TRACKS OR TRAILS . BEGET THE BEGIN

 

          
       Tattoo arm strangers wade ashore, finger pointing, We
       can see your avocados, have you no shame?  No use
       explaining : winds vivarious lift . forced to run for cover
       leaves peel away. Hola.

                                       Earth appetizers ! think they know
       everything ! ambushy eye brows. Stop blowing on
       embers, conjure fiber plaits ! There will come take
       stock! a day.

       Strained / to live with hill or boor realty / crow cocks
       the view. On level groyne bald heads rake back; oil
       slick reptiles slither cross . foreshore divides. The Great
       Spirit rainbows ocean risk as carrion wings reset.

                                                                                Order
       in a bowl of ants ? surrender grain to sweet. Servers
       who’d rear . dare not face bare Imamons chest leap
       as wonder beeps; needing likes our kinder do not
       disappoint.
                                                                               Organ
       at loss we’re caught hand grippy with / the wilderness
       pipe / d’Meaning when our fasts in sole full burn ~
       there’s a heaven baboony furry for the fuss, up early
       turning must. 
           

                           Time short ties learn how Game / beast
       led, board run / stay On; why privately parts snitch
       enrich, east face on knees | how closed or open
       wounds wait spoon turn tables . south Olé.

                                                                      – W.W.

 

 

       

       

 

            LESSING


         Each
might have claimed, like fellow scrawler Pollock,
         I AM Nature and Nature would have been shocked ‒
         Not by the claim but by any need for it,
       For of course a dinosaur was, too, a walking tree
         And the cloud his head was caught in and the worm
         In his eye; and his Pollock scrawl was complete
         Though unfinishable, sublime, no tags yet

         On his bones by which we now rehearse our own.
         In bones ‒ Lessing felt in his ‒ memory is
         Stored

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

 

 

THE CHINA SAUCER BREAK AGE *

 

         
      Mirror wall caves more exquisite than truth . once
      our route charged with unlimited minutes.
                                  Blood types can go shark tooth . bone
      formations open force . formulas guard anyone apart in
      tent nomadic
who dare screw found with.

      Stone buildings with double pane windows restyle the cold
      high castle . dungeon saves. Devices tap you text quick
      love ! scratch back finds a match : knot records kept
      string mystery loss.

      Bitch on any pledge . may your balls, ducks swear,
      into a thousand peck bits fall. The da-да! Endlike
      clutch, dinosaurs trying for a baby | Anyways.

      Over heard inside the kingdom ? as in sand serpent
      days crescendent blades behead \ An error occurred \
      melon slice red : And you thought, lip moisture
      rising, you’d never scarf anything like it.
                                                                   Where will you,
      Mon
Dieudonne ? shak-shak shake, Medium elect again.
      No . time is ever wasted.

      As for what some bad Papa forbid, dead wise once
      said, sons will swing light . sky sorcerers : cloud
      caught they wait till trop c’est trop! ~ spiral in
      exhume . brush S‘o’S skulls like Basquiat.
                                                                      *Bent . people
      poking at us, what were we taking . on life rails fugue
      fevers run ? who forks less more > lean in here
      round the horns . amazed again.
                     
                                           W.W.

       

         

 

         QAT

       Qat's shaking-off of negative influence
       From Charon’s bad vibes (she is an active fan
       Of Hippy and New Age shibbolethal jive)
     Was literalist: she would let her whole frame quiver
       Like a dog’s after a soak, or as when her
       Body’s heat lowers as she pees. Then she’d sign
       The Cross onto her still (half-)Catholique torse.

       Finishing an action with such a gesture
       Is key to Qat’s sense of balance, while Charon’s
       Main anchor was/is his reluctance to be
     Steady or pinned down like a still jerking butterfly.
       Yet sometimes Qat sensed the tâche of suicide
       Sweeping out from under his lazy eyelids,
       Pauvre vieux, rien qu’un homme ‒ et à peine.

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

 

MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE : OCEANS WIDE TURN

 

              
          Earth seeded, desire sluices . mountains heave new
          lava flow . first time in years, more so. 
                                                                 Raise the water
          mark too high gondoliers glide elsewhere, leaving you
          measures of naked decency to take . ashore blame
          mix messaging; clean dry fountains instead.

          Just so you don’t feel always the inflatable one . hand
          reach back like run receivers / pivot, grip / sinews
          in curve sync you’re working together seam less
          at this . end to chase after.

          Not there yet doubt free limbs keep the beast . mobile
          that’s how time strips the argument down there ~ Non :
         
oui Intime ~ barnacles for the life of you; our freight
          break swept to sea viabilities.

          Floor to moon . shoot yearning ! like keyless
          entry, ‘long as you’re close enough ‘n’ firm, trust
          the spool / arc, send / mesh that passing Great night
          whale . the spout thing bottom feeds ~ mind whet
          mate folded ~ disappears.
                                                               – W.W.
                        

             

           

           

         
           LESSING 

           For there behind her, in profile beyond her
           Narrow cell's window suddenly grown wider,
         Is the shadow of the face of a man listening
          To the bliss of her tilling her own soul’s soil
          So that he, her man, might know how to tend it
          Whenever she’s ripe for a true husbandman.

          Or perhaps the man’s just waiting to become
          Her necessary nuisance, the disturber
          Of her fantastic powerful privacy,
       With his powerless facelessness insisting that she
          Sketch in its features as recognisably
          Human, and that she alone underwrite his
          Book of fabulous risks and resigned crossings.

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

 

 

EVERYONE LEAVES . HAPPY END COMING

         
  

           Pole positions some kind lean . keel in the course
           of our rolling grasp about; but a hands street lift
           off seems guaranteed providing you're not alone, left
           haltered . fade in hospice layers.

           If only beams could flight globe plan : night till ray;
           our bracing as wheels touch faith scorch land, breath
           blue burning : It’s Ok! part angels clutch . ride 
           sigh beside you.
                                   Such fear ! to stare, reach with.

           Terms cum deed knock wedges clear out of even; feed
           numbers swell . last offer sits on the table growing
           cold the longer favours hover corks and chrome
           fork over.
                           Into stars vast, work ‘n’ rest heaps ~ swan
           knife
dives feel expected.

           For pluck good feathers revel game, lovers weigh
           caveats like lobster . claws reminding us nothing is
           given that wouldn’t be taken . back snap! next
           red
turn around \ Aie aie aie.
                                                                         W.W.

               

           

 

          

         QAT WITH CHARON  

         *BUT The world IS bigger and here before me!
         
Qat once shouted at Charon, her nègre rouge
          Of a cancre who had just dared to suggest she
        Fooled herself by kneeling scared below the world’s totems.
          Qat could forgive Charon for talking funny,
          Et après?, but she did not intend living
          With some pimp who refused to honour his pute.

          She held no delusions about her active
          Rȏle in keeping Charon and the world alive
          And kicking ‒ Charon and therefore the whole world ‒
        Which does not, as he felt, start with a soul’s latest dream
          Of it, but had A-start, world without Z-end:
          She was born Catholique and he was born blind.

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

 

 

FLAPS . JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR

           

        Ask from the closet and dead man's clothes hanging
        on . how long! before the brand starts up, gods name
        new . promising this time no mask die cast, meters
        paid in spirit ‘n’ risen things.
                               Up late . we know near how the planet
        outposts run; last test, sun shields holding.

                                                        More . so we stir
        moon about done for howls . as capsules eagle away!
        fish feed on asteroids. Vantage points what’s beaming
        front lobe towers . glass sides list pyramid tips. 

                                                          Could be what's fixed
        wind twisting shapes. Still, no lip stiff sips wisping, You
        see, in those days/ or touched recounts . how much spread
        on the cob costs love.

        The life wed Art lock ? brush lines slipped off the grid
        no fear path found. Sensors pick up what once marveled
        so essential seeming, canvas left trails; and museum tap
        screens demonstrate how dust to code webbed tales.

        Rest best we can, filled feel . knowing it was worth
        the plastic parts played : skull scalpel phone in hand
        despite what frost ‘n’ fires put us through, hatch
        snatched from us . lucky at all we came ! brute
        incomplète . et tu.

                                                           W.W.

                      

             

               

 

                     

           LESSING

       
                                    No thinker himself, Lessing

            Was horrified by the hollows of set fear
            In which those who could think even less than he
          Dangled like bats whose sonar echoed nothing outside
            All their caves the one cave, and nothing beyond
            All its labels they had swallowed and become,
            Tags numbingly hallowed like temple-standards.

            Lessing, to challenge his own cave’s habit-mind,
            Would in blind daylight stop in mid-flight some bat
            Whose wings and lips would then flutter and swear how
          Much like a lark it was darting through its cave-free day ‒
            At which point of the wayward fiction called life,
            Lessing would be swamped with envious regard
            For the bat’s rampant pluck, its gift from blindness.

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

 

 

OH, LOOK ! BEAUTY . BREASTS YOU WILL NOT SEE

          

         Keen ? Even to start appraisal you must fall
         in . relationships end deep, lover of breast beauté.
         Better hurry, the Tags are out : for the cat walk no
         dogs allowed . district red hydrants lift. 
                                                   Pageant display drives
         might soon stop working, as bad hip splitters thread
         time past to sue; so roll with the redress, man. 

         Ankled ! plot lost vulturians : the view with crossed
         knees now considered toggling; own flown, they'll stay
         peaked . chest medal fondling. 

         There is one possibility : a crew of young fellas filing
         redacted snaps of sleep partners . a risky tort, hands
         down, rappelling the gorge; and far from the full
         court thing.
                                                                         So what’s
          left about to crow ? even the beach flyover’s off limits;
          vacations tossed to beast rough seas and great white
          stakers | bodies hauling up to shore . boat bloat nyreries,
          roiling everything.
                                                                 World wound tight
          fabric unraveling, looks like we’re screwed, mate; primed
          with . what we got now duly remastering the Oorah that
          sheds on cushions : given to give, dare who touch.

                                                                        On the podium
          for the cameras ? if you must, raise ‘n’ hold a child.

                                                                                  – W.W.

            
       

          

           
         MARA

           
        *CAUGHT still in desire's traffic-jam, Mara feels

        ‘Mara’ and ‘Qat’ are beached bricks on an island
         Of patience no storm can disturb in its sea
       Of restless angst that masks itself as Maturity
         And other institutions of Common Sense
         Like Vitamins, Organic Teas, Working Hard
         Making more Money & Talk To You Later.

        *YET talk now to each other they do not seem
         Keen to do, as though words were absurd outside
         Of their initial official engagement ‒
       Leading to no marriage. Still, it is as a couple
         Of cats that they sit there

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

 

WAYS TO EAT AN ELEPHANT

         

        So many rooms, head full of cupboards, stomach
        layers . never sure where to start; then experters come
        along with expensive knife blocks : here, use these
        like for deep hide exams ? pigment the issues fresh
        off the loin; fold next in felt . hard yield song.

        Not carve strong enough ? you have left little
        choice so torch the forest . no mercy : leaves like truth  
        loose curling; departures from intestine tangling arms.

        Or play the actor jogging flushable thoughts, all
        the while rehearsing chess clean lines : that pawn
        encroachment ! the king must turret; bishop robe hems
        lift . reseal quest answers; knights white angle links
        help islands think . breasts in distress home guard.

        If the honor files you drive or swear by keep getting
        Hits from bad mother poachers, consider new contract
        options.

        For starters those bloodlettors who IV drip ‒ not flood
        the shaft with blunt asks, then elevate sobbing tusk
        to tail portions ‒ maybe they could help. Careful,
        all the same ! is not crab legs you spreading, hairs
        like nerve ends . warm up the wonder.

                                                                 – W.W.

             

         

          

            MARA

          Mara knows she has cause but no right to curse
          Housewives, chefs and other respectable whores
          And connoisseurs of the gormandizer-arts

          They know what fresh flesh bought in the cold dawn means
          For a body’s fucking/working-energy:
          Without it, quasi-persons might lose purpose!
        Mara is not unsympathetic to the bald facts –
          And superstitions arising out – of food,
          Sex, work and death and the terror which they spawn
          In post-Edenic stomachs, hearts, guts and heads.

          Her beef is against respectable systems
          Of scorn, torture and death.

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

 

 

COMING . THE SECOND YOU KNOW

 

         
      Nothing they'll ever regret to inform . you day
      for night delighted to accept
: too beside ourselves
      as powers to arrest stay Open! accounts so our faute
      lourde break wind . since soon what clean choices
      remain?

                                                               Faith enablers
      fondle every reason we dress to believe.

      Our raptures dull like dentures in hard waters
      of habit even as we chew the sunniest celery stick ‒
      insider collusion . you know how rough colons get.

      Our liberties bend for the quick take one . U got this?
      gig room spell done! as straight face irons stroke
      the juiciest lies : the time squeeze index now
      assigned to the thumb.

      Greenheart or oak no difference makes the man
      with or in the chopper.
                                       There’s always something rare
      nonearth globe seaming : tunnels vagabundo under
      way through perimeter coils pledged to sieve Go
      north dust.

      !Caution, then | out of abundance pull book marks
      from Revelations Alert ~ glacier risings, drone high
      eye
dry grave plotters, beasts in cells ~ comings
      were never
tooth 'n' chip like this.
                                                               Crepe, I know
      in any age for any late breaking nation.
                                                                    – W.W.

 

       

      

 

         

        QAT

        Inveterate vacuum-abhorring Qat would
        Berate Charon scratching his balls on her bed:
        Better do someting before someting do you!
      Or Satan find work et cetera, and he (Charon,
        Not that other Servant of The Man Upstairs)
        Might sigh, reviewing Hamlet’s live-or-die angst,
        Bartleby’s prefer-not-to-do suicide,

        Kafka’s ‘terror’ of Art and his own of not
        Not-doing, his fate of having not to prove
        His existence save by choosing still to breathe.
      But Qat was scared of his doing nothing, of seeming
        To not need to prove himself to anyone.
        His Who cares? was not a shrug Qat could afford:
        Performance was all ‒ product, proof, more ‒ of worth.

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

  

  

STRIP THE NIGHT . SEARCH

 

        No one sells her how, shows what and then
      another child into the world howls . tossing nipple
      bottle spoon : how over the bowl her sunflower
      bearing hips one day lose faith . one life!
      rushes hard to take.

      First names from warriors past believers tag
      long after pain . issues wedged and held on
      track
risks to guard rails, the years of piling
      prayer.
                                     Lips stretched, some hoof
      still rears you come! the hells to catch for heavens
      away! Yes lords, fear chills disposed, swab night 
      crack flashings bless . song making sense.
                                                 
                                                           Until bone
     
dry, our Crabwood creek say, who in return sends
      rain barrels back?  mooring cords cut, stream lines
      that measure salt drip left . the balance
                                                        dogbagged . done
      with earth wall knots, shell trails; donors there
      trying still.
                                                    – W.W.

 

      

      

       

 

 

       QAT

      In listening to anyone, not only
    To Madame, Qat feels almost duty-bound to mistrust
      What her teacher-mother in Cameroon used
      To call verbiage (herself verbose, she mocked
      La descente indécente of other women).

      It's not because Madame’s a sewer-spout but
      L’espèce de paroles qu’elle emploie makes Qat feel
      Queasy as though there is a force pressing up
    Inside her chest and pushing against her breasts pressed down
      By the sacrée brassière she wears étriquée
      To keep her nénés looking smaller, firmer ‒
      While Madame’s sacré caquet makes them feel tight.

       (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)