[for Victor Davson . Andrew Lyght]
Late afternoons, at six and a half, cycling through the cane
fields I'd think of you gone younger days; how you helped turn
our sea wall into Ciné sets : our jetty not for goggled bikers;
the row boats that set out to confirm the rare loom of ocean
liners.
Aristocrats of yearning ~ our limbs no longer in lift wait
after watching I Vitelloni ~ we stirred like runaways
in the troolie shade at middays.
We found alone fat women ~ vendors of wharf lapping stern
rites : powdered for evenings they let us dock if we glided
in like gentlemen lodgers . give takings sweat spread sheets :
Oompah!
Flatland dried out of inspiration? Start seeing what others
don't, Giulietta smiled : the make beliefs in our forests where
one strong man turns Amerindian and rivers rumble like motor
cycle flocks gunning for the falls [trails to palace gates
mist . peacock sightings]
Roraima dipped the brush with art galleries : New York, new
havens . eyes widening as strokes reveal how our kites flew :
back in short pants out in the Georgetown light, waving
to Marcello who tried writing in a coffee shop here after
he'd shrugged off the beach fish washed up sweet meets.
Sea air routes now risk grave ends . mass heads strike
out core hollowed. No question : who knows cares why
what odyssey.
One fine day ~ Ciao! to time past prime ~ Fine to stilt acts,
the clown nose snake whip snapping at our brides : we'll join
your tent circus band in new orbit : ring dance to flute
day lighting stars.
– W.W.
WITH POLO AND ANTONIONI
IN CHINA
Things have never really worked, though we vagrants
have always fished around and changed our clothes
and donned masks most revealing of our nature
and murdered others for wearing their own masks
paid for or stolen in recognition
that things as we know them do not work.
So stories of the past have to change their tense
and their conditions: Things work and
they are working while we dream that the waters
we have plunged into are melting our sarongs
and all we can do is walk on the waves
back to some shore or into the Sun.
Back on all shores, we are walking all around
and past and through others so as to get ̶
beg buy or steal ̶ something we deserve and think
we do not have
to think about, only use
to stamp our latest version of ourselves
as final model of things so-so
̶ till the next bomb's proof that both we and things do
work, as we continue to search for fish
and tell of our nightmares with a smile or sigh
turning them into things merely like our selves
walking naked on the waves of our day-
dreams, complaining of things not working,
as they should be ̶ the way they always have been.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 