Tag: Caribbean Poetry

COURSE GRADERS TWILIGHTING

    

                                                                         
                                                                             "O, troubled island, go back to sleep, 
                                                                               back to your peaceful ways, 
                                                                               when your weeping was quiet…"
                                                                                       -  Mervyn Taylor, "Bad Dream"                                                                

        
      On our island ‒ *dot poor land . rock climbing
      waters ‒ switch on off whiteness feels tasked : map
      word stitch our wear 'n' tears. They reach back pack slate
      updates for empire roof sites . not that pissed they
      raise fist to represent. Fear canines feed | randomness arrows
      village roses mate and here we are.

      You could purchase our J’Ouvert costumery . smear
      black and pray the stand pipes run that day; otherwise
      it’s your jump! our passage upthiers chipwarming . bare jab
      jab duckassing sugar beat.
                                                      *dot Admins chair wheel
      mahogany peck in orders. Who fucks with found oil
      who pans its marigold revisions?

      Far older night strips wrap around cold
      dawn our mountains. After a long drive ~ the road
      wind jammed with flute ‘n’ brass wedding parties
      and crossing cows once ship stalled breaking haste
      waste records ~ you arrive.
                                                     *purple cap baldness
      at the crown : name batch number melding plot
      now ones and nothings | runway blue lights left
      on :
                                                   – W.W.

 

        

       

     

 

        

          CHARON

          *HIS Sun-washed mother’s Sun-stained polished floor gives
          Way behind Charon’s eyes to the dark rough planks
          Of the old Georgetown-to-Vreed-en-Hoop ferry
        Into which the disgusted woman had once tugged him,
          What else was she supposed to do, the blooming
          Boy wouldn’t lef she alone, wouldn’t stay home ‒
          Like every other stray from the Colony

          Gaanallovertheplaceallovertheworld,
          Charon can hear her thinking that’s not yet thought,
          Feel her feelings that don’t dare give themselves voice,
       And, whoever else might be the pilot, it is she
          Who is leading him across to Work-in-Hope
          Beyond Georgetown floating away from the boat
          Whose heart one day must mid-river stop beating.

            (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

  

 

THERE NOW . NOT ALL THE WAY

            
      Hash the sashed bald man who Yes, I can fix this!
      pouts, his followers standing poncho to shoulder seal
      brand scream . tag the intern who rewires touch live
      sparks now deemed inadmissible . arguing Yes!
      means get communion first approved : pain
                                                                           ribbed
      baskets carried with bag pipery full court house
      spiral stairs . sins in sepia dock ship wages.

      Yes, wipe the plate glass blameless, want all you shop
      plead symphony Fifth on avenues . the gladiolus
      strides feeling the bloom the doorman smiles. In bed
      self postered Picasso oil tones girl with mandolin
      intentions.

      Packed boats falter today one ocean away from
      toes in soft mud insects arm slapping stern hoof
      mountibles . sink risks releasing tongues jaw
      locked from baggage bearance.
                                      In Safe cubicles they’ll Enter
      your mode for search run fenestrations. Pending
      tide swell might as well bond the beach, wet lips
      climate fencing .| mare nostrum. There yet? ‒ re:up,
      lanky coast changer, shore leave again.
                                                                  – W.W.

 

        

    

 

 

            CHARON

          * VULGAR rows with the mothers of his offspring
          In Georgetown had been his easiest 'technique'
          For ridding himself of the bother-ration
        Of both woman-gratifying and child-fathering.
          A good hearse-driver, he couldn’t find the heart
          For guiding children across the mud-rivers
          Which their elders insisted on calling Life.

          You might say he is no doubt his father’s son,
          Son of the father who had just disappeared
          Aff de face of de Eart ‒ at least, according
        To Charon’s mother Else’s ever-shifting version
          Of his father, her man who, having promised,
          Again to bring home her pregnancy’s craving-
          Fix, choclate, simply never shows up again.  

          How is this believable in such a small
          Place where everyone knows everyone else’s
          Story before an Else can know it herself?
        Another of Charon’s mother’s grumbled fictions turns
          Her man into a Chinee-pig porknocker
          Searching for gold in ‘the bush’ (which her city-
          Son pictures as knotty as her hair uncombed).

       (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

   

 

HARD TIES BENEATH Who Cares?

              
      Course scanned consider the honor grail : stakes deserve
      to bleed that brace your ride in the elevator; that's
      how alligators halter pride . red light bride take off. 
                                                                                 Soft one 
      day lava lumbers forest clearance nonconcerning rage
      found . Palm torso huggers top over. 

      Digits paused no longer count . holdings so long!
      loop Uterails back to Start : privacy parts reset
      payment plan beak speculum enclosed.

      Enough egg samples . why crack the conundrum in the first
      place : What human means? renting wolf and lamb share
      hunger and sometimes the gut fed well goes merde! same
      cold ‒ foil Brand wrap Serve self Sell ‒ dog bowl.

      So how you holding up?

                                  Try not to lose blood pushing the end
      crap shore free : donors pitbill you run . whipped
      dream done nipple peckers circle.
                                                   *A wind win play? brick
      a layer . tiger the forest . sooner know.  

                                                       Oviduct fibres bitch you 
      find the fork! hack a path through somehow. Atoms all
      split like tomorrow creep . make so you lie your bed.

                                                                     – W.W.

 

        

     

 

  

         LESSING AND CHARON 

         *CLOSING his eyes again, Lessing is engulfed
         By memory of all the women he has
         Ever known, all their faces splashing over
       His own, as though to wash away all its lies of love
         Which he, through them, has etched there, all its shadows
         Of nostalgia for hunts women cannot bear,
         Knowing little, nor caring to hear, of them.

         The sheer wordless ‘wisdom’ of women’s blind strength
         Is what Charon now feels he has been bearing
         In his shoulders of challenging aches and shrugs
       Of perverse disavowals and faithful betrayals.
        

        (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

                  

 

DOT THE SUNKEN FORWARD BACK

               

          Field hands five palmed not once radio saviours
          beamed, Wheel kneel! come at altars of Sunday orange
          sovereign head for tongue tip : tuft follicles felt
          blessed unrubbingly turning grey. 

          Inky to relieve print pubs outset paper trail
          crockery : whose commons cast shade fate to face
                                                                                      what
          savants took provision place . which lords raised
          umpire fingers roasting . tallyman corn plank
          cross; how shack congestion seam stressed bed
          wet wretches wrung with mandir cymbals . as hemp
          rope puddle jumpers watched Tegla Loroupe pull
          away.
                                                                                        Island
          heart in hand cart‘graphers fence off pasture spirits
          near . where croppers firm up skulls cake dust let
          chew sticks brush ‘n’ tell : teeth left from gripping
          nipples . bones measured, used to swell.

          Astrologers peer, midriffs report : poui like
                                                                                     stars
          no daffodilly Wordsmith could have imagined
                   sun deck the hills redress quadrilles.
          Blue by now should have one home cleared all.

                       This world ~^~^~ Our place
                   Seasons of make do enchantment                     
          Ocean futures inching flight risk crafters beaching
          Ahead of ourselves, Greenwitchily, all the best.

                                                            -W.W.

                                                                            
                                                                              

         


                                                          

            MARA

           *IN BRITISH Guiana, the word ‘colony’
            Used to be chief policeman of the Mother
            Country's ‘natural’ right to Her property.
         In still anglo-colonized Canada, no-one seems
            To have heard of the C-word with its brass ring
            Of labels stapled to ones breath’s tongue. (In ‘free’
            Guyana, few dared grunt or sigh the D-word.)

            Ruler-ships have been replaced by slave-ship malls
            Of ones democratic right to choose to stay
            A slave, and Her Majesty ‒ perched at the edge
        Of a gilt chair, behind her behind wedged her tight purse
            Of numbers and words of a curse with its mask
            Still haunting a corner of ones postage-stamps ‒
            Could tell one why caged birds want to sing, but can’t.

            

          (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)

 

 

VIJINIE’S DAUGHTER . Bonjour SIM CARD

     
          
           Sent forward from Japan . of Kaieteur where?
           no one ever heard; for new cocktail nice name
           maybe one day limes mix.

           Grown past time for metaphysics ~ her mother’s rope
           bridge, our peak Amalivaca ~ how are you : wedged
           to like partials, observing how circuits break smack
           in the riddle of rib cage strainings : doing? she asks.

                            Tree limbs we still keep trim for leaf
           count, hedge cover : far shed from book lamp
           bed fruit peeling . ceiling thump thumb message
           staring.
                            Rivers caravan the world winds ladder
           mountains : why strip to tango same old Orinoco,
           touch Salvador the ash fray base? she tasks.

           Couplets metered long ago clipped our made kites
           fly sky low . island stanzas down tied witch paper
           mate with "bitch" . soaked fuh so in spirits.

                           Card game our deck feet chip, link sync 
           to syrtaki . play Bonjour! list, side swipe the dark
           off night, ship light.
                                                   Vijinie all the while 
           smiles . show showers Konichiwa! love blossoms
           her daughter’s hoist the sail tattoos : go ahead
           lick clicks on this if morning mists persist.
                                                                         – W.W.

 

                   

        

   

          SAND. CAVE. GRAVE. CLOUD


              Numbed by a love x-ed out,
              he sees his mind and words
              turned to noughts and crosses
          and listens to the mocking jackals
          of his fate in outer space scattered
          like cut-loose exploding astronauts.

              Without her whose flames burnt
              his blood deaf, he cannot
              breathe ‒ yet he breathes, he bleeds,
          he can still hear storms he knows will pass
          without a drop of rain for his heart’s
          desert that can only scream its cracks.

              He chokes in the coffin
              of a promise he has
              promised never again
          to break, so as now to break no more
          than one heart, his own ‒ surrender made
          not in fear, courage or greed for grace,

              but in absolute trust
              that nothing else will melt
              this lock or raze these walls,
          nothing is more full of the Sun than
          the tenderness of the willing wait
          lighter than its choice, slower, but fast.

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

                  
               
         

I LOOK FOR YOU EVERYWHERE

 

                                               "In more precision now of light and dark”
                                                   -  Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Dawn"           

                    
               Just on today platform subway as in disguise . guitar
               rockers played like down out buskers, I phone mapped
               faces game surprise how train stop curious joined in
               song, cross piece to you I string.

               I tape snip after host glove hands . body bits ghost
               picked . white wall scrub painted stadium doors pew
               Charleston floors . in knee deep prayers I sink 
               to save they’ll call if they find anything.

               Up over ocean bloat face floats . helifishers swish
               blade wish one arm might here! here! lift : shell case
               breath holding news found where? in you for gone
               clear life I reach.

               Angler Hopkins lines “instress” hitch mercy that
               outrides the all of water. My feet ground break neck
               lace hung fate . belief? I stone skipped there.

               Come spring grain green I arc back spinal count
               the ways ledge crowd point wait unherd I range
               hiatus fears unsheathe inside you born for easter
               tight wind sheets fall leaves rake I beyond
               doubt risen now . sea ward earth now.

                                                                    – W.W.

              

                                 

             

 

            

             A HEART HEAVIER THAN THE EARTH

                Fly above
                             clouds within sunlight
                and find yet one more edge of eye
             where a vast silence of arctic white
             surrenders to such fine clarity

                of blue as promises nothing
                but a dark heart pining for its
            rarity ‒ heart split between pulses
            of footfall and of winglift, between

               calls of raincloud and of sunbeam,
               and between the lull of dreamt and
           dreaming Earth’s seasons ‒ and the shock
           of sensing, beneath those modal moods,

              a sure determined rising back
              to her Dreamer’s womb of Light far
           finer than any azure the heart,
           denser than clouds, can only yearn for.

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

  

AY VITALY,

                    

              Our trap tale traffick . no cry fodder : Ilyushin
              '76 . innocence to peace midfleshair blown; Afghan
              '85 . down comrades draining fluids in death valleys.
         What roads high tracked side café stop, our glass hour table
              company found . homemade slice shares unwrap : poll
              flag waverings miss fires in me . in you No return
              matters.

              Blink! two sip and time is up. Bit orb initials, touch 
              turn, reigniting work.

              Trucks like ours fork lift all good . the earth folds
              sorrow globe stokes warmer ~ past sea air ports here
          blend fast ~ morning unfuckingbelievable coffee ~ break
              heart land make there we leave it. 
                                                                         – W.W.

 

           

           

               

           

              

           

               A DECEMBER SNAIL

               A windless December dawn so still
                  the Earth herself seems to pause:
               you must scrutinise the horizon’s
               collaboration between two orbs
                  to realize that what seems
               a stasis is in truth as active
               as this snail sliding out of his shell
                  to settle for the next shake
                  or shade of leaf, or to turn
               his horns towards the core of the Sun,
               star always with its own horns pointing
                  beyond the self-absorption
                  of the trails of snails which give
               the Sun grooved news of Earth but keep snails
                  from becoming birds and stars.

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

           

 

ALL DAY HEADLIGHT BELLY TRICKS

                                                                                 

                                                                      
                                                                       "…all by all and deep by deep
                                                         and more by more they dream their sleep”
                                         – E.E. Cummings, “anyone lived in a pretty how town”


            Not faulting the road country dark or millennium kept
            dune that make specks coming at you luminescent
           as stool samples your tube news read.

           You see me? won’t friend a Buddha olive oiled . skin
           fear carriers who hand shake soft with pyramid jambs
           net worth set.

           Our islands fall head over seas for podium reachers,
               the few who given a needle plier would plait honor
                 folds on any pledge worn bellyfatty.

                 Our spices favour custom misers oysterizing your
               prostrate jollyjelly. You’d think people would age
           past such index fingery by now.
                                                      En.vie.garde! hips flick
           licks . circum|flex|vine . who animal knock down who
           fence?

           A switch knife blade in comes handy . case you stumble
           on coconut palms shimmery like gift cards in the desert,
           where the winds sometimes rub Saheltic, and every dust
           fling is allowed. 

                                      For shallow breathers, mint leave
           advisory : try counting past 100 as pure gas you face 
           mask . that way cruise in Stay with me! gurney wheel
           orbit ~~^^~~  unless you have a better option?

                                                           Heavens wait . dream
           cling wake. Welcome back, sand feed grain.

                                                                         – W.W.

 
                  

              

 

                 STUBBORN


                My tiredness is vast and honeyed,
                my yawn as juicy as a stuffed pig’s
                held wide by the apple of my lust
                to keep awake and hearing my heart.
                You’d think that after fifty odd years
            of failing to harness the sprawl at my core,
                I’d be more devoted to slipping
                into sleep and savouring its dreams,
                but my senses insist there is no
                sweeter dream than the one they conspire
                to mock up and maintain like the stage-
            managers of a play whose author, actor and
                audience I yet happen to remain,
                all these mes busy wiping our eyes
                of their tears of yawning déjà-vu.
                But I still look forward to the next
                breath’s moment as much as to the last
           when the stage-lights fade but the lights of the whole
                house blaze.

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

 

               

CARL’S PLACE

                                                                       
                                                              to Carl Anderson        

     
          At the back then tack left . the lady white though
          game fair pointed ~ on the other side occurring just
          across a 9/11 memorial display whose freeze dry
          billowy might have beckoned her first.

          Off workday anytime is good; visitors must card pass
          blood braising city styles : wait schedules escalator
          floats . down concatenation tunnels linking every port
          authority vet heavy.
                             No grace full circles river mists your 
          brush blade parted once . on point the bowman’s pole
          through signs > shot slinging peopled colors out the forest. 

                            There I get : your ribbed glaze tangents
          breaking out stamp borders . glass case public stationed
          here | can’t be too careful these days. So trips one
          way to radiant close.
                            See something say something frames what
          sunlight finds . under street feet . paint lines shed vein
          grid alerts ~ just saying. 
                                                              – W.W.

 

           

         

 

 

             THE NEXT LITTLE AWAKENED ONE
                WRITES HOME


          We touch on the roundest things as though
                they were flat. We know
          we float on the surface of a globe
          but walk along the lines of a map
              and let sentences
          deflate our arcing telepathy
          into the tightropes on which we inch
              between here and there
          and call that dicey balancing-act
          the art of falling on our feet
              while still in mid-air
          where the anguish of this wingless bird,
          locked to a ladder of light on his
              way back to you, starts,
          towards but one stop ‒ when every rung
      will have been reveined by also his blood.

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

         

MON DIEU, or RETURN OF THE QU’EST-QUE C’EST

  

           
          Body pack rush of side walkers head down 
          file in wave smart . as cars electric roll no
          hands! sigh, and passenger fete brains toggle
          between before and after nightly organ feed;
          metro centers cap size matters. Even blue bird
          divas on wires decline to sing, and over head
          war planes dip wing; for it has come again,
          the black slab ‒ the obelisk? what Kubrick
          talked about in 2001 AD? door silence sealed.
          Still no one knows what|who? intends, dare touch
          face time . bone toss behind. Palm devices paid
          up aim snap icontrails ~ Wow ~ hole spotting game
          towers . for faith keep cloud; tissue in case …  Mon Dieu!

          _______________________________________________________   

          Occupation? moi? done : propulsion blades beyond
          slice not precise . enough staring | you can line my
          plots of sea desperation; floor worn knees; ephemeris
          tables verifying : once every Oui!3K years . the odds
          the chance to scream in concert ‒ man child femme ‒ 
          evacuate . in motion slow our coming ends.

                                                               – W.W. 
              

                

         

 

             

         NO ETERNITIES 

        
                                      only pauses
         of focus: the broken pot, buried
         for centuries under tons of clay
         shifting slowly between stone and dust,
         dreams of one more moment of being
         touched, by probing spade or careful gloves,
         the moment of its next shift in time
         when it starts to be something other
         than what the labelling hand will claim.

              So I think of us, cracked and clogged by years
              of the weight of our mud and junk and dust,
              waiting for some flood of love to cleanse us
              but also for our moment of escape
              from the very fingers of rain that would
              unclog us from the burden of ourselves,
              the comforting pain we won’t surrender,
              instead choosing to slip out of love’s hold
              to fall and smash into another shape
              of beautiful interesting hell on earth.

              from “The Gift Of Screws” by Brian Chan