Tag: Brian Chan

CHURCH MOTHER ASIDE

  

                        
                    Up from cradle, woman wife they striding; slower
                    to firm, prime gone horn down they blowing.

                                                     Exchange their stock in trade,
                    house maid their quick relief  ̶  plump up that résumé 
                    like pillow!  ̶  some kind of first snip Chief in command
                    assuming.

                    I sing and dust and walk around the room talking
                    to the door knob. Where else could they put it, this in
                    significance? over done fall off lips left still rippling.

                    Matrons of needles thread bare pointing  ̶  Look the devil
                    there!  ̶  knit veins enchant clap start hell furnacing.
                                                                                                Prayer
                    lets us heal what needs flesh needs to be prepared for.

                    Like termite bite so hard to tell where blade tip ends
                    faith leak begins. And, hear this, elsewhere the behead
                    making a come back.

                    Lord of lords! but look how long, child after child, I
                    waiting for deliverance.                                              
                                                                              Move closer
                    to me, spread on this altar. Take my days, on my side
                    fill my nights dwell deep not flame out slide away.

                                                                                                      -W.W.

                      

 

                                                                                     

                   

                          
                    PRESENT TENSE SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD
                    HORSE SENSE

                    Into the bush on a bronco
                    and out of the bush on one half-
                    tamed but willing to listen less
                    to the stings of your kicks and whips
                    than to the rhythm of your blood
                    saddled about their memory, now
                         revised, grooved into his hide.

                    Not to be ruled, no transitive
                    verb, no name doing this to that,
                    but, in a cage, something like smoke
                    between its window-bars sliding
                    towards the fenceless zone of breath's
                    resistance-surrender-transcendence,
                    triumph of deténte to no one's.

                     (from "A December Snail"  ©  by Brian Chan)

 

 

 

FESTIVAL FOR ISLAND CROWS

                            

                     It had faces baked in macadamia nuts, accents fine
                     tuned to play pen civilize; stand up drone home run
                     come rally from the cold, hugging up in short sleeves
                          hot sun prose.

                     It had prizes too embarrassing to keep; panel heads
                     nuancing desire through fern gullies of surge. The old
                     lion of the sea laid back among his palettes and trophies,
                         cub text mates like anemones on his reef.

                     It had genre divas accessorizing, spritzing Noir skin
                     fragrance on island crime. "What do readers want?
                     shots fired chopped heads pay back madrassi hoods?
                       a night watch man skill set from Scotland Yard?"                            

                     So much gone wrong, harmonium or steel; blank white
                     page fenced for fabulous Marley grazing, while in Mas
                     tents hand maidens kneel setting jaws dressing nation
                         wounds in water colours; not for dry eye. 

                     It have waist band just wake up from carnival iron.
                     Those wind tight couplet cheeks! what riddims
                     rhymes they passing? whose temper swings incense
                         Ash Wednesday bells? 

                     It have bawling and seeding, scorning and healing;
                     fame pale facing the beach time sharing; memories
                     like sugar cake wrap tight for road side tray; dance
                         hall turn styling hunger bass man thunder. 

                     Not paid to come, topped up to leave, give trombone
                     regards to Miguel Street, the Israelite Twelve. Sweeter
                         than ever this year, compère; light house
                         switch down, catch the wave next year.
                                                                                        – W.W.

 

                           

                             

 

                                                                  

                                 
                      DESERT

 

                      Something to say, you think? But an urge
                      of sand at the mercy of the wind 

                      that pelts every attempt at meaning
                      into storms of vanity and scoops 

                      of the impossible realised.
                      And few know how to listen; how's that 

                      for bathos? But frustration, failure
                      and sheer cussedness are your hardest

                      masochistic addictions and so
                      here you go again: Beyond the reach 

                      of paper ladders sagging with worms of words
                      slipping down one another's backs,

                      and over oases of moonlight
                      attesting to the somewhere sea as source

                      of sand and wind, its temple-masks, hang
                      the ripest stars, unmoved, staring down

                      at these lovely dumb dunes, these deaf men
                      stifled by their latest wriggling word.

 

                    (from "Scratches On The Air", by Brian Chan)

 

 

SUMMER FEEDING THE FISH DAYS

                                                       

                                                                             for Yonette D, back in the days

                             

                    This office worker on the 17th floor in this movie
                    would perch on the window sill, during lunch break,
                    working to impress this girl he wants to sleep with;
                    tossing dollar bills like brand tissue from a stock
                    he grows for parley. 

                                    Guessing the gold bait would land at the feet of
                    juggle jobbers down town up streaming; though some air
                    lift like hems get snagged in tree limbs; or settle behind
                    a dumpster; get stuck like pigeon marks on wind shields come
                    unstuck brake miles away at traffic lights or toll booths;
                    last to palm.                              

                                                                   Feeding the fish, he tells the girl
                    whose nipples peak lips cheery nibbling the view: he's
                    up load funny, can afford to take her out to dinner;
                    make her laugh hard on court play.

                    Aha! you tee off  ̶  knowing Fore! how cloud borne
                    poems find you: at an attic window stuck in mood swing,
                    girl friend in limbo under rumpled quilt; a snow event
                    out butterfly flake initials, uncatchable  ̶  as when crowd               

                      funding fingers click
                      the muse in cat scat heat swipes world wide altitudes;
                      your sky code blue.
                                                           – W.W.

 

 

 

                          

 

 

 

 

                                  THE MUSE

                                  
                                                              cannot admire every
                         jewel she inspires in men
                         who are after all nothing but
                         (even when gods she makes them feel)
                         and so sometimes produce nothing
                         but polished tediums or bright lies
                         which they, like brats, demanding atten-
                         tion, drop in her lap, expecting
                         for their efforts no less a reward
                         than her love and continued blessings
                         for each and every one of their
                         beautiful complaints about her
                         unjustified neglect of them.

 

                    (from "Scratches On The Air"  by Brian Chan)

 

 

TREASURE ISLE TAXI OCCURRENCE

   

                            
                    Picked them up at the airport (unbundling) in the hotel
                    lobby post cocktail (imbibing) weed rolled tight on
                    the beach (untangling). We stopped often, and looked
                    though not for long.                        

                    Children school high royal smiles; ginger flat bread
                    painted not For Sale; brooms in motion stand pipe yards
                    grown over; sun things to behold. On skin bone shoulders 
                    HENRY 14  ̶  hallowed be his game. 

                   "Sweetsop, coconut, breadfruit, mango  ̶  not one ice
                    cream vendor." Preachers parrots bowling State House
                    harbour view; heavy at times pain glancing blows, and
                    Notice: our chop to crush cane currency won't tax tears
                    held in check. 

                    In the back seat like a tip he'd left "The Middle Passage"; tan
                    sand run mate clutching "Les Liaisons Dangereuses": handles
                    to rock Teacher Francis, old school beam, verandah Chair.

                    Get away gorge and valley filled from snorkel in out ocean
                    air; scarlets saved for laptop in pajamas surfing (+ "God
                    Bless" taxi & me); strangers friending fast to silhouette swear
                    the transport's booked when cruising flag ship routes still
                    they return.                 

                    Kite winds maypole round our immortelles: "Mercy! Is so
                    you pass by my house and couldn't stop?" Miss L'Angevine
                    at the front gate. Is work I was working. How you feeling?
                    Fungus still browning the banana leaf?  

                                                                                          – W.W.

 

 

                            

  

 

 

 

                      ISLAND COCKTAILS CALYPSO

 

                      Man, I not joking: the woman from Oilsand Island?,
                      smiling from ear to ear as though she knew some secret
                      nobody else could ever start to see through, waited
                      for this stranger to reveal his subhuman status.
                      Something I said made her say:  Oh you're a One-of-them!
                      (This was more important to her than what I had said.)
                      Your ax-cent! she gushed, and I sighed: not that I would mind
                      talking about accents if I believed it would lead
                      to more than two 78 r.p.m records
                      spinning side by side with dull needles stuck in their grooves.
                      Regardless, I said: Over there, I changed mine a bit,
                      just to stop people saying Pardon me? all the time.
                      Not me! the woman swore. When I live in Toron-to?
                      I use different words. But change my accent? Never! Not
                      me! She of the intractable first and final tribe
                      demanding constant affirmations of membership
                      (and I think of white-hooded cowards burning crosses),
                      so secure was she, her smile of triumphant sphinxhood
                      would not fade till she climbed in her car to drive back home.
                      In the meantime, she and a flock of other women,
                      in further proof that they would never betray their tribes
                      (there are as many on each island as grains of sand),
                      keeping the drinks and the jokes and the kisses flowing
                      (one woman, showing me how not to be cool, nearly
                      strangled me by pulling my face into her warm bust),
                      shifted their heels to the beat of Gaston's steel-band tracks,
                      like a corral of broncos restless before a storm,
                      till the whole room became a pulsing aspic of air
                      f
rom which words stuck out like flags unfurled but frozen stiff,
                      as in a wintry wind staggering silence's breath.

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

 

 

GAME ISLAND MAN

   

                                
                      Not me and England chip cod cold; coat keys metro
                      habits he could never master  ̶  always counting board
                      room costs; how rain does make damp cling to skin
                      and stumbles poise to scuff your good good shoes. Is
                      joke he jooks like that.

                      Bow leg moonlight callous noon  ̶  trade marks not all healed
                      over  ̶  he works at his nets, the caulk fix; his boat with Greek
                      warrior name. He'd sever range unseen for weeks, come 
                      home with mambo siren tales; arms tattooed bone cross
                      beard black  ̶  last pirated edition.

                      Catch him down town target for dust faith harriers lime,
                      angling the junction for signal as left right mamselles stroll
                      roll ripples making style. He's squirrelly for horn that way.
                      If you hear the salty swell up words he does use. 

                      It's his porch to world wide blueness, his Scandinavia
                      in palm tree sway, point our pursers at debt redressings,
                      making of the island top deck voyage material; a portfolio
                      his years at rudder.
                                                                       He knows where fire flies send
                      shore lines receive; rip chords try hooks, shark waters feed;
                      his solitudes split only with night rum hounds.

                                                                  Allez, viens!  sea skater, beach
                      your blades; view find not green, grapes sour from fiction
                      bowled; white caps embossed in twilight. Brush past
                      that schooner flight hand's peacock plumage for face
                      fans  ̶  our home Gauguin renovator.  

                      Yes, pathos drips from sweat in his scampers; his ground
                      swell leaves rude exit clues. Like draughts he plays tribe
                      tempers. Empire fame's the same  ̶  What happening
                      there, Bogart?
                                                                       – W.W.

 

 

 

                                  

  

                                     

 

                           

                              

                           LA PAROLE, LE MOT, LE VERBE

                      
                           Rock, grass, tree, beast, man, bird, angel  ̶  we are all
                           slaves to the waves of our veins  ̶̶  whether silent
                           or whispering or loud. Or we are uttered
                           by the embers of some meteor of thought
                           drawn to the mirroring magnets of our souls
                           already aglow with their own sparks  ̶  restless
                           anvil-souls that cannot dodge the word-hammers
                           that never stop slamming down but whose blows are
                           tempered by our own willingness to think
                           beyond the immediate source of each strike,
                           beyond even the source of all meteors.

                           Devotion to such fire is as crucible
                           a love-affair as all other thoughts made flesh:
                           the Word transfused into these veins and this voice.
                           You may think these mere words outside of Real Life
                           which in fear you want to limit to gossip
                           of its rigmarole-phenomena, the knots
                           of flesh and breath that can't untie themselves  ̶  would
                           not, as convinced of their own vice as drunkards.
                           But our sparks rise to link with the sperm of stars
                           in tangos of eternity's embryo 
                           gestating refined fates, even as we speak.
 
                     (from "Nor Like An Addict Would"  © by Brian Chan)

   

 

SOUND SIGHTINGS AMONG US ALIENS

                                                                            

                                                                                      
                                                                     "Humanity is an ideal," said Oliviera,
                                                                      feeling around for the coffee grinder.
                                                                      "Air has its story too."   
                                                                               – Julio Cortázar, "Hopscotch"    

              
            
                     Souls whose lives left love wept for return, yes,
                     hard to conceive; confirmed as if through streaming     
                     "paranormal" chutes, from ports for ever after
                     right back at you; and now all can be told. 

                  Parent spouse mon frère suicides  ̶  they'll cyberghast post
                  parting knots, the blinds drawn coffee percolating Ciao! 
                  you were there, how did it rain?
                                                                    Second comings cliff
                  you rope you down, the sheer air born.

                  They're good for check mate if "proof" you must have, cancel
                  your subscripts to vows tight balled hung beards. Shorn for
                  some time warp retool  ̶  sign in behold: the microchip
                  devours main frames the megablue; ghost, that progress.
 
                  Things back in place what's to "explain"? Your veins flushed
                  lined with certainties fluent; focus cool as particles free
                  market shattering blasts or body parts going bad head
                  light the sigh of mile stones; and warranties for night
                  then day cloud compass needles find point way.                 

                  With you they'll stay  ̶  on one condition: bar code
                  the news breath stops air torn resets earth bound; reveal
                  you've breached "the other side" will cast you: arms out
                  wide mass grave tender. 
                                              You blink two clicks turn whoosh! they
                  gone; now and ever ending.    

                  And then, cold thighs, you're cut  ̶  server headless tracking
                  crescent green feared dead son holy ghost while others
                  bath robed smoking on the balcony wait for extra terrestrials,
                  or moon flowered charge your credit card for poetry
                  stage lit like this  ̶  file path secure; in. sight. stand. up
                  lift you.
                                                    Eyes in low orbit, once you stop and think;
                  chest beat quieter than target stars, whoever cared to notice.              
                                                                                                               – W.W.
                                                                                                     

           

                    

                        

                              

 

                             

 
                   WE MIRROR STARS
                           

                   The nightsky's silence of eyes whispers a sense
                       of human stars reflecting
                   on other worlds quivering balanced in Light
                       to whom, and to Love's justice,
                          of little matter
                   are our fears greeds rapes rages wars famines and
                     other sparks of our despair
                   at not fulfilling the seeds of our star-fate.
                      Only peaks of awareness
                                ̶  of our breath as flares
                  of light reaching out of the not-yet-star-Earth  ̶
                     can stars read as their own mind
                 mirroring back to us all we already
                    are beneath our cauled eyes and
                       our faithless deaf nerve.

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

 

 

  

WHERE THE GRASS TRIUMPHS, OR DISTURBS PUBLIC CHASTITY

 

                         
                 Because it grows quietly like plantation resentment they let it run
                 unnoticed; it serves to screen waist down moves and unguinous news 
                 paper wraps you might step on. So, heads up, remember to hold
                 your breath; and watch out for stoopers who won't all clear
                 the wind, who don't wave a posy.

                 Budgets are up set assuming islanders would bank on genes high
                 in self give in; not toss stuff out the window like conjugal
                 bedding live with tie knot infestation, Aie aie aie. 

                 Cows with first names graze anywhere turning off the belt way
                 at hand raised signal; which allows chauffeurs of the guardian
                 chrome and tinted view to continue. So despite hard earned
                 arteries the system works, see? 

                 Besides, grass traders, our happy few, deploy at Welcome sites
                 where custom inspectors  ̶  and carrion book makers sorting fringe
                 brown tails as white beaks crow  ̶  pose with no fear of getting
                 their angles iguana nicked; Jab Jab rear shake of the lamb
                 important at entry levels, Aie aie aie.

                                             Our sugars at high yield, faith hips saris unwind,
                 the sheet spread under hand  ̶  This is what matters! so men in haste
                 to stuff positioned wives gripe; grunting down to stubs.

                 Meanwhile, pledge hunters with no office for fun whet
                 knives on any plot marking grave stone; like illicit love
                 wanting, though not all that way, a bone to pick, a suckling
                 to pork  ̶  usually some one off bass line, or a sniffing
                 tagless Please, not here! mongrel.

                                                                        - W.W.

 

 

 

                        

 
          

 

   

                     
                   CLEAN GREEN BALLAD

                  
                 Miss Camille, trying to stop a frog
                    from patrolling her patio 
                    by spraying him with Mr. Clean,
                 found herself spraying also a snake
                     trying to beat her to the frog,
                     and ended up killing the snake
                 by chopping him in two with a cut-  
                    lass  ̶  which she now calls a machette,  
                    a word that wants to rhyme with tête,
                 the thing which her blade separated
                    from the tail that twitched on till all
                    snake-habit had drained out of it.
                 I flung it into the backyard-bush,
                   out of sight and mind till the next
                   grass-snake and -poem come to pass
                (like the tête and crapaud that vanished).

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

 

 

  

SUBLIME SUN RISING HOUSE

    
                  

                    Privateers are building homes in the trees which else
                    where would be board nailed hide aways for smart kids.
                    On our island this is front tiered business. Gross bonds care
                    little for fruit ripening too long, too soon. If it's all
                    the same mount up means time to pluck.

                    A major worry: cane raised winds whipping through ripping
                    swingers off the roofs.
                                                      A pick up crew is hired to hose away
                    night fall ruptures before regulators with orders come dawn
                    pecking; to deter black mambas, poinsettia wired hedges. 
   
                         Bredren walk by pure in fire for prophecy 
                         strikes; or nest egg shell rattling Chinese gongs;
                         or reclaimist bee swarms so afternoon tea
                         leaves would scat and make readings easy.

                                                                     Line crossed lovers spread
                    limbs under cloud cover, believing only seraphs floating like 
                    drones might notice; while pilgrims in crimson robes pause 
                    to peek at the Adam & Eve linked in nakedness  ̶  your soul  
                    device searching for signal.

                                                       And the whistling you hear? not birds;
                    tenants content; and so impressed with the ether updates,
                    the clean slate wiping view.

                                                              Most mornings sun streaks start
                    up first stop by their sky lounge windows  ̶  Security measure:
                    yesterdays wing flaps; futures past worded bit worming dry
                    running  ̶  green light air show: Alive we're all aloft today.

                                                                                             – W.W.
                       

 

                                               

               

                                  

 

                                                        

                                      
                      THIS HOUSE IS

                      built out of certain strong brick only,
                          and warmed by a tireless
                              flame within
                      its walls so that mould will not choke them.

                     A house daily breathed in crumbles less
                        quickly than an empty
                            house: a man's
                     essence-vapours vivifies blank space.

                     The tenant gives the house its purpose:
                         to remain standing. But
                            abandoned,  
                     it starts to court a fate of ruin.

                     A solid framework then, to be filled
                        with fire to keep it from
                            burning down,
                     or from sighing, shrugging, collapsing

                      ̶  a thought that, starved of recognition,
                        crumbles into ash. Then
                           do we know
                        which tenant keeps this house standing now.

 

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

 

  

 

VIJINIE’S VINE HANG YIELDING PAST

                               
                                                                                       

                                                                                                                    for Grace A.

                                                                                                                                                                      
                   Our island game masters, wrapped up in hair, gate dogs of what
                   lonely they know, invite fleurettes to placid ponds of lily pads; to wash
                   wring dry their thoughts like underwear.

                   Vijinie's bloom, field testing like a poem, bared totems for bead
                   fingers; for migrant pain killers, 24 hrs Open to suggestion.   

                   Nerve of the dharma her fluids received his shark head surfacing
                   narcisse; her text holder's eyes  ̶  rose shadowed, rehearsing  ̶  offered      
                   up devotion on knees.

                   Until one day she glimpsed his shanks sun loss, his buttocks flaccid
                   pulling out then off away to the rest rooms. "You realize."

                   For restitution, Saturday nights, she'd tell her "boyfriend" park
                   outside the "ashram": front load speakers routing sweat borne
                   ovules OmyGod! up churning  ˃  Sunday sinuous duets.

                   Some aging barrels leach, worn staves, permit no curing; cut
                   straight from vine stem stripped to tongue smooth pressing.

                                                                                      – W.W.

 

 

                       

 

 

 

 

                     

                   FROM THAT MOUTH TO THIS,

                                                                         I kiss you a taste
                   of yourself you can never otherwise      
                   know but by fingers, yours or mine, between
                   mouths. Which do you prefer? This tell-tale tongue 
                   with its salacious gossip of your juice,
                   or slick imps stealing the cream of silence 
                   to take home to the mother of babble?    

                   But why choose? Get to know yourself every
                   way you can, using love's every impulse.
                   Only so can your innocence be re-
                   affirmed, on its travels between realms  
                   of ignorance and experience, both
                   openings through which the shaman of the heart
                   utters its oracles of shameless love.

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

 

 

 

 

MILES FAMILY PROFILES

                          

                                                                                    "As one turns to one in a dream
                                                                                     smiling like a bell that has just
                                                                                     stopped tolling       ….as a life    
                                                                                     to the life that is given you. Wear it,"

                                                                                    -  John Ashbery, "Token Resistance"  

                            
                     1.
                  Our rice fields stretch like days wet to the furry with  
                  wage sloshed demands, the stern quiet heart alert to
                  the faintest snake slither. At sunset our neighbours settle 
                  in with utensils and song, bead curtains and bed balming;
                  making sure we never cross the fowl scratch peck peck yard
                  unknown. 

                  Under his bed Pa's cutlass looked sharp; whiffs of burning coil
                  whisper kept intruders at bay. It built resolve: one day
                  he'd move away, wife anew with child, from cane path
                  hammock stilts to bed rooms plumbing rods in cement.

                  The woman who'd sigh when poked to make his love  ̶  then
                  serve done quick rinse dry  ̶  wiped fear from the mirrors,
                  set window screens for fireflies in rags of darkness; faith
                  in habits sewn. 

                          
                        2.
                  Under the fluorescents of the main road gas station Daughter
                  formed her future: Diana heels leg lotioned avenues, her
                  jewels bunched under. Such a risk here, cast net affections;
                  never knowing what you'd catch  ̶  red snappers slip stream
                  racing through the ovary.

                            
                     3. 
                  Miles outside the marble Wall city where the eldest studied
                  margins claimed, the neighbours grant him turf inside a foliage
                  of manners that cite his drive way passable; jhandi flags,
                  faded and frayed, defy front yard complaints.

                  His parents visit, sink in sofas, watch the flat screen, shake
                  their heads  ̶̶  so much full faced, consumed! They ask: whose
                  car is parked outside Son's house. They worry: no moon
                  watch over crow neck street lamps. They'll take home
                  cordless tools, tales of freezer days, fall leaf ways.

                  Son with holding sticks to side walks, top notch clean unreadable;
                  though sirens passing smoke his village alarms. You can follow
                  him home on devices. His solitudes rise closer to the snowy
                  owls nest, a storied perch where no one dare profile a strange
                  brown man well-dressed who comes and goes.

                                                                                         – W.W.

 

 

                    

 

 

 

                             
                     COMPETITOR


                     You are going, you say,
                     from bottom to top but I also see   
                     you a number crusted
                     with words chasing numbered words round and round
                     a melodramatic
                     circuit of gratuitous starts and stops  ̶ 
                     a kind of poesie  
                     that prettifies and pollutes like fingers
                     scurrying carelessly
                     across one or other keyboard of sloth.    
                     Custom  custom  custom
                     even at the core of your ecstasy.

                (from "Scratches On The Air" by Brian Chan)