Tag: Guyana

EVEREST PEAK : DIABLO HEAT

                

          Climbers past, not feathered for memoirs, relieved to be done,
          admit to weird post office dreams. They see savannah walkers
          carrying ballots like cement blocks in lines that wrap around
          Mt. Everest building . a freaking castle? on the mountain?
               "Si, señor!" . and pole flags victory clapping.


          They hear the grey skull scratch, Boy, up there not easy; chief stick  
          on teaming shaggy like sled dogs; while 'norita servers turn and toss
               hot plate complaint like wish bone out gorge windows.


          They brace as pledge cords snap  ̶  Ay dios mio! Where the fuck those
          people going?  ̶  as tree limbs burst old empire banks put rusted cargo
               ships on notice : the salmon are leaping! man woman child
               steeping! steerage rules broke . writs sent out for repair.


              Plunge accounts like rum flow down : pre-dawn summit 
                  sightings  ̶  the palms of angels catching water
                       drips from cloud torn linings. 

                                                         *         

           Leagues past cigars and beards, our island shores : well, so it seems.
               Need lease? consider Petit Jamoon Bay . our Walcott sea sides
           noblesse drawn. You could by any home stretch of the imagination
               chest swell . I-ditate . bottom up the seasons bare.

               Full disclosure : we're capped in bottled thirst-slake drafts. Snow
               storms sweep blind . sift grain worlds resettling : just not here. 
           
               There you frost breaker dare you, plow the tomato red to green;
               our seed beds lay unburnished, sun rain night time mean. 
                                                                                             But your pick 
           axe hooked that all the while, Mr. Marley. The best of us Google 
               now : iTag, mercy on us \ . 
 
                                                                                       – W.W.

 


                 

 

    

 

                                   
                         ALPINE GHOSTS

                         Entire mountains can be erased 
                         by mere clouds

                                              loitering

                                                            on their
                              way out of being
                              their focus of none,
                         and, from reaching our next clear path
                         of Heaven, discouraging us 
                             with their slow grey threat
                             which our fading feet

                         nevertheless ignore to flesh out 

                         the echoes

                                        of the steps

                                                         of men
                         long dead, men long dead,
                         men long dead, long dead. 

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

 

               

NEW PROPOSALS TO NOT JUMP OFF THE JETTY

                 
                
           Cabinet will commission sentry line palings for the seawall
           so quick break! you wouldn't wave dive . go oil thiefing . perish
           and embarrass the thought. They hold you so dear. 

           Newspapers are working to not bad spell your name
           when headlines report you missing . while weeds, verily they say,
           engrave the stone.

           City Council will over pave the old Dutch canals . design
           bicycle lanes for youth access to specialties in vanity and vein  ̶   
           heir to estate royalty and drain.

           Chinese built pump platforms will enable lift lag balloons : retail
           bamboo flare up rods for won't fly rooms; test more with less.

           Cabinet will cordially invite British monarchy to consider retirement
           on a horse ranch : equestrian smiles from the Venezuela border. For so
           God saves the gracious.

                                                                   < First, run checks 
           how all that works for you. And give thanks  ̶  if you go dead
           comrades won't thank you, yea though they walk.

                         Ships have deep space gone before > rest assured :
           dust to done nothing out there veers for mating. Stars like bullion
             mast the rig wind regardless. In crafting passage the leap clears 
               from a raft of temptations as the eagle at daybreak discovers.

                                                                                          – W.W.

 

                    

                  

 

 

   

                              
                            ADDICTION

                            I:  

                            A dash to the edge of a cliff  ̶  to brake,
                            his wings unopened, and to turn back,
                            sighing at having survived again
                            this game of attempts, of determined doubt.

                            II: 
  
                            All is habit, except the habit
                            of none. And what lean logical men can
                            say of that is the fattest habit yet.

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

 

 

 

 

 

CUTS SHORT

                        
                
               Eye witness heard Satira bounce twice on the spring
               board  ̶  gripping her phone . releasing fabric tear. A foreign
               correspondent recalls : The elephant in the city you ride 
               nobody sees, lip bit whispers. And that was it : cloud permit, 
               lung swell . stay sail up . wind rush.
                                                    Old Kaie's foam spread mooring rocks :
               bundle wet wrapped in savings  >  from up there delivery.

               So sunned we called her Tarby; so bright she flew to London
               on scholarship and ultimatum . married . appointment in New
               Zealand. Two grown girls came back to visit Mom's first
               village, smiles of circle full on caramel faces.

               Heard Bolo passed . the village rubbish truck man? relayed
               Pavarotti tracks in his bath room after work : chord
               belt strong . tossed streamer-like arpeggios. Arm lift
               soaring searchers, breath masters, of the old universe. 

               Quiet touch smart swiper : so the chip subcools the muscle in
               mouse moves.

               Bug winged drone probe here for sky shield warping  ̶  source
               close call, line inland bare holding. 
                                                                          – W.W.

 


                    

                    

 
 

                                
                           SPIRAL LEVEL

                           There is a certain moment of hell,
                               at whichever level
                                    the soul finds itself, 

                           blind no more and so no longer lost
                               when, standing at the last
                                     gate of its latest 

                           stage of accustomed darkness and pain
                               and about to climb in
                                   to a clearer zone,

                           it turns to cling to what it has known,
                               and falls or steps back down
                                    afraid to be seen

                           betraying those it must leave behind,
                               afraid of being bound
                                   by freedom's new bond 

                          to the choice between that groove and this
                              ecstasy, that stasis
                                  and this chance to rise.

 

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

 

 

CLEARER SINS

                                                                           

 

                                                            "Had seen it before but now saw it again
                                                             as if he had not seen it before and as though
                                                             a new religious feeling (and response on his part)
                                                             arose from it."  
                                                                  ̶   Wilson Harris, "Companions of the Day 
                                                                                                      and Night"                    
                                                                                                                                                                    
                  I.

                   
                  Of all this how much happened because he wanted us
                  so much to dazzle? through heat down stingy brim crown
                  governing days : Sunday drizzle making stroll thoughts scurry : it
                  might ruin his patent leather dues, washed pressed again church
                  shirt. Coin saver, bruising us : Be more.

                  On his bicycle air field straight ahead, the public road in strips,
                  our father could not know finch blue tendons had taken leave
                  of his fences; the village stilts . bitter rooting back and mud
                  dam! forth.
                  
                  He'd pedal high into sky canyons, far out to humorless sea wind
                  expansion. This was the path in trance he cleared for us, his way
                  out . full chest folding hug without  ̶̶  But why you always so?   

                  As night spread straw, shrugged insect bites . room lamp 
                  hush urge, his lust stern rites : Ma's receiver shift would yield
                  hold heave the maroon banana . green peel and flagrancy.


                  II  
                        
                  Braid tight high fibres recognize their kind  ̶  what vines
                  face climbing find  ̶  the tree the river mountain rock.

                  III

                                At gravity's prompt home wages paid, one Welcome
                  nod was all : received : head still hard shoulders back to crop
                  sown brooding days.

                                He loved to hear  ̶  sight in retreat; does humming calm
                  as done hand shakes?  ̶  how we'd turned out in capitals : London,
                  New York : so far from where the leaf blade willed . cane to punt 
                  bind grind molasses pointing . crystal vessels away.

                                Lot marks of wrist  ̶  who would believe some cursive            
                  tissue dwelt inside this script? Own man who tended dreams
                  in tamarind, the stone prepares . sensing  ̶  fates unclasped,
                  last twilight ceding  ̶  eyes dried might watch the glow pass on.

                                                                                          - W.W. 
    

 

                   

 
                                                      -   In mem C.A.  –

                                                               

                    THE POINT'S CIRCLE'S POINT


                       To be thankful for the pointing points
                   of breath itself is life itself given
                       flesh of pointed mind and rounded heart
                     ̶  though but one man's, the whole universe's;
                        only one point in time, its centre
                    in floating detached love for the circle
                        it has seeded and allowed to sprout
                     dreams of its own, with witnessing dreamers
                         ̶  as a naked Winter tree still bears
                    the eager memory of the return
                 of her dreamt and dreaming fruits of Love's merci. 

                   Look, the tree is empty but also full
                       of the buds of bird wind cloud sky and
                   a man's eyes becoming its fruit, the egg
                      of the Sun unyolked by clouds, only
                  to have its light filtered regardless pure
                      across a morning so still you know
                   it is still dreaming and still being dreamt
                        ̶  as a bird quivering at the peak
                  of an evergreen, affirms  ̶  in its flesh
                      of gratitude for wings  ̶  that dream-flight
                by both glad circling and eager centering.

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

 

 

BAMBOO POST IN YUH ROUNDHOUSE

  

                          
                  After the feast so much depends on no one noticing till you reach
                  Canada. You could be "sent on leave" if you get caught. But listen,
                  ask for Chouki; he's mih friend; tell him I send you.

                  Prime time consummation : the bridegroom in beads plays the theme
                  for love there after : complaining he tired sitting and smiling all
                  afternoon : So hurry up, nah : seedlings seething.

                  We don't skin crêpe like Americans. Our Indians didn't hunt buffalo.
                  I know is you, this driver smiled, as Clint Eastwood walked away
                  from his maxi taxi (the horn does honk La Cucaracha). 

                  Out of sadness out of words hand wrings touch your arm. Our victims
                  prefer the sponge. Heart don't swim in numbers, don't speak Statistics.
                  The Book of Revelation sheathes my sword and everybody's business.

                  This child we call Nation, considering the licks he get from parents
                  poor, growing up sullen and own way : a crocodile on the bank, field
                  gold in John Crow circles, he breathes in sea particles. Tewé Vaval, 
                  his call.
 

                  You dry log years in office, shifty for highness . Grade I. Then one
                  day : braps! : bad feelings. That pasture holding strain . set 'o crab
                  hard in yuh grass, roots man . more than you know. 


                  This English explorer would move a finger up the thighs of his
                  Amerindian help mate. There are subtle differences . fate lines,
                  he felt certain. In his published findings not a snitch.


                  Pertaining to plantain shares, consumer confidence remains high. Plus
                  as you may recall : some women practiced meditation picking bad
                  rice from enamel bowls back in the day; hind most mind full
                              on haunch, it cured essential tremors.

                                                                                           – W.W.
                          

 

                                     

   

  

 

                          
                  THERE'S A THREE-LEGGED DOG


                  keeping pace with his brisk unsentimental mistress
                  who leads him across
                  pulsing veins of impatience we call city-traffic
                  and makes him climb stairs.
                  All this he does with a graceful lack of fuss: nothing
                  to do but balance
                  from the centre of his lack of symmetry, the line
                  quivering between
                  his eye and the ground his second fourth and first fifth leg.

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

 

    

 

 

HORN FOR THE BULL

                         

                   Fielding the call our island man concluded the pen felt stroke
                   mild when so much paper wipe comes printing at you as sage
                   bush news; and old stick fighters steupsing rise recall the last
                   raised tamarind rod . old quill stain thumbs down days.

                   Arenas here all hail the matador  ̶  his tasseled heights, take under
                   rites, sweet torso moves to skirt swirl reds  ̶  blood seeders . whoa!
                   core eaters.

                   Game point's the same: the bull released to mouth piece dribble, mob
                   throat cheer  ̶  while somehow sword trust must get this bufu mother
                   hoofer to kneel roll over pass for common sense.

                   Our man chose the main road megaphone  ̶  in no way shape a babble
                   browser  ̶  sending heat at sun glass shield so drivers slant side
                   mirror blur or custom scarf for shade and virtue grey. 

                                                                               Shoot him!  ̶  you just assume
                   his dead line wouldn't from gully to post be missed; style making
                   passa passa miles true way enrolling.

                   Now with left click uplink, how do you validate? how jump
                   the wall? start search delight beyond the fissure scent . knowing 
                                                                                                            some desk
                   top king might gong vogue muscles round your user head: grapple
                   the body mass to ground: your page unfoldered . up the spread for all
                   stuffed in . passion found put out.

                                                               The end sheds bark for beaks that peck
                   at keys. It's left to signs in box set down to feed attention, thread
                   whisperings you needle. Usually for most injury to profile share is
                   configured non-life-threatening  > web worms the gut deserves.

                                                                                               – W.W. 

 

                        

                                                   
                                                     ̴   In mem.  Courtney Crum-Ewing   ̴   
                                                                        Demerara  .  March  2015           

                      

                    

                    CALL 


                     Through the voice of the very thing you love,
                       a ghost whispers: You shall unaddict:
                          this dream is yours, but not to keep
                          repeating, unless you do not
                            mind finding yourself lost
                            in a deep groove of hell
                     that is no less than paradise burst
                    rotten out of your dream's ripe accustomed sleep.

                     Now still dreaming that you're about to fall
                       asleep, you can hear a horn, behind
                         all dreaming, in a distant call
                         for release, from your latest stage
                           of dreams become a cage, 
                           to the zone beyond all
                       need for dreams this dense, though itself one
                    more crystal sigh of the Word given crisp breath. 

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

                            

 

 

                     

TIGHT SHORTS, or ROME SUN BLOCKS WITH OTHERS NOW

  

                       
             There were Dutch canals and corner shops, dray cart trot hot stand
             pipe news; and heads so royal tied, knights picked through sweat
             band claims. Sly mongoose under studied bush snake cruise.

             You crossed the river by ferry, wondered about the traction on faces
             looking up from the stelling. You bought a ticket for the train and
             for forest pursuits  ̶  down cast off souls risk rafting after lives.

             Police men carved clean handsome paths leaving the yard in parade
             uniforms. Civil servants worked like lodgers with no next of kin. That
             someone wanted you dead happened only on a ridge  ̶  Comanche!
             
             On Sunday "classical" and church bells called song and ward 
             robe to order. Taboo and tassa drums signaled anchor rites passing
             bare feet away  ̶  long story . loss found new . like root cell divide.

             Cicada nights before television and "sex" found guest room I was handy
             man for Bertha fat radio tubes, fixing fast Iris eye pass. "Death
             Announcements" brought us together as daily bread pulled us apart.

             Crime like poor demeanor led to punishment; innocents out sourced
             Shakespeare's sonnets for liniment. That sounds so common, strivers 
             would note, crouching for office, Yardley for class. The not said was felt.

             Marijuana was discovered by a gang weeder who chopped his big
             toe by mistake and marvelled at blood spots on leaf. Rice cane weed
             tree green surround  ̶  hard to tell where gnarl knots had sloth in.

             With estate duties in memory cues hands moored unwinding sari 
             vessels and sun set; lowered in flower bowls faith stems for carpel pray
             lay. Few stock holds prized the life unroostered. Alieno solo, I swear.

                                                                                                 – W.W.

 

 

                           

  

                      

    

                        

                    LONSTEIN'S CONVENTION                

                       
                   A washer of the dead is what I am:
                   I refuse to embalm or embellish.
                   I give you back these bags as they are  ̶  bald
                   or hairy, purple or pink. Unimpressed,
                   I peel away their fashionable frills
                   of lace or blood or creed. But after
                   I've done washing away their dead serious
                   superstitions and myths oozing like pus,
                   the tongue remains their most active organ.
                   And for every corpse I lay out naked,
                   there's some mother waiting to have it dressed
                   and spruced up for a cocktail memorial.
                   Hopeless. But as I say, I wash, that's all.

                     (from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan)   
 

 

 

MR. FIELDS WOULD BUFF THE GROOVES

                           

                          
             Lesson in song preludes  ̶  though youth file phoning couldn't
             care less these days: the plug swipe send device delivers 
             content straight into your stream; heads nod, foot taps so old.

             He'd pull the vinyl from its sleeve with love rag polish
             the voice key mastering. His finder's code: to keep
             the treasure  ̶   for as long as  ̶  glean pristine.

             Band width on turntable, the lever cue; the needle's first nut
             crackling touch; and this insight: Now while Sinatra's busy
             entertaining, here's how Ray Charles serves from his line
             toss dark. 

             One skip, one wobble  ̶  wave signal ruined, the record shelved.

             No scruffier corner of the globe: the sun and arch of Georgetown
             after noons  ̶  the fun scrub prep root universe we made and played,
             his studio breaks the notes consumed. 
                                                         The life in those days; our wakefulness.    
             What track list impulse frequency link in like that?    

                                         Some sounds some times
                              like rivers teem meander ship fit coast
                 land bound. As bow wings beat sea lanes release great white
             winds dare you beam  ̶  untied unchartered  ̶  Tide quavers trace
                             how long far gone; hand lift cheer which way.

                                                                                                           – W.W.
                                                                                              
                   

                     

                                                                            

                                                                                           
                       

                     FORCE RIPE

                     A tree does not surrender its fruit
                                     until it is ripe
                     nor an egg a chick until its wing is
                                     sharp as a beak
                     nor a bird her nestlings until she is sure
                                     they can fly
                     nor a jeweler issue diamonds unless
                                     they are clear.
                     But an impatient poet aborts his
                                     labour's nuggets
                     by tossing them off while they are still
                                     crude, dull and earthbound
                     like seeds too blind to filter light, too green
                                     to green become.

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

                               

                         

AIR PLANES OF 1914

  

                        
               Those French boys, second job poets, knew how to fly. Ask
               the last pilot he'd argue they were simply trying to over rise
               great war ruinations, though their wheels barely left the ground. 

                                                    Like the hour hand in cane fields raised
               to wipe high brow, shape shift on horse cork hat skin peelers; right
               at which point  ̶  no camera record  ̶  neck chords stretch new syllables
               for ghost bird flaring bone intuitivity. A sail plane drawing light.


               Had we known then they existed, imagine this night jam: Cuatro
               breath picks scanning long stuck hope in sheet less throat as wood
               winds wait at the Bachland gates and creole prints decline Cézanne
               liked shimmery palms, our efflorescence bruised. 

               Not much now [we who came through] we could do?


                                                                  Hard enough to leave the village 
               dead trees down settle for town ship shack land fill scratch the search
               when body parts.             
                                                                                  Yet ocean news broad 
               cast now Libya boarding . brokers back to belly stoking. With faith
               stall sea cross beam to bear  ̶  la fin préférable à distance  ̶  wade
               out wager all in.  


                                                               Who knows? Des Imagistes returning
               might buzz your wave defences; might air drop flight hide patterns 
               for too oil slick delta wings.

                                                                          For starters, look closely  ̶
               the aureole round that captain's head, wreath laurel or crow circle?
               that .dot funnel on the horizon, rescue ship coming or going?

                                                                                                        Arm over
               arms in wonder, stroke the breath beats. Deep sunk, reach up  >  touch
               the black obelisk. Rocks so you Rock so,

                                                                                          – W.W. 

                   

                  

 


                              

    

                            
                        THE OTHER VOICE
                               

                        Let its flame slip through the cracks
                           of your usualness:
                        sometimes there is no other way
                           to keep on becoming,
                        as the sun at your core will
                           either translate itself
                        as rays of word, or choke you.

                        At other times, voice is nothing
                           but a maze of broken
                        babble, writer's or reader's,
                           and you are reminded
                        how dense spirit's mask can be,
                           how sealed its heavy sleep
                        against flares of light would

                 
                        challenge, when all you want is your
                           latest dark distraction,
                        your next tale of boys and girls
                           stubbing their souls against
                        their furniture of desire 
                           and fear  ̶   perfect reading
                        of your own soul's postponed text

                        of urgent pain as the blade
                            to cut through custom's crust,
                        just to cast you in one more
                            mêlée-drama of change,
                        some drab nightmare that will force
                            you awake to allow
                        the flame to utter its need.

 

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

             

  

 

DESERT ISLANDS BUCKTA POSING

 

                                                                                                           
                                                                                   for Terence Roberts

                            I

                       Like cow down on grass reservation oceans away from  ̶  right
                     click  ̶  camera eyes securing fear contagious, our shelters huddle
                     up.
                                 Gone the estate thatched roof levels. Demerara windows
                     rattle. Age tilled fields choke at what those Ox yoked registers
                     have provisioned. 
                                     Rum and racket fire unrest all night; street chandeliers
                     deflower the hours. Until their day the meter men read leaves.

                                       Watch as cut off this old lady's bones await departure 
                     in galvanize rust wrap. Next door a dry good Boysie build one
                     double decker grilled roost with chariot parked and back yard
                     pooled for swim mate ceremony  ̶  making patently no difference
                     to heads of deportment around the world. 
                                                                                                          So sky
                     ward off the past  ̶  a kind of luxury  ̶  he must be guard and 
                     feeding something: baskets of coinage hanging like bats; hairy 
                     spider lips  ̶  with balcony to belly up window blinds to peep
                     whisper kneel behind; focus on quiet sucking.    
                                                                                                 Cane sweet    
                     habits slow to burn, oui!

                                   
                         II

                     The sun probes each day's caries, bite clamps we grind on.
                     The years hang sheets of flesh wrung signs young life will
                     all its moisture spend here.
                                                                Faux book bound mirrors flatter fault
                     line tremblers, peon feet stick tending mud with cow. In wonder
                     land like Sisyphus our Kaie climbs gold rungs up to falls you can't
                     imagine.
                                                   Quick! blame the coca brokers, the pain
                     box drain no longer working; seed beads sewn on chest
                     vests east or west we wear.
                                                                      And wait, nah! we still arriving
                     from old continents: jaguar optics, bit inland map reading. Need more
                     time to hack scrub out: particles faith lionising, limbo spine toll
                     gate raising.

                     As midnight cools the savannah  ̶  listening above the crickets
                     for jangling spurs, good old Clint!  ̶  grab iron fire ball full moon
                     tales  ̶  Yep, just a few flight deck finishing touches left.

                                                                                                  – W.W.
                                                                            

 

 

                                

       
                                                                                                           
                            

  

                         

                      IN THE DESERT


                      To shorten the distance between oases
                         carefully cross each, and hold fast to none. 
                              Take each one's pool and fruit as your breath
                                 made lighter the briefer their taste,
                                    but a dark stone the longer
                                    you remain, more and more sand
                                 collecting about your ankles 
                             till the water and figs disappear,
                          leaving you in the shadow of a stump
                       to pin on it a picture of its green past.

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