Tag: Caribbean Poetry

LEAVE TAKE HOW ISLANDS GIVE

                            

            Worth its past in gold, outliers weigh : sand with song
                                         strewn black . chest storm crest
            night fungibles . lime rum | men jerk fish net 
                                                  sun . plus your pirate
            pick of flowers, moons half helming hearts at sea.

            Work folk names gauge love for country God
                                                       and weed . Walk
            good they’ll point on . roads that winding funnel
                                                  cock pit
            stop | conch rest : trees hum 'n' ponder wind strip
                                                       limb start over.

            Virgins greening might blue eye you . wish a wand
            wave would you whirling hems away! lift them . and you.

              Spare notice ‒ back on bounty, in maps faith
              tested ‒ that first pale trader’s lurching print
              to shore : consigned links for you . the miles on you.

                                                                 – W.W.

 

                   

         

 

 

             BLUE GREEN

             To realise the green of green and
         to realise that you love that green more
             than you love the vain idea of your
         lawn or of our universal garden:
             what a fearsome dying beauty, start
         of no nostalgia for some tribal green
            but for the greenless Light never seen
         by green-addicted green-projecting eyes.
            Now your blue awe sprouts tears of the sap
         of adieu veining all greens up to blue:
            feeling and so knowing them are clues
         as to why you could never plant or wave
            flags of green | black | yellow | red | white | blue
         on Earth, on any of her million moons:
            their colours would only pale and fade
         beside the lidless Light which flags conceal
            with their stitched-in labels, tags of fear
                      of both the green of green
                      and green’s hueless haunter,
         fear-names by brick-words with only one mind:
            of hoarding what must be left behind;
        a fear the divorced spouse of your blue awe.
            To compare that fear’s scriptures, pictures
        and airs with the Light they have turned dense-dark
            is to liken morality’s spite
        to Law, or strands of streams to the webbed sea,
            to flatter and flood the ear and eye
        with winds and shades of fat or flat notions
           of green no tree, no Ireland would know.
        But twilight green is an autumn farewell
           by a god fading yet clamouring
        for recognition as fuel for his
           return to the Light beyond all these
        merely green gasps of his witness struck blue
           and drowned by a label-less silence
        no flailing arms of green words can undo.

             (from “Readiness” by Brian Chan)

 

CHAT YUH CHAT, BWOY

           

            Them can't do statues right, bredren wheel. Shades
            thrown from Gandhi + Garvey haunting the sky light 
            on validators : dead heat with Christ . on earth our world 
        charismata, Selassie patient in portrait notwithstanding.
                       Chat yuh chat. 

        Spliffing through, don't stare . for the beach thighs raise
            sand crab creep hair. String purse lip tender, How
            yuh do? You should know better riding horse
            power like summer clearance on our island.
                       Chat yuh chat.  

        And check Segismundo : him await short list of hurricane
            names . him they never pick though him wound
            up and prep for paths of memorable flood nation.
            Wrap yuh tendons, bwoy . distract yourself
            with lottery number, breast feeders say.

        Mean time hear now . home lost love sung : watch how
            freight rise to the top, heart selector . toll forever.

                                                                – W.W.                   

            

                                 

            

                     

                    

               WORK

               As I prune these verses inside, outside
               a boy is turning the soil to make it
               easier for seed and sun to translate
               the one’s silent secret into the other’s
               bright bursting utterance of seamless tongues.

               As I clean up these verses, my daughter
               is vacuuming the rugs of our dead skins,
               sweeping the kitchen floor of our spilt goods
               and you are shining mirrors of your own
               bright eyes with sweet vinegar of your sweat.

               All this doing I once resisted now
               I embrace as love’s natural mask without
               which love would collapse under its own weight
               of a vibrant space waiting to be filled
               and stretched by a million masks of the sun.

               Listening for my own voice, I hear also
               the music of other tongues worlds away
               leaping up through the stalks of my green song.
               Plumbing my darkest heart, I shape the glass
               of plain mind in which you may taste your own.

                (from “Fabula Rasa” by Brian Chan)

                           

  

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)

  

 

 

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.

 

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

 

 

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.

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