Brian Chan – Page 3 – FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

FLY PAST SUMMER RHAPSODY

“Yes, everything coincides.”
– Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch (1966)

            We crossed the street and entered this park;
            people were so sure grass turned the music on
            set : sunning half nudes said . the bee hive dreads.

            Who on a chip kept count as aliens danced
            bending for every conceivable triangle? knew what
            it cost from crawl to fly, boredom to 'rave > just pinch
            open Amazon mammoth jaws.

            Word sent forward about found metrics for civilization
            spook particles, vibes before broadband . not our
            Bob adjusting Nobel road tight strings.

                                  Play, It’s not what you think. Smoke
            like felony this riff, exhale great expectations
            like earth a new planet | the gene pool red
            blue cool . remains from tolls we paid.

            Bad nights gave confession in noon stalls, oh yeah,
            first light geese wedged golden lays . dreams
           spoken for.

– W.W.

COMING TO PASS

             A straw of smoke
              in a vast bright sky
                is this moment ̶ not
             so much passing
                  as pretending to pause
                  like a quivering hare
             on a crisp lawn,
                       each dreaming the other, both
                       busy at hearing the hints
                       of their swarming harmonies
                       of atoms always fading,
                       even as they're regrouping,
             ever prompted
                   by a disturbing breeze
                   drawing and erasing
             desire, pressing
                it not to settle
                for the latest chord
             of its leaning.

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

07.17 : ‘SEABIRDS BLOWN OFF COURSE AND STARVING’

               ‘The birds are usually lone adults or juveniles
                 that strayed.

                They spend the majority of their lives at sea,
                rarely venturing in sight of land ̶ sort of
                an enigma for us to understand.

Fueled up at feeding grounds in the Caribbean,
and living off fat reserves, they glide up the Gulf Stream.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

                 Eventually I stopped looking and starting rescuing
                 birds, a birder said.’
                                                         – W.W.

MY LAST ONE

               The wind offers to relieve me
               of my habits and other drugs if
               my mind I let her feather.

               Other, commonsensical folk
               see it this way: ‘There’s a storm coming’,’
               and close their windows and doors.

               I leave cracks in mine, to let in
               the wind that blows my papers about,
               making me dash to save these

               always being born: these I think
               I’ll keep – as though my whole bay would crash
               if I let go but one leaf

               that anyhow belongs to her
               who signed it but for a few to read.
               My last drug’s the wind herself.

(from “The Gift Of Screws” by Brian Chan)

BREATH . CAST LAST DEBRIEF

for Carl Hazlewood

              Link all broke, Diallo hoped, toss at sea shilled
              folk : not like falling traffickers off ship mast . tempest
              pennant days and whales| nor rain then flood mud
              slide tarpaulin wrap.

              Wet shock . the cold Med swallow : one mother's grip
              child pried apart, chin last up . bubbles at the mouth
              spare floaters tent scrapped under bridges| clear
              those café tables . rag tag les banlieues.

              Who here knows best their cobbled streets like river
              beds for make shift sleep . plait their loaf stretch dark
              trace race through the tunnel.

              [Mi kno' wha' you a talk bout . tire wiry Irie, passing
              through . checking the evening Ethiopia update : Express
              eastbound delay.]

              So we are at an end here . hail sails need wind . grief
              harbour. Our questions come this far of the world camp
              break truck queues . search satellites for air.

                                               Swim lively, metro tadpoles;
              paint the great wall. Mind the mate gap| of you to come
              not good| your nothing to begin with. On the rim rock
              steady as you go.
                                                                    – W.W.

MISS DICKINSON ADJUSTS MR KAFTA'S CLAIM

                  There's a hierarchy of the sky ̶
                  an accountancy of angels ̶
               a Civil Service of the soul's clouds ̶

                  to which any wretch may apply
                  for assistance with his changes
               on his climb out of one mold of clod.

                  It depends on from which level
                  of the spirit he will persist
               in the filing of his petition

                  for one hearing ̶ by a bureau
                  of saints trained in systematic
               attrition ̶ of his argument ̶ one

                  of a hundred billion, but his ̶
                  against his lot of the long wait
                in line for his one moment in this

                  life ̶ one private consultation
                  with the Ombudsman of the fate
               of complaints and appeals to the Light.

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

NOTES MORE THAN MEET THE EYE

                                                                         "Rivers have no source.
                                                    They just automatically appear at a place
                                                   where they get wider, and soon a real
                                                   river comes along…"
                                                                       – "Myrtle", John Ashbery

             Looking over your shoulder clips the scent of panther
            paw tracks. Looking at images not a sound in your lap
            trips similar shivers ~ run pause Who's there? surveillance
           on|off screen.
                               What harm they intend gets you who cared
            not one dot for followers ~ boom! boom! right between
            so pointless.

Shoulders left for pads cold cry now shrug chip size,
you might have noticed . to be continued.

            Don't ask where faith seems skirted next; the long and
            short depends when cut foreshock comes due.
                      Generations cheat roots, grow buffering; take
            note we're running out of hem wind high with veldt
            spoor . heaven forbid plug play! cleansing pods.
                                                            And if you think night
            time googles will levy fines for grab apple saucery,
            steeups and pray, bike tube pumprider.

                                    Hey, not to worry ̶ tarpaulin
            roofers in the desert safe place bets on a new world
            rotisserie : right left the scraps plate wipe for grunt
            walk mount startovers . fired up clicks 'n' stones, eyes
            in tooth red carnations.

            How soon we'll know? three two One ~
                                                                   Princes Migrants
           Lovers ~ the moon is high . incense and betel leaves
            offer : so, Places, please, and No! no shine boot loose
            step goosing . scarf herding of washed feet.

– W.W.

METEOR MISSING AN EMBER

               While the fountain is still flowing, current
                     staggerings matter more than past
                        passions' pain ̶ which this day,
                        allowed to brim, redeems.

             Yesterday's harp needs tuning but you can
                    adjust it only through today's
                       disharmonic temper,
                       today's tension of touch.

              If 'the past is a bucket of ashes',
                 sift them fast to release the gift
                   of gold in the present
                   sacred ore of the Sun.

              Whole worlds are burning down from gold ignored:
                     The Great Forgetting: justice not
                         only blind but sublime,
                         pure matching of magnets.

              The cosmicomedy's carbon: aeons
                     in a flash transformed into soot,
                        ash of archives feeding
                        the Eagle's beak ever

tasting, so to better know, and recall :

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

FRONT DAMS OVERLIPPING

            This is our path, Our Path, the Grand Snail announced
            preparing to settle somehow a stand off with a parade
            drill of worker ants.
                                          Family members, meanwhile, get
            dressed : they can't afford to miss the bus . zebra blood
            cross pots 'n' pan strikers. They're too distraught for
           discourse : the Parsimony of Executions by Sword.

            No, not on our island, though notions are known
            to blow like litter hate to state. Your starapple tree over
            hangs my front yard . Who's responsible? if crapauds
            fall.

                Tired of growing older men feel mission positioned
              to pass laws on girl marriage, full steams
            our Pandit with an acceleration that trips everybody.
            Wisdom feet don't get hard enough to plant and leap.
                                Here, just one Brahmin
            votary is required to veto 'n' waist dress down, send
            in security memes to lobby the bubbies . swollen
            the womb up holds an orb glow for palmsters.

                                        All the screen
            pat vetting 'n' pinning at border hems, how fare
            slips breed Cain and bad taste ̶ What's the tip felt
            capping point?
                                        Better perch
            cerulean grip, our kiskadees chorus, feather shedding
           this caveat : the core unmelted helps us choose
                                        Play poker

            slow . or tango last with A'toinette found on the fly
            rod ~ only one chance you get ~ for, Oooh, that
            green light ~ peel dive feeling
                                                               – W.W.

ALTHOUGH AND BECAUSE

            neither happiness nor ease nor contentment
                   pushed or pulled me in my search or hunt, but
                   love was the only reason I went

out of the overlooked goldmines of the soul

and into the world's overgrown deserts

with my heart masked as a beggar's bowl,

bliss and peace and gratitude have bloomed in me

̶ shy orchids that sometimes become my tongue

or angels that kiss my forehead free

of its grooves of disappointment ̶ and of pain

in spite and because of which no mother

worth her salt of milk and gold complains

about the difficulty of giving birth

and bread to babies with nothing to look

forward to but the diamond of Earth

with its perfect flaws.

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

EH EH, SPOILER RETURN

               Blip . Plop! the fishermen register; though fitting
               sea catch phrase confirm page loss.
                                               Still, six bells ring the Pitons
               silhouette . flambeau path light the heart.

               A treasure chest you must have buried . either that
               or icon space tight arch you heaven 'n' plight back
               here ~ word up no fear : skulls brown glisten . lips
               on risens latch.

               Drive sticks now scan life resumations : Mon Dieu!
               they'll freeze, brush plays again! where will your prayers
               take us, home mapster from Chaussee?

                                                                Newest news?
               Helenic guide girls skirt 'n' blouse pride luster in
               the square. Union labour take over Hotels see? walk
               in mattie class up and cotch.

               And those Estate acres? grass set in different
               minders? fear coffin metres, but hear nah : kweyol
               observice spike again . syllables wild so hard to roll

               call names, but sweat no squad drills, Cap.

               The schooner fit to ply fame freight . up down mountain
                   road; and old deck hands still chair our reading
               rooms. So welcome back, surfeater of the sea.

              Catch you at the gulf course? yuh pardner studying wave
                   break speed? What metaphors! heron
                      blueflagfanning breeze.

– W.W.

PRAYER # 10987654321

                 I asked for rain and rain has come
                  ̶̶ not for me, but because it must,
           as one poem of man's moment, a tendril
                of our Mother's green womb.

                 My asking then was less the seed
                 than one bare branch of a vine full
           of clouds past and to come whose memories merge
                 and burst a node of now.

                 Or call my prayer a bridge between
                a present that had to be parched
           and a present that has to be the green praise
                of your rain by one man.

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

FOR JUDGE DREAD .| |. BOY BLUES

               Raised near gully jostling with misfortune great
               and small sucked all run home from him . left family
               stake half named.

                                           Yard bass string leash and line
               the man, him couldn't upgrade or band : hard bolt
               dough track > out board 'n' tack.

Sound bad self central, mi know : through all the wild

life confirmation was what him truly hurt for.

Some time him round come mount our mother

burst her stitchings : still, off our zinc no rain

hard drain . him back meant bite relief for lip

dry grass.

Age slips soon send red now

alerts him couldn't over stand : surge entry hose

trickling, check valve pointing under ground.

               A kind denial set in so him weave with the weed <
               For-Iver-Ras > when that wear off fresh churning
               start make heavy to bear him heart .|. beat! pardon
               your honour.

                                            We beg him, Please, na
               gwan so . cutlass blade hand grip him rave : Look!
               so him own shack bred ungrateful.

                 Our father, on the avenue stare clear, yeh man!
              not our warm blood signature him draw there though
                 all the same.

– W.W.

DEPOSITION TO THE PAROLE BOARD

           Ladies, it's no use telling this
          prisoner that the 'world out there'
           is all that's possible or worth
           talking about within your walls
           of wisdom mortared by silence.
           It's like asking him to talk stone
           and iron and forget windows
           and the shadows of clouds and wings
           that his dreaming eyelids absorb
           as much as they do sun and moon.
           Don't come to visit him only
           to tell him all is determined
           in and by the desperate air
           you choose to believe you have no
           choice about, like peeing or birth.
           This man chooses carefully his
           crevice and moment to piss through,
           makes sure he shocks the warder's eye.
           He knows he chose his mother's womb
           and knows his dreams already are.
          He has surrendered time and so
           needs no desert island to feel
           free to move from this edge to that.
           His cell's the smoke of his own breath.
          His only real walls are your words.

(from "Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)

STOP SIGNS : BRIGHT ONE MORNING

                                                         "To the rescue, to the rescue,
                                                                         To the rescue, out out out Out…"
                                                                 – Bob Marley, "Sun Is Shining"

               For paper feeding eyes things shell break fast;
               the child today his birthday in grandfather's arms
               might squirm . want his tattoos.
                             Our islands let age docking hours pass
               port cushions back . in and out of morning breath
               and what to do? with all those books . knees done
               red hill bending.

               Irregularity of late able. A woman passing. Yard
                man, slower on errand runs, assumes one day his
                card will come . your list 'n' smile the give away :
                   song chest sunk, breath savings.

                                                                    No matter : the halt,
               if stone or beak blood staining, props as up sponge
               news; and editors of broke lock file make sure
               a link resets brief candle outings.

               Just an inch, mind you, aisle anodyne : how watch
               rooms block flame pinching, what rain waits near . step
               help thread so bare your estate might prefer from now
               all loyalties wait at the gate.

               As duppies say : rage rage against! land fills mind
                 folds night weed : term of will not known until . winds
                  release . traces feast . all across the world high
                    up your east.
                                                               – W.W.

[In mem. Peter Abrahams ~ Kingston, Jamaica ~ January 2017]

DESPITE

              Those afraid of dying to light claim you
                  are as old only as you believe,
                  as though youth were eternal entrée
                  and age and death uncalled-for desserts.

                    But ask the ancient throat of the calf
              if its years or sheer impulse to breathe can
               change its fate of the butcher's blade wiped
                 bloodless, honed blameless between slashes.

                   Spirit takes form, and forms are over-
                 taken and swallowed up by others
             of demanding breath that quickly forgets
               to nourish the spark that gives it flame.

                 Still, this voice persisting with its forms
                  ̶ though it can see they will be chewed or
                 eschewed to dust by old goats and kids
             neither fed-up nor starved-to-death enough.

GOOD NIGHT, TWEETIE

              With lullabies cicadas join his wife . hive warm
              good night for their first child, until the nation's yard
              stick deep cleans all : Morning! you can come
              out now.

              The light screens day, pain shift keys face save . block
              foul pen raiders; codes
              patrol the silence dotting data
              fields. land lines run past opinion.

[Heart last break in : Seeking Cash,
Zimbabwe Sells 35 Elephants To China]

              He tucks a blade . close shave . under his pillow for
              throat check lifts his profile; his rock bed furrowed
              up for it . cleft moon risen.

              No, not tonight, our love, on prayer mat ~ knee
              brace rush gold less sure ~ with finger clasp breath
              teaming, we double back beat . site our need win
              wing this thing.
                                                    – W.W.

SIGNAL FROM A YOUNG PLANET

Skimming the valleys of past pain
to reach for tomorrow's white peaks,

lie awake, truth to tell, and plot
your next move of fifty light-years.

Meanwhile no-one has time to spare
for the leaping eye of your voice

whose muse, the one who does not have
to know what it means to help you

shape it, lies beside you, holding
the creaking hand of your mind's clock.

For all its gift of charging hope
by beaming into the present,

Love remains the lonely outlaw
of shaming generosity,

never more than a step ahead
of the pillory and the cross.

PRINT HEAD POINTERS

         Penny fed our meters park . you need a place
         resluicing hoe slash sugaries? mate click . emdash
         for our explanting hub . load gnarly down . have
         with us what little.

         Our service case shows pride tagged out of line
         path sweet tooth filings : we bare embed tea terrace
         cheer . type set free unleashing > our jack jill
         hill help agency.

         Plight interests : see this wound . stitch threaded
         red? that dream cage client flightiness? we'll take
         prefect ~ send us your mired ~ brush fair glow high
         house not English windowed.

         For you we'll fight off john crow inc ~ "Cric?
         Crac!" upon our rock : what will your words in
            bound spell next.

Toil repotting over here our garden handles : our
way of seeming . like you . cane fusion cool.

              Your islands < > our union . lamp lighted we
                play and hip ~ every now every then very much
                 ~ pim pim Pimpim hooray.

– W.W.

BLACK COFFEE IN A WHITE CAFE

         In this bright day full
            of emptiness, all words fall
         like screaming birds shot
         by hungerless men.

         Through that rain of corpses,
             I see you at the open door about
         to cross the rug bridging
         your dream and mine. Two dreams

         are always crossing and some-
             times their authors know how not to let
         the chance of a third, even
         as it appears, fade. But white

         fences are no less effective
             for being almost erased by the sun,
         for the more children play behind
         them, the tighter their
                                           gates stay shut.

(from "The Gift Of Screws" by Brian Chan)