Caribbean Poetry – Page 4 – FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN

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)

MILK RIVER WARMINGS

          Fringe softly up . to the grim, cash mere hiker; don't
          get tricked away in eddies of empathy. Dip a pigeon
          toe to test, hand scoop a riff : Lord bless this child! wet
          the so dry cereals of angels.

          One love streams from Jamaica, mapsters say . cruise
          ships dock not near enough to the source. Island
          talk of turning it into a wealth spa, not yet official,
          requires major investment.
                                                     And before you know it
          The Chinese have slipped in a lock shy bride made
          proposal . as per perceptions of bubbles mouth
          watering the wage bush underneath, and bamboo joint
          suckers who custom tied badly need sap easement.

          At others : news of fresh aircraft loss over the ocean
          still sends lovers and mothers rushing weep good
          grief! back to the airport . following shore lines to the last
          Chaplin moustache of human undertaking.

          Yes, yes, alternatives wine 'n' sign, though as climate
          belles set off earth warm sirens – time running out for
          the north fondue? ̶ re:up before your solace shrubs.

          And recall the Arbeit iron gate tweet . how camp track
          tears strip barkers free?
                                            Your grace so said, lift 'n' serve
          first the dead; for ground swell sake, please! count
          recount your moons ~ Aie aie aie

– W.W.

QUESTIONS SPRING-MELTED

              Are robins hungrier than usual
              in Spring, or simply gladly greedier?
              Does hysteric anxiety inform
              their chorus, or does it gush from nestling-
              beaks that can't distinguish between hunger
              and joy but know the end of scarcity
              in the rumbling of a million waking
              worms signalling their readiness as food
              by simply going about their business,
              quite superficial, of stirring the Earth
              into sprouting more grass for men to cut
               ̶ and where has my question gone now that this
              boomerang listening brings back questions
              as cries, turning ears into beaks and men
              into birds who can't help their happiness,
              more so since they have no need to name it.

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

CRAZY HORSE GREETS SNOW

                                            "puteo algunas veces, y me dicen
                                                 qué le pasa, amigo
                                                 viento norte, carajo
                                        ̶  Julio Cortázar, Fauna Y Flora Del Rio

           We watched you come out at the forest edge, how
           your mane riffs crossing fields. Needs visors purpose
           pointing, that one. Oh, you left stable 'breds' back
           there? Here's hope . if Snap! they break 'n' streak.

           You could learn a lot more hauling something; we
           got tracks you race on, steed work programs . and long
           long ago they lined you, brushed you snorting,
           up for saber tooting charges.

           Good wages? sure, and after sunset you saddle
           down : right over there. No, you shouldn't come
           any closer. Tight fit, now! make hay ride whispers.

           The nights are dark enough, often more than fear
           lindt white can handle. Still, brute or brain, shed
           'n' bed, up for the jelly the belly heads.

           You probably need sore hind rest, too; hard herding
           days we all feel coming. It's usually nothing, our bad
           form eagles sort 'n' clip.

           By early light . whoa! hold! what chord slides hornlike
           at the dawn . shift airing what? our sounding firsts set
           free . what time again? and how things are now.

– W.W.

DOGHOUSE

                 The comfort of lonely days
                 the taut freedom of clocklessness
                 the heaviness of a dense cloud
                 the sadness of a stretched balloon
                 the trembling of leaning
                 of the house of the idea
               of a self without having
                 to fall, or any lower

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

POEM ON

        Check this gilt head sprinkler for lime shoots in August
        dry run valleys; wall safe papered pleasant mush
        room . blinds called Auden even.

Watch that deer pause < myth alert > signs leave
shaman fingers darting . off rain forest keys.

                                                                                Old
        acquaintance dig his graveness . do watch out! word
        takes with lines; bury him again . toss laurels sing
        fresh nation praise.

        Oh, look! flambeau! the museum on the Morne . Quattro
        lit quadrilles beaming History : bask net snagged anchors;
        Prospere capped sea.

Island skippers course change tide ride canoe trunk
sky scrolling trees . cloud light on . on

– W.W.

DREAM CHOICE OF GOLD

On an inviting bed,
my poems to be revised and

your letter to be answered lie beside

yesterday's crossword still

unpuzzled: I am lazy. But,

awake or asleep, I do not ignore

the hint of my dreams, clouds

grouping and proposing themselves

new texts by which I might revise old themes

and so bring to clear bloom

again, with each breath, choice and act,

the rose of the Sun, the gold rose of Love.

And so now, dismissing

the bed, I begin to answer

your letter by honing my verse before

writing you, the poems

now become our angels on watch.
Puzzles can wait; Love, though patient, will not.

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

BACK STEP BLUES

           nettle in the head, tipple so the spirit pools
           trace misery rules . ridges sleep wreck deep.

           No one returns for Fridays not Insured, left to
           fend . tend shell stock on the beach. Crossings
           nailed ship hatch mortals.

                                                  Trade school winds,
           tug wharfs near reaching drowners ~ steer ways
           rock boots climb.

And cast off pleats long purple; speed rope on
tract scratch wordlings . sound wonders greet.

Wave pulse . wing flaps ~ clear! dust spirals
forming ~ peak.

– W.W.

WAVES OF WILL

           Seawaves do not enter a shore
             out of habit: each wave erodes
          the arrogance of yesterday's maps'
             demanding definitions.
                No wave ever enters
                any shore: the sea is

quivering within ̶ and brimming ̶

the Earth's bowls whose rims are all cracked

and keep cracking the more, the more glue

of precision we apply:

change is the only wave

that does not itself change

                 but waves of the sea's persistence
            will keep drowning themselves only
         to rise to more and more peaked versions
              of their trembling determined
                 to execute its will
                 of re-edging the Earth.

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

ENOUGH WORLD WEARY

                                                                                         "…the lust men
                                                                          invent, then cherish."
                                                      – John Ashbery, from "Tuesday Evening"

           Start up the samba drums ~ string electric ocean
          argument from Georgetown to, say, Malmo ~ watch
           as tattooed Macusis mount and navigate with balancing
           pole ~ air cold bearings > bow knots 'n' moorings.

           Gate keepers no longer sigh Going Gone! as they tag
           bags at island Departures . fears all blown up like
           world news of Armageddon or black slate wipes.

           Spotted on stonier tablets : barbarians with the pitch
           forks of Bastille Liberté returning . dread heads need
           only free up Jah love locks . drape the neck nape.

                                                                 Ay, hombre!
           with the cape for cherries . did you just phone snap
           my wife's rear end? ~ son of a which front slit!

           An ordure alert! cattle bones in parched heresy lands
           sense new plot warming mu-moo drops. The bright
           side? we could order drone delivery in strike rice
           bowls out . watch authors rise.

Mesdames et Messieurs, please, your attention, about
"humanity" ~ the wine here is excellent.

Beloved so! our prayers are ended . our knees now
roots have reason to believe . I am very tired.

– W.W.

INFINITIVES

In the Fall and Winter, to stay

at home to fast and so enter

the inner room which snakes cannot ̶

To point to a grey sky empty

of the Sun and yet see there is

the Light allowing us to see

even as our own eyes cloud it ̶

To glimpse a flake of frost falling

off a leafless branch that but seems

a crystallised finalised bone

of misty dawn's still skeletons

and to know no difference between

North and South Americas or

hemispheres, no ocean or mind

between the Eastern earthworm's owl

and the Western magpie's phoenix,

and to praise both the turtle's speed

and the peacock's blurred scrawl of sleep ̶

In one thread of white hair stranded

in a jungle of words also

strayed off a head slowly losing

all of its accustomed allies,

to find a narrow path back home

in the Sun's dark centre where doubt

staggers all fates, serving them so

(from "Readiness" by Brian Chan)

BARCODE YOUR HONOUR

           When they're not like you, the wind for felt reason
           shouldn't riffle your hair let down; you can bury your
           head in an old Course book and parse their tongues.

           In one Section they're viewed as children of the Earth, or
           the Rainbow ̶ something like that; frightful en masse.
           Nest high you have the right to remain uncommon.

           Elsewhere they conform to Articles of the Penal
           Code over which you poured, shuddering off wolf
           notices cross unfenced library tables. You can't go
           utterly that way wrong : skin tight! just power
                                                    down the hood, call
           up cruise beaks sky larking; sun block face bare
           behind ̶ the devil stark, guest room dark . but be

           advised : not all for sessions rise. If not one some
           thing gets you in the end; slips past touch points
           plunge fear lips guard as basins steam . consume.

           Time! gather your lines, graceful as silk sheet
            covers of honour pulled up over nipples quick as
               it's done; lay ways you've spurned.
                                             And walk ~ Copy 10 . DM :
              no pigeon hackle brushes out in the street. Long
           halo serving dogs! list scratch . bear down in heat.

– W.W.

PROVENÇAL

                    With a nun of a moon flirts a firefly
                    drawn like iron into the waves
                    of the magnet-veils the virgin sheds
                    as she withdraws naked up the sky's stairs
                    with slow but unassailable hauteur.

(from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan)

DESIRE OUT UNDER

            They could have sailed stayed far away for good
            fruit season picking, her parents happier hearing
            of a match with post card swipe . perch name display.

            Instead he caved . recessed each day sand bush
            canals encroaching . road ways too narrow, heart wild
            no! turns . dust swallowing cart and camels in distress.

            His suits hung out for ties, impress off shore pending :
               What nibbled at his core?  School yard leaks that
            dribbled down his village leg . the hurt, that city surge
               men jeered his tail wind stall.

               Mate mandate would rear up red blue take until one
             night long unfulfilled ̶  sick dissembling, sick of sponging
           off tuck! hold! faith healing  ̶  so unrelieved! the floor smooth
           knees now parting for any old new normal miracle stream.

Straighten my fork bend . so dreams form matter, she bares,
right to rend bridling our feast.

                       Breach in, breath out ̶ how our trails
              blaze! ̶ the air trust up strip whoosh . curves off
          the lamb's tale carving arcs, heaven 'n' earth, her east.

-W.W.

EULOGY FOR JODY PRINZ

              The Light out of which she emerged lit her path
                of pain which was hers only, while bearing
              all of ours. Light was her whispering herald,
                her faithful dog, her silver cloud never
              directly above her, though always within,
                hazed and more than misted, always dying
              to burst, always reaching out across the dark
                  space between two people like an angel's
              wings not knowing quite how to fold in either
                 embrace or resignation ̶ just as she,
              by choosing to keep on breathing, could never
                 fully surrender to the heavy pull
              of pain she bore so lightly, as an angel
                  might absorb a tugging kite's insistence
              ̶ as though, were it not for her anchoring grace,
                  the kite at any moment could pull her
              soul upward, away to other focuses
                  of starcloud ̶ as indeed it at last did,
              though not in any way we could have foreseen,
                 since all we may predict of the kite is
              that at last it makes us all drift out of the cloud
                 of breathing in which we float and back
              into the Light that yet keeps serving us breath.

DUST . DAYS LAST NIGHT

           Bond hold dug out . native well run dry
             release risk hands . vein red line designs.

Boy and girl look in the mirror . wonder how
soon if not today . it will happen.

His thought flow on the page is hacked 'n' bled
by blade cleansing syllables as closed knees row.

The whites of their eyes keep daring you to shoot
or view the history of geese flight forming.

A cube of ice slips off the sheet . tinkles in clear
glass melt that waits the next world order.

Packed boats swim off ocean hearse rehearsing
left hope borders lift behind.

Soon in camps sand pitched or paved it will be
spring : you may go outside, children . play Mary,

              Hail again . seabirds over passing trawler snags
              wing dip as floaters beach ~ moon ports sigh.

– W.W.

WAITING ON THE WAITRESS

                      Empty hands need fire
                     to play with, to burn by,
                      so as to smoke a new

                         map of the world in her tired
                         face now shadowing like a cloud
                         the questions of your open hand

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

WAR . POETRY

           These drills ground gone : the moustache bugle call
           to trenches Aim soiled uniforms: all that squaddy
           getting ready. Attention! once close paid.
                            Market road blasts scatter matter . tyre
           piles set firewalls grievance strong. We down work
           tools ditch domino games . rush off to the fray.

Bridge mass could paintball a tank or back track; a lucky
few get to clamber up, wave a Patton V for viral.

           Lock limb snap, faith rip felled? Palms will open scoop
           you bleeding hoist you drooling prayer east bound . martyr
           marked for the idling ambulance (fucking sirens coming
           up with shark lust behind you).

No, you won't remain unclaimed in street rubble; count three
two days . one silent night.

Mothers in scarves still wait to scold, wonder if your phone's
gone cold. Your sister's probably with her boyfriend.

           What's that, Mr. Owen? no pattern holding at the front?
           I know what you mean : happens thick as a thumb click;
           lacks a certain decorum est. Some recruits stand rifle
           tall.
                                 And that left right sequencing : first
           writ styles buckle out of date; then logs of the beast
           cut loose >  lo, we have a situation.
                                                     Yes, yes! totally! so hard
           these days to parse futility, spot bravery in all that fist
           high howling about.
                                        Stand by : unscathed I'll view again
           your shell wail posts . our drone precision.

                                                    Spark to inferno : raise or
          flag above the fields row knees, pride wear dust all
          fear, the gyre's turn.
                                                                  – W.W.

TWO KNIVES

                       The defensive dagger of babble
                       has its handle in the middle
                           of its blade pointing two ways,
                             the duller point forwards,
                              the sharper backwards
                                 into the self
                                  that can't see
                                     either
                                      point.
                                      Real
                                   speech is
                               a different
                             knife whose blade points
                          upward from the gut
                       into Heaven, and down
                     like a grounded lightning-pole
                  that is also a broadcast-tower
               feeding both the Earth's roots and her stars.