∞

Sint Maarten
(for –)

i.

The Blue Bitch Bar, on the boardwalk
behind Front Street, Philipsburg,
was where we read, Friday night,
during the Book Fair —
dogs chased kids on Segways
a band played Third World classics
waitress gave me the wireless password —
patrons were polite
writers applauded each other
and you reminded me
of someone I loved, and who loved me
45 years ago.

ii.

“Casino country” said a friend,
and downtown, lining narrow cobbled streets,
jewellery stores everywhere, with elderly women
who get a tip if you enter and buy —
a yellow antique car decorates Old Street
Indian shops offer deals on saris and ipads,
and back at the book tables, you sign faith
for a young one who believes
in more than cruise-ship terminals —
but we can’t go back, you and I
to undivided lives, to love as seminal
as pelicans browsing uninvaded shallows.

iii.

At Boundary Monument, driving to Marigot
Shujah points the flag of the independence movement
for a united St. Martin
no more French lagoon, or Dutch salt pond
a mosaic “island of dreams”, multi-national, multi-lingual
cosmopolitan Caribbean —
I didn’t see enough
of bay-embraced quartiers and small hills
to measure the fantasy,
like bridging the points
between archived nostalgia
and relentless vague desire.

.

.

.

Letter
after Dionne Brand: a glosa variation

“all I can offer you now though is my brooding hand,
my sodden eyelashes and the like,
these humble and particular things I know,
my eyes pinned to your face.”

– Dionne Brand (Inventory)

I.

………………………………I must tell you how moved I was
astonished, perhaps like the wind’s castanets in palms
………..outside my window, like the shak-shak of shells

under the interfering proddings of surf —
how you drew me close, yes, to brimming
over your so-unexpected full-veined

lines that were the archetypal echo
humming under my breath
and, indeed, here you were Brand —

all I can offer you now though is my brooding hand,

II.

……….parsing your notations, perusing your inventory
………………………………of our blasted days, Aleppo now
………………………and then Nice and yesterday Orlando

tomorrow Laventille again, Trench Town recurrent
Richmond Hill impossible to forget —
ossuaries, yes, of failed states and their politricks

babies broken on beaches, Mediterranean
drowned in overladen caravels
our islands’ doomed alleys mocking

my sodden eyelashes and the like —

III.

………………..exhausting, these post-modern certainties
………………………………no truth, no meaning, no author
………..no beauty I suppose in the old songs of remembering

upon drum, string and bones
dimpled laugh of the old woman who loves you
long arms of the dancer from San Fernando

sacramental light rimming the ends of sunsets
languid cruising of scissor-tailed seabirds
through our horizons, reading a fine poet from Toronto —

these humble and particular things I know,

IV.

………….add thresholds of jalousied doorways I crossed
….pursuing mystery love, drawn even then by the echo
………..quivering on metronomes of evening softnesses

to find faith waiting in lines of dread-locked canticles
pointing couplets of dark sayings
terrible chapters of mighty prophecies —

anyway, like some minor April epiphany
am downtown Port of Spain, corner Hart & Abercromby
and you reading, tenderly, at Bocas

my eyes pinned to your face.

∞