Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.” – Requiem Mass
Mujeres in migraine storm, occupy a morgue, naming, wanting the bodies of loved ones struck numb in a prison fire.
Fear borne refugees cross burnt fields away from villages ravaged by soldiers; drop infants too heavy to carry, leave bones not keeping up.
Memo declassified: from men upright in blue suits: to men with chest medal drawers: Our future is in your hands. Burn their library.
Island school youth sentenced five years for stealing spice mango sleeps back to the window – fearing his bed – watching the door.
God shrilling warriors hurl stones, ferry open coffins of comrades shot up check scarf streets; gather again fresh, stone fresh.
Sun waxed plants stored away by squirrels thirty two thousand years ago see, disbelieving, skies of spring again, cheer scientists.
Days of glory, nights of stars – what, from nothing fallen, buried for that first tribe stare touch word? what something? whose voices of release? – W.W.
PLAINER AND PLAINER
my confusion of voice and eye, nothing left to prove or improve: a plain peace
sculpting certain ghosts drifting in and out of time, the wind caught by an ancient curtain:
sketches of essences, graphs of a stare whose centre is any, whose aim is all.
Flights to Paramaribo arrive just past midnight, if you’re coming from New York, on the regional carrier, whose seats and operations these days feel overused and over- worked. There's a nine hour wait in Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad for a connecting flight. To kill time you might consider venturing out via airport taxi; join multilane traffic under a Trinidad sun; catch a beach, “eat a food” or, if it’s Christmas, drink a Ponche de Crème. Take note and measure how close the island has moved toward developed- nation principles and practice.
The flight schedule alone is enough to discourage the unadventurous from discovering Suriname, unless you’re willing to stop over in the Republic of Guyana and risk fractious travel over land, bridges & rivers. You might also need a sense of purpose. A young couple, college-break free, speaking Dutch, wearing sandals and visiting the former colony might find it easier to look forward to quiet settings where familiarity breeds acts of kindness and harmless transgression.
The taxi ride in from the airport past midnight follows a narrow road, headlight-swept and free of anxiety. Visitors from industrial geographies might be excused for thinking they’ve entered a country of “sleepy” communities, stuck in time past, comfortable in village habits; though as you come closer to commercial areas – slowing for “drempels” (speed bumps) – and gas stations and security-lit buildings, a group of young men on motor bikes appear, hanging out (it’s Friday night); shiny crash helmets sitting on small heads, casting them as astral occupiers of night’s dreaming hours.
Next day the radio wakes you with Sranang talk and sentimental song which play on almost every station. It closes you in like elevator doors. For the rest of your stay and depending on your circumstances, you might feel digitally cut off from the world, or at least temporarily disabled; though you may or may not mind.
Over morning coffee paragraphs from the newspapers might leap out at you showing you how things are done here, [2011 AlphaMax Academy, Paramaribo] as for example this, from De Ware Tijd, recently: "The President has often stated since this government took office that he supports a transparent land policy. This has resulted in the sacking of Martinus Sastroredjo as RGB Minister after it became known that his concubine had applied for a large tract of land."
On the streets, under a Suriname sun as bright and brassy as a Trinidad sun, people go about their business, as elsewhere, in cars and in bubbles, leashed to triumphs and failings, of diverse race and creed. There are sudden fierce rain showers which stop abruptly, then skies are clear blue again. If you stay long enough you might hear of crepuscular activity, a twilight gathering of local spirits or conspiracy webs. Individuals who otherwise seem educated and informed will swear that, regardless of how things appear, each resident soul is monitored by unseen forces, by living and dead people.
The outside world has reached over language barriers, and moved deeper inland. The new consuming China with agreements-to-sign and full steaming enterprise has bespectably installed its zonal interests. Street blocks, currently home to many Brazilians, could expand in time and be viewed one day with settled pride as Little Brazil. In the Paramaribo of downtown bumper-to-bumper “progress” you are where you dine, or where you shop.
On the plane, early last year, next to my window seat was a Trinidadian (Lawrance G.) a soft-spoken man with a boxer’s upper body. Looking past 50 yrs, his fingers trembled as he settled his paper cup of coffee, hinting at a creeping vulnerability. He’d started working with an oil company soon after leaving high school in Port of Spain. How that transition straight forward happened he didn’t explain. Nickerie, in an area reportedly rich in oil deposits, was where he (and a team) were now headed on new contract & assignment.
He had travelled around the world, slipping on work boots, hard hat and gloves each day as the company probed and drilled into the earth: to Gabon (the nicest people, despite miles of deprivation); to Venezuela (the President there cares about the poor, despite puffed global moments of ad hominem fist shaking.)
Had he given any thought to How much longer, doing this? His body had endured the rigors of travel and work hazards. What excited him these days, he revealed, was exploring the working parts of the human body.
He reached into his carry-on bag and whipped out his latest purchase, the iPad. Did I own one? No? I should get one. The iPad 2, they say, has sharper screen display. To impress me his fingers brought up for viewing glossy images of organs in the body. He touch-swiped through the heart, liver, organs of reproduction, inserting his own commentary and breaths of marvel.
A world of new information, which in all likelihood could extend his longevity, was now within his reach. And though near enough for pension plan review, he wasn’t thinking of retiring, not just yet. (Though where – in his hands? strong character? – lay the source of that span of energy upholding him over the years.)
So what was my business in Suriname, he wanted to know, now that he had shared information and we were no longer strangers? Why was I going there? To see an old friend, I told him. And to learn about an event he was planning.
The event was the launch of a book, “Msiba, My Love”, by poet, Ivan A. Khayiat, a Guyanese educator who lives in Suriname. (The publication launch seems as ubiquitous these days as the baby shower.)
Khayiat describes it as a “symphonic poem”. It has a coffee-table book readiness – assuming that books are still welcome these days on coffee tables – with high gloss pictures and supportive verse revealing the natural beauty of Suriname, and the ecological damage done to parts of its landscape. And it comes with a companion DVD of evocative images and soundtrack over which voices, in English and Dutch, present the poem in heartfelt cadences.
"Msiba" DVD offers ten minutes of shimmering surfaces. It may be much less than a "symphonic” work, but the launch apparently made for a wonderful, rare evening out for invitees in Paramaribo. The Government of Suriname, it is reported, has adopted the DVD & book as a state gift for visiting dignitaries, impressed no doubt by what it sees as an excellent mix of art photo information and spoken words about the country, framed by knowledgeable, friendly hands.
Finding brave new worlds imagined by Suriname writers and artists might require a long stay, some search and enquiry. There is evidence of activity – workshops, art discourse, exhibitions – facilitated by stakeholders in Holland. A more vibrant, grand platform for exposing creative talent to residents and visitors is certain to be avail- able when the next big cultural event, the regional festival for the Arts (Carifesta), takes place in Suriname in 2013.
In the meantime, Wan Fu Nyun Winti Seti Sranan Bun. So the sharp suits and bill- boards say. – W.W.
≈☼≈
OPHELIA MAROON
Every leaf will return to blaze sharp green all about me through days without night (and yet no star shall be erased.) My gaze is the same as the sun’s; neither smile nor frown. My gown of water is all red and white buds not yet burst like my heart.
Raised to bury or block thrill display, tamp down spread fires until the right darkness when there’s no excuse, he can get madrass bad all he want. Fresh water lily blooming years , the having to cross a river of lizards, uniformed for learning. Ankle socks skirting city masques, shops that would shutter quickly if snatch street dogs unchain making you run for fabric cover.
All of which jewels you the rani of cold wait, brown eyes on search clues for newspaper crosswords on Metro rides. From close in feel of others you extricate. Leg pant sleeve scarf export ovals of virtue, scorn all you want! There’s honour, too, in silence, men with beady eyes and fingers teach.
A secret worth keyholes? everybody codes one. Okay, your mother one day pulls you past this house, a woman crying her fate out under a tree, wife hammer, in hammock, swing pending. What if your serve time’s being arranged? lamb cheeks raised, the chosen vowed to rear? Indigo & beards, they say, share flower bed licks, bless compliant lips; the leaf rustle of undress.
Victoria you’re not, Sha’riya, gyal. Reed slim you wisp past swayed behinds tattoos on spine. Plus, why back side with bugging issues, gnats to ambition? Desire, futures horned in gold, swell locked. In Crescent village news gather for breaking: Girl doing fine. No time to link. Busy studying. Still, what if, chance willing ̶ angstamber! ̶ ankle bracelets raise? one leg has flashed through the fabric slit, you’re learning the tango noon prayers never intended. Sacred months pass. João (de Janeiro) might notice now you wider whirl, faith weights of expectation lifting; petal webbed, not quite the renouncer. Tracking off. Wired paths from profile page found ̶ Olá e Bem-Vinda! ̶ saved. Reset you’re all.
- W.W. �
160;
THE MASKED MAN TO THE MADAME
To the tango of blood that hurries, woman of green, waltz only. Across the cobra’s forehead that burns as it tries to climb your ladder of fire, drape your snow veil. Wait until night to drop your buds and thorns on to roofs of sleep and to the moon’s flag a feather kiss. (from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)
Our time on stage, how we balled and raved, the Mystic Revs, high turquoise waves, John & Zulaika, compañero Joe, Carroll whose dance moves swelled with forgiveness. Clinging to maroons of bass how we soared, unpierced navels and constant springs, single white Aussie knee grip on the drum – Go deh natty!
The smell of bus diesel to Cross Roads, trod down town for new Marley 45, smoky darkness of Roger Mais hills, the birth of dreadlock blues. The streets after Rodney, how we surged, downpressed, batty bwoy, blood & seed & I, news of the struggle in Mozam- bique, black brown haute class forming rites, women 1st Ministers cut priming – Sight?
Ikael whose Israelites wouldn't stand for reason, base line bound MMorris slicing poems like tennis balls, the rude bwoy who tossed his bike in the pool when they wouldn't let him; other dash aways kin torn, stealing mango for dinner, peeled orange from the rolling calf tree. Cross many rivers gun rain, and duppy curing canna leaf, conqueror for eye.
No no, gone-a-foreign mi no play, mi no smoke pipe painter wanti-want you how you were, grass grow long, drying now grey years. Seh sky blue mountain, return past due? No no no, the skies hail up dew new; see't come running? bolt like time flew? Life pounding, life still; iPower fall fi yu.
– W.W.
BIRD
My wings flutter before they fold as once more I settle for this flatness of earth I can always soar above but never ignore.
Otherwise a good tenant Hamid lets bulbs burn all day in every room through winter. Makes no sense, I told him: how do you sleep? how much do you send home? "Do you know in my village? there are 24 hour funeral pyres for body disposal." Excuse me! and the shoeless skinny old river gods fired ̶ they failed to ferry dead souls 'cross the Ganges ̶ strike back with sewage garlands and immersions, but what do I know?
"But who're we here? tails working off? like slave device?" Hadassah: to the Pizzeria help who swears under the Mali wrap she wears from Spring 'til Fall her buttocks shudder. She rents on the 17th floor cleansed view of sky and peaks and domes salt slates; she prizes her acrylic bathtub, she strips lowers tears away for hours through bird calls petals prayers. No hands dare reach touch sponge inside her thighs again, and how do I know? care takers hear: swollen résumés relieving fear slime wiped, stomachs rewiring.
See, back there ̶ no word, some missing arms and legs ̶ blood let left sigh assume you didn't transfuse. Only the coyotes' rapture whiffs where last your bones sought rest: so close the Arizona fence, so near the Lampedusa shore where lungs scoop bailing bailing out the chest; where worn from wait! a cobra head demands you spread I take, or else! life savings lost right there.
Free reset means light bills paid, with fist on heart and limbs pledged wide you can design abodes for borders! die or dare, take leopard steps to side walk vamps of rupture. Being the Super, these things I know; they're cyclothymed to happen. You hear knee angers sudding swirling drain to schools of effluence forming in the earth. And mine like metal earth rare your own business. -W.W.
MAROON ON NOVEMBER ROCK
With no books by which to read me now, I write one, on the blank air; with a finger trace the wordless mountains of memory as in and out of clouds they haze,
erasing and rewriting
their peaks; and with my breath reshape my book of days whose light daily still returns yet nightly longer and longer stays sunk beneath this indifferent swelling sea.
Old folk will tell you the sound of death approaching, as gunmen traffic up yours, is like potow pow-pow on our island; while elsewhere boosh you hear as death's pointy face, next up & piqued, leaves a hot then warm bed chamber.
According to my source gun down you don't that way; straight up I'm saying: when death moves in, usually unalloyed, no Aloha you hear, no Jehovah vending door smile; though just before the decresend –
souls standing (fates in waiting?) in white light; your life so far exploding stars blowing by in meteor swoosh or keynotes flashing –
the au revoiree falls, or staggers clutching, climbing. Now by chance if near the exit ramp you en passant are willing to lend assistance, be prepared to listen for time up syllables red spread refusing, like mama mia, mai; or moeder, muddafucker
still breathing? then make a cradle of one arm while with free fingers 112 speed dial ("Stay with me", till you find out mainframe's unplugged); and thank your Krishna the Lord for cellphones, there you go, there. you. go.
Meanwhile moments of silence give even bell strokes pause: crescent tumor flood bitches sons – what train we didn't hear coming?
-W.W.
BUSINESS AS USUAL
In night's grave beyond my floor one more motor throbs like Poe's heart, a gaping door's slammed shut and another ghost moves on to his latest rock of smoke.
I who know no rest must feel such stabs of proof that other hearts will refuse to stay put as edged mirrors of my own pursuit of nothing but breath
so that when some other knife of night splits my heart enough to make this dream of blood burst, I will have been well rehearsed in both leaving and never.
Got one virgin banana fo' you, gyal, the taxi driver through road grind heat tried, braking for a straggle of cows sun stroked reneging; a cigarette like fare scout behind his right ear. Thighs chafe.
He come home last night late; not one word; gone out again, her mardi gras cleavage cried; wetting the plants in her nightie, the shaggy dog on the patio panting paying she no mind. Sinus caverns next.
In Japan Ministers does bow & resign for cracking bad jokes, which reminds me – Lexi, schedule a press briefing; and where the whip? I go show these mokos who they playing with here. Jumbie rider.
House hush up, he does want to kneel over my face with it, belly like pumpkin blooming, finger grip for hand cuff. I does turn mih head. And vex so if curry shrimp and choka not ready. stuffing in. you wait.
I don't want to sound political in terms of statistics per se power pointing the authenticity of narco white whale identifiers – yes, pass by me nah - Wahab, the Lighthouse man – coast guardian of the nation.
For Lexi a towel wrap round like sarong after bath up dates her heritage East; plus flights to Japan for banker boyfriend noodle slurping dragon breath ocean tonnage high rise. In working order, her parachute; inside the zaboca, her home.
After noon high blue on our island – like from 3 to 6? – the long way home from schoolhouse, impulse and restraint; that bad mind in khaki, eyes following we – ay aay aaay! – stop phone and listen: hell's cross road sweet vendors. – W.W.
VERSE LYRIC
Sometimes, it's possible, all of it, to feel one has actually lived, has actually had a life, has – even as it's slipping away into the cracks of other lives, other worlds as they are slipping down the throat of one's own
Sometimes I don't even have to talk like that, don't have to think, can simply lean at the top of invisible stairs in a house of sleep and entertain my bloodstream and my breath and the routine stabs and groans off the wall of time
Sometimes I can kiss your mouth and that's enough or enough the wanting only, the waiting for desire to take its own sweet shape without our having to manipulate a moment into some puffy proof of our rock of love
Sometimes as now when there is nothing to say I can open my mouth or a book and sing or read my life of love, no less, in the most artificial lyrics of liars long dead and such magic outlives a million amens
When they returned like seamen from trawler toil – with Hons. tales of head winds cold, tastes acquired (for excellent wines, say) – a village heart just had to have one. Indra snagged hers the night he spilled his drink; she fussed with napkins, touched a purple stain, jamoon desire. (Estranging logic strings our castnets and dreams, shaghopper.)
Dry walls and ankle bells could mute nightie passion, sheets smiling. Indra learned to furrow the plough place lips up loading the plough man – Flag? what easy virtue honour shame? when a girl bone sensors high alert! moves out wants in for the pound?
After the first child she tired, wait nah, he picked on her house care 'not geisha', politique oblige leaving her out; for each shed tear a name. Rivuleting through hot irons heart blisters she'd gather down stream from his singlet & silence; bhaji boil, done.
II
Indra shaped out the day the alter hero sailed in – an ecofriendly Canadian on assignment, mast head stiffened by how the races seemed to get along; proof of which he took back. (Love conquers, the wharf dwarfs the ship; take a cruise, you'll see, bloghopper.)
In his suburb docked away seems now she's doing just fine; a second child's come along plus wardrobe for seasons leaf raking the attic and Omigod! headlights on deer. Ok, flag wavers, prance: bare navel gaming the other; the tribe betrayed; cow shedding all along.
Up wining wings expecting gyurl with braids? grip comfort while you wait. World traveled miles make nest ballooning news; for canefield stems chic fodder, Vedic kokers embittering fuse. Incoming over soon, packed camel heart. – W.W.
WE MEET,
embrace and then I can but lean in silence towards you like a bough full of fruits listening for the voice of the earth- locked roots that feed it: you and I are of the same tree of disinterested passion, ardour well-behaved 'as a guide or mode of hope' that will not call its name for fear of so slackening the rope of balance taut between not enough and too much, the path of light above the circus-sand sprouting dry grooved totems to the gods of routine that promise plastic fruits and cowards' nets of if for when (as we fear, so we must) we fall.
Back when radio ruled the waves the BBC, main tunnel from the world, brought to our shores "Greensleeves" and Victor Sylvester. Lacking creole traditions like Trinis with Christmas parang, I longed to hear pop maestros of string instruments.
They sent down Cliff Richard, the Shadows, "Telstar", well you know. Those cool girls from Jobim's Ipanema. And dazzling 60s riffs by the Eagles and Jimi Hendrix. Those were the days Ravi Shankar turned sitar friendly.
Back then (I think) I heard Victor Uwaifo ("Guitar Boy") four times, his scratchy Nigeria picks too many oceans far for channel shipping.
The good news: finding the tunnel's end: on the //www.dials You can watch "Guitar Boy"! Uwaifo's guitar licks couscous steamed in 70s high life.
And hear this: what must be the gold coast of string harmonies rocks by the rivers of Mali, from the diamond fingers of (the late) Ali Farka Toure; Toumani Diabete.
Where were you all those years, guitar fathers? What trade winds blocked this young heart access to those kora waves, ces vieux jams? Radio Ghana. Desert moons. Faraway missed years.
Tunneling protocols, I know. Old pirates ♫ – W.W.
REAL SLOW JAZZ
Voices taking time to make time feel
both tauter and stretchier than we would
know from the limping clock, the pace of the heart sure
beyond the need to run across bridges of love, statements
of the tension between spark and flame, spirit and flesh,
the tears of gods only men, of men brimming with light.
At the bank or any public building where your business is none of mine, a stranger comes through the doorway says "Good Morning"; and everyone answers, sprung from cell or pride, every one answers. Gross inequities that moment make way, charismatic bones click and play. This is our island, your search connection.
And configure this: bodies wrapped up in road crash metal, shoes poking out, a death in town by gun: and passers slow, level breath short at blood spots news sheets flower shrines. Dry mouths murmur – holler heart to bowel – aie aie aie, shadows and goodness, reverse reboot this earth flat speechlessness.
Island identity, oui, garcon! Test it when you travel on city subways – there, see? can't quite hold that in turn locking out the iText cargo cramped beside our selves. Your eyes feel up for looking round "the fuck you looking at?" bon jour you waiting for.
Mannered residuals from plantation back lash? nah; and not no virgin marie hip sway bonding for miracle income either. Ok, despite the bankruptcy of Ministries someone will call respond decelerate to suck the poison of indifference out before it spreads. Ask any band head granny.
Nou groMambo Paradisio? whoa! that's where we are: love rising up at brake light notice: storm used islands, once ankle and tongue tied, deserving of love; site for new found land eternal eyes; gone water colour twilight sighs. -W.W.
PARADISE
These islands we people as ghosts, no matter how rooted our crops, cities and walls against the sea that lets us these altars of our masochistic leaf-passion for the wind coming to rape our trees or over the sea's edge flinging our fishing boats like shadows, like black leaves. (from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 