,
           Heaven knows.

           Signs of waning send the rumpus room lizard
           into scurry | See‘t?  low moon ‘im cyaan ‘oist
           his nobody perfect handle trying . only one
           Time left? around.                
                                                    \ Since particles pass
           tagless through the air . heart pure our space
           launch^sure . bam bam bebe shakey wakey
           weave . raison to build believe. 

                                                               – W.W.

 

 

            

        

 

           YUH RAP SO (0.6)

          Judd was one of those humanoids who, after
          Just a few experimental decades of
          One more brief sojourn on Earth, assume they know
          Other fallen humanoids better than they
          Care to remember themselves – as living gods:

          For so Judd recalled his self; so how come not
          His comrades their selves?  He sensed Freda knew her
          God-sense in her bones, by the way they would stir,
          As of their own volition beside her will
          To sit or stand or lean up against a wall
          Or stretch or be stretched or curl up in his bed

            (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

            

 

            
           Habitat:  no longer the convent, white, near
           Their seawall complete with statues of Mary
          (With + without her Son on or off the Cross)
           Beside a stone-mammoth’s pagan proboscis
           Curled upwards to serve as a dribbling fountain
           Near the path from the white front-door to the chains
           That ensured the high-black-iron front-gate stayed
           Locked to keep in guard-dogs + keep out all strays
           So that the holy Sisters could go about
           Their day’s duties + their evening-prayers with not
           Too much anxiety over their safety:

        + Habitat:   now a clearing in the country,    
           Or what town-mouse Dilys used to call the bush
           Even though calendar-photos would give much
           Vivid witness of is wide open spaces,
           The Bush’s twin-fiction spawned by villagers
           Trapped in cities homesick for lost horizons
           Of innocent Noble Savage abandon:
           That the savages here in their ordered space
           Were still called bucks – huntable, although their spears
           Pointed to their being genuine hunters –
           Didn’t much concern the otherwise fair nun

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

 

 

                                

            We used to bend over vegetable rows, cow custom
            software ankle deep we ‘treprenured our own growth
            curd | Estate cane course done . thrift bag knot
            like grinders run.

                                     \ Toil wages bare foot sore we like
            the sound of ‘cut the check’; habitats with numbers
           (names brand the soil) + (new) our caribou hosting
            range.           

            The gap > caught behind win^starving Try some
            thing any thing ! belly fat overwatching . pump
            well years to come.

                                            *

            Bear as ocean cross boards creak . sway separate
            side from side | as mañanas grind on wait chair
            curvatures, heart strain holders forge night
            sums that hum like truth.

                                                   /  For islanders high
            Howyuhdo?  trust in futures cost; belonging lines
            outdated fingers spider^like reroute.
            
                                              / Arrgh! coming t’reel
            by you ovadeh, Vijinie . mermaid of iStream, how
            yuh spooling ? what work part time you mean.

                                                                     – W.W.

 

                      

              

              

               

                 YUH RAP SO (0.4)

                ………………………….
                                                       ………………………
                       
                Women's genes, Ladd once instructed Thomasson,
                Leaned towards settling down in city-cultures
                As hotbeds for a matriarchal future
                Whose pyramids would be built by nice-guy slaves
                For whom today’s pussy-whipped bourgeois male gives
                Up his masculinity as ripe manure –
                A notion so paranoid, the priest would swear,
                Only a matricide or patricide could
                Concoct it

                 (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)

 

                                                           
                                                     "She said, as though to herself, ‘If it wasn’t
                                                     for the children…’” 
                                            – V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas (1961)

 

             Men whose words pillow play combat, intestines never
           felt earth shudders in combat, wave^point to home
           school flagpole dancers . import joint cartilage
           for peace.

                                                     / On Princess Day ! good
           news for kiss ‘n’ swell crapaud, score keepers ask
           How is the man today ? three sons, four daughters
           bead coin counting . sweat ‘n’ net to goal.

                   I hate comparisons with oil, the actor said,
          cinema ’65 visiting Georgetown . the roadways safe
          for bicycles | potholes back filled with plantain
          chip^like dried blood.

                                               *

                   So I went with this other man ~ canefield bed
          room Okay, where? ~ kindest soul I ever met
          horse holding | how so return ? those conch lip
          service calls.       
                                                                / All our blow
         flame lovers losing breath have fled . match
         sticks scratching elsewhere.

                                                           Think of a place
         ~ no feathers flute Go Pluck Yourself ~ avenue
         contractions toss | henna tattoo^like en garde
         to mothers How you could do that? say nothing.    

                                                             – W.W.                  

         

       

      

          YUH RAP SO (0.3)

          + Did Thomasson know he was fooling himself
          With a colonistic knowing more about
          The natives than they wanted to know about
          Themselves?  Was that how he had flattered his flock
          In cobwebby New Amsterdam?  where he’d tricked
          One woman out of his confessional and
          Into bed with him, ignoring her husband
          (& children) + their respected livelihood
          As importers + retailers of dry goods:
          Not a few of their starched sheets did their priest stain
          Before he asked to be transferred to Georgetown

              (from “Raponani” by Brian Chan, 2023)