tongues of the ocean

My Father’s Hands

webmaster — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:02:23 +0000

I remember my father pushing back the living room furniture, “to build build a boat.” Sister Thomas, my third grade teacher that fall, snorted, “What an imagination!” We were learning the difference between New Testament and Old, and she asked me, “Is he like Noah then, constructing an ark?” But it wasn’t like we were expecting a flood. In the beginning, he laid out the blueprints in that long room that spanned the length of our former tavern now house, but creation began in the barn. She would be a catboat. I pictured a feline bow, with stained glass eyes, green on starboard, red on port. At first a skeleton of beams, he nailed her ribs, shaped her hefty hull, caulked and painted her flesh planks. With a bottle of Cold Duck, he christened her the “Flying Clod.” We practiced the cycle of sail raising with a sea chanty: Off with the sail covers, Unknot the ties, Pull up the main sail, Try not to jibe, before tacking out to Star Island, peeing in a bucket, rowing ashore for pistachio ice-cream, skipping beach stones. At anchor we would swim off Clod’s wide stern, my father’s hands pulling us back aboard. On return trips, while my brothers kept watch for Moby Dick, as ship’s cabin girl, I’d serve saltines with split slices of American cheese. As Captain at the rudder, my father would raise an imaginary cocktail glass, “Cheers! Thar she blows!” his laughter hearty, like sails singing up the halyard.

.
•••

catch a fire prompts for February 2010: testament, fall, beach, nail, cycle

•••

Ellen M. Taylor’s most recent poetry collection is titled Floating (Moon Pie Press). She has published in literary journals across the United States. An associate professor of English at the University of Maine, her interests include poetry of witness and marginalized voices. She lives in Appleton, Maine with her husband.

Ellen M. Taylor

Urban War

webmaster — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:01:24 +0000

Urban War by Randall Baker

•••

Urban War

Bumboclaat, whole heap o’ gunshot
Police and soldier come in a jeep back
Everywhere me turn more bullet pop off
Lord have mercy, man, we’re under attack
Get out your car, but you can’t reach car
The road block off, it’s an urban war

Me can’t take me children down at the park
Can’t leave the house anytime after dark
Neighbourhood’s a powder keg just waiting a spark
Rude boys don’t play them don’t skylark
Stay out the water ‘cause it full up of shark
Some of them dog bite worse than them bark
Police and thief them out ‘pon the street
Beg somebody tell me when the violence gwine cease

Bad man selling drugs out them tatu
Them move a night like say them a patu
Draw them gun and no care if them shot you
Caught in the cross fire, don’t matter what you do
Wicked man smell blood and them just can’t resist
No do a damn thing, but you ‘pon him hit list
Lord, is a wonder how we even exist
So, here me bawl once again

Bumboclaat, whole heap o’ gunshot
Police and soldier come in a jeep back
Everywhere me turn more bullet pop off
Lord have mercy, man, we’re under attack

……………………….Bumboclaat

•••

Randy Baker lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and daughter. His poetry has most recently appeared in tongues of the ocean and The Copperfield Review. He maintains a blog at http://digitalcalabash.blogspot.com.

Randall Baker

The fishmonger’s wife

webmaster — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:02:11 +0000

Baskets of fish heave mighty wharves
of warm stench, speckling my doorway
like broken crabs—spindly legs askew.
.
Because I am a fishmonger’s wife
you thought you could visit me at night,
unaware
.
on summer mornings
I smell of conches, their smooth
white glide and sound of sea.
.
At nights your women sit in front of
mirrors with fairness creams, but I
claw through their mountains of dirt
.
with water-scabbed hands,
and their darkness seeps into me,
cutting across skin and muscle
.
leaving my teeth, eyes
so bright
they could be radium.
.
One day,
I will lift my skirts and breasts,
my bulging haunches,
.
peel layer after layer and see
how thick rays of that darkness
have soaked deep, become inextricable,
.
that on stepping out of my body
I will find my very bones have turned
black.
.
•••

C.S. Bhagya lives in Bangalore, India. She is an undergraduate of psychology, English literature, and journalism. Her work has appeared before in the online literary journal Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k).

C.S. Bhagya

Island Girl Discusses Methods of Removing Blood from Cotton

webmaster — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:01:57 +0000

First thing, just pray it white, cause white could clean.
Them other colour-dem too bright and fast,
like Maisie-down-the-road-dem eldest child,
who walk around with switch in her behind.
They need to put switch on it, make her mind—
but where I was? Yeah, just make sure it white.
Is cotton they pick to dye with, right? White
the only thing you get blood off like that.
And then you need a lime, some salt, and sun.
Don’t wash it first, cause blood will set, and stain
and give the thing away. So cut the lime
and rub it on the blood, and cover that
with salt and lay it flat, and let the sun
shine on it. Leave it out just long enough
to let the bloodstain fade, then take it in
and rinse it. Wash it then. The blood is gone.
.
•••

Nicolette Bethel is a Bahamian playwright, poet, anthropologist and blogger and the founding editor of tongues of the ocean. Her work has been published in a variety of print and online publications, including Calabash, The Caribbean Writer, Trespass Magazine, and The Caribbean Review of Books.

Nicolette Bethel

Spoken Tone

webmaster — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:02:57 +0000

•••

Born Cleveland W. Eneas III, March 9, 1977, and now known as Anku Sa Ra, this old soul has journeyed through life as an artist in many respects and uses it, art, to share with the world, all that has been shared with him.

Anku Sa Ra

Me. Writing.

webmaster — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:01:12 +0000

Blank page. Pen. Tea with three sugars. Mahogany desk by the window. Faint smell of fresh, cheap varnish, and white tiles mopped with bleach. Chair facing the door, then the window, then the door. Orange sun beaming though the blinds. Room tinted with a pale, yellow glow. Sepia effect. Like an old, dusty photograph. Beautiful. Beautiful but blinding. Blinds pulled. Quiet room. Blank page. Stare at the walls. The bare, white walls. Bare. Boring. Blank. Take some tea. Wait. Look at the tea. Hot tea. Hot, thin smoke slithering out of the cup. Dances for a second, stretches out like a yawning spider web, and then swirls into nothingness. Touch the cup. Hot. Hot, sharp, piercing heat. Brief, needling pain. Heart beat picks up for a moment, starts to rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, and then slows. Falls to a heavy thump, thump, thump, thump. Sip the tea.

Eyes closed.

Darkness. Or something like darkness. Darkness pregnant with light. Darkness that stretches in a million directions, and sparkles with something quite like light. Tea radiates warmth in my belly. Breathe out. Breathe out and feel the tea on my tongue, and the coarse brown sugar caught in my throat.

Fly through time.

I’m rocking back and forth, and back and forth. Sipping, rocking, sipping, rocking. The chair is squeaking. Faintly squeaking. Only I can hear it. Maybe the cat can too. She sits on top of the piano, black as pitch with sickly yellow eyes. Purring. She always purrs when she’s in heat. The purring and the squeaking and the tick-tock of the grandfather clock keep time moving forward. Rusty kettle sits on top of a white, rusty stove. Rainy season. Kettle whistles in the kitchen. Grey clouds stir in the afternoon sky. The clock ticks and tocks and the clouds swell and turn black. Black like the cat. Tea is warm. The kettle whistles again, higher pitch. The air tightens. Faint footsteps thump down the corridor. The kettle whistles higher and higher, ready to spit. I listen. Footsteps thump louder, closer. Kettle screams. Too late. She empties herself like a pregnant balloon whose rubber has stretched thin and tight with air and been pricked with a pin.

“Shit. God damn it.”

Daddy’s voice,

“You mean you couldn’t have gotten…”

Thunder

“Look at you, just sitting there and drinking tea,”

Tightness

“You mean to tell me you couldn’t have gotten off your ass and turned off the God damn stove.”

Eyes open.

Tea is cold. Swirl the last drop and let it pick up the sugar that has stuck to the bottom of the cup. Drain it. Make a slurping noise. The cold tea is so sweet that it cuts my throat. Sweet, ice cold tea. Look at the desk. There is a black ball point pen that writes too thinly. Pick it up and roll it in my palm. Potential. Click it once. The tip sticks out. Like a snake’s tongue. No. Like the tip of a crab’s gundy, reaching out from it’s sandy hole, reaching for the sun. No. It sticks out like a pen. Draw a line on the page. Draw a circle. Draw a spiral. Wait. Nothing. Click it once more. The point slips back inside, tension gone. Click, click, click, click until I flick my wrist and send the pen flying across the desk. Daddy’s voice does not make the page.

Stand up. Stretch. Crack knuckles. The cracks echo and bounce across the quiet room. Three day old beard itches at the jaw line. Nagging itch. Peek through blinds. Orange sky dyed pink. Sickly pink. Pepto Bismal pink. Walk in a circle. Left, then right, then left, then right. Trance. I need a trance. Left, then right, then left, then right. Small circle. Dizzying circle. Left, right, left, right, left right left right left right left right. Stop. Sink into chair. Head still moving in a circle. Room moving in a circle. Stare at paper. Paper trembles. Pick up pen. Pen trembles. Maybe something. Wait. Maybe a line. One line. The first line. The first line has to be good. It’s all over without a good first line. Wait. Just wait.

Nothing

Eyes closed

Darkness. Darkness and light at the same time. This is how it must work. Shadows drift by. Fuzzy images. Time collides in the center. Time revolves around me. It all revolves around me. Memory. Yes. Big memories. The ones that stick. The ones that hurt. This is where it must begin.

On the plane. Window seat. Forehead pressed against cold glass. Vein thumping. Air hostess pours hot amber tea into a white plastic cup. Milk, my dear? Please. Sugar, my dear? Three. Salty, sticky tears mark cheeks like war paint. Phone calls that stick. Phone calls that change everything and force you to go on a plane.

“Come home.”

Mummy’s voice, trembling.

“Just come.”

That’s what she said.

Life changes in an instant. One fucked up instant. This will stick. Forehead is pressed against the cold glass and my stomach is churning violently inside of my belly. Grief is toxic and it in churns in your bowels, like poison. Everything all right, my dear? Yes. More tea, my dear? Yes, more tea. Plane cuts through a fat, white cloud and starts to tremble with turbulence.

Write it down.

“You have to come home.”

That was Mummy’s trembling voice and that is what she said.

Eyes open

Flat, blank pages scattered across the desk. Blank pages crumpled up into useless balls strewn across the room. Nothing makes it. The room fades to darkness as the pink sky slips behind the distant mountain. Peek through the blinds. The inky blackness of night, dotted with pale, distant stars spills over the curved sky. A chorus of squeaking frogs cuts through the quiet night and crescendos to a deafeningly high-pitched roar. The moon is hidden behind a veil of darkness, with only a slender crescent peeking out from behind the black sky.

Turn on light switch. Click. Room floods with unnatural florescent light. Blinding, sickly light. Fake light that belongs in a hospital ward. Click. Fade to darkness. A candle. That’s what I need. Open desk drawer and fumble in the darkness for a candle. Desk is filled with clutter. Empty notebooks with metallic spirals snaking through the spine, cool to the touch. Sharpened pencils whose tips press into the soft, spongy tips of my fingers. Rulers with sharp, silver edges. Bottles of sticky liquid paper. Candles. Short, bumpy candles whose wax has melted and cooled before. Blackened wicks which stand erect. Small, yellow box of matches. Shake it to make sure it’s not empty. Strike a match. Sulphur fills the room, for an instant. Flame burns tall, and shadowy shades of red and yellow begin to pulse over the desk. The pages glow in the candlelight and, for the first time, seem ready.

Words. Start with the words. Words that sting. Words that make you cringe. Say a word out loud enough and it no longer seems like a real word. Jesus. Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. No longer seems real. Nothing seems real. Blank. Blank, useless pages, White as the cold tiles which smell like bleach and make your eyes sting. Tension. Tension grips you by the neck. The words no longer seem real. Fading focus. Take glasses off and let the room go blurry.

Try a different approach. Put glasses back on. Start with something else.

Characters.

That’s what makes a story. Real flesh and bone characters. Characters that you can see, and hear, and smell. Sweaty, greasy, three-dimensional characters that belch, and fart, and swear. Call them out of the darkness.

Write

…Classroom. Filled with squeaky, squealing children. They have no names. They need no names. Children that are there to just squeak and squeal and fill the room with noise. Midday heat. Religion class…

Stare at the walls. Wait for more.

…Teacher walks in. A fat teacher. A fat priest. Father fatty. No. Father Harris. His skin is dark. Pitch lake dark. His bloated, sweat soaked body stinks of rum and curried fish. He waddles to the front of the class, a plastic smile etched into his dark, fat puffed cheeks. He swivels around, slowly, and pulls a stick of white chalk out from his chalk dusted khaki pants…

Take a breath. A deep, satisfying breath. Go with it.

…A zephyr, perfumed by the bay leaf trees, blows through the classroom, and a hush falls over the squealing children. Father Harris, with a ceremonial slowness, digs his chalk into the blackboard and in large, flowing letters writes,

IT IS ALL A LIE

The children yelp….

…Father Harris…

There is no Father Harris. There are no children. Nothing is there. Purple vein, cutting through the neck, starts thumping wildly. Tear up page. Tear it up until it looks like confetti. Throw it in the air and let it fall on the desk like warm snow.

Stand up. Pace wildly from one wall to another. One, two, three. Turn around. One, two, three. It’s a three step kind of room. Exhaustion, thick and heavy, descends on my body. Stumble over to the bed, wedged next to the mahogany desk, and collapse into a fitful, feverish sleep.

Dreams

Poisoned parade. Procession of a thousand characters with bodies, but no souls. I know these people. A little baby. She looks like a large white pea with a fitted purple bonnet and shuffles across the floor at a sickening pace. Her name is Ava and everyone is crying out “Catch Ava!” “You have to catch Ava!” Shaking. Prisoner trapper in a feverish coma. Ava is shuffling toward the window, her purple bonnet trembling and vibrating because of her speed. “Catch Ava!” they scream. Here come Mummy and Daddy walking in the parade. They are shadowy tonight. Eyes hollowed out and blank. Familiar yet fading. Where have they been? They don’t know me. They no longer know me.

————

Wake up with a start.

Room filled with blinding morning light. Paper. Oh Jesus, look at the paper. Stumble out of bed and trudge through a carpet of paper. Hand on the door handle. Cold, metallic door handle. Open the door and feel the sunlight burn my skin. Walk into the backyard.

Sit.

Look.

Listen.

Blackbirds sit on electric wires, and the distant mountains are dotted with bright pink and yellow Poui trees. The grass, wet with morning dew, is teeming with sugar ants and grasshoppers.

Yellow breasted Kiskadees sing out their morning salutations.

Kis-kee-dee, Kis-kee-dee, Kis-kee-dee,

The old folks say they sing in French.

Qu’est-ce qu’il dit? Qu’est-ce qu’il dit? Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?

In the distance, car horns signal the start of the city day.

Deep blue sky. Blushing clouds.

Look at the colours.

Oh Jesus, would you look at the colours.
.
•••

Paul Hadden is a 24 year old Trinidadian currently working in Paris as an assistant English teacher. He keeps a blog of his experiences there which he also uses as a platform to showcase some of his short stories and poems.

Paul Hadden

Oboe

webmaster — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:02:01 +0000

you are the beauty of bound
reed or better
numen’s breath passing
through reed into African

blackwood or better
shaman’s fingers on silver
keys you are
oboe

and I the heart drawn
out of body behind you
up spiraled paths into
purple hills

and flayed alone
in chill wind
on a hilltop this is

what you do
you are
oboe

•••

Nic Sebastian has two sons and travels widely. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily, Autumn Sky Poetry, Mannequin Envy, Poems Niederngasse, Avatar Review, Anti- and elsewhere. Nic blogs at Very Like A Whale.

Nic Sebastian

Opaque

webmaster — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:01:34 +0000

A strand of cotton woven between
Lolita’s toes
Humbert Humbert paints
enamel on those nails:
a star-drop of carmine
or salmon song.
In black and white,
any color he wishes—
sapphire-chartreuse
or the shadow
of his naked thoughts.
.
He wants to kiss
her arch:
“the tip of the tongue
taking a trip of three steps…”,
use it as his cup
for coddled cream.
.
Still it’s only cinema;
cut. Humbert doesn’t stop:
Lolita’s ankle
his throat, his white, white
love.
.
•••

Nancy Devine teaches high school English in Grand Forks, North Dakota where she lives. She co-directs the Red River Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. Her poetry, short fiction and essays have appeared in online and print journals.

Nancy Devine

12 Notes For A Light Song of Light

webmaster — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:02:41 +0000

i)…..A light song of light is not sung
………….in the light; what would be the point?
………….A light song of light swells up in dark
………….times, in wolf time and knife time,
………….in knuckle and blood times; it hums
………….a small tune in daytime, but saves
………….its full voice for midnight.
.
.
ii)…..A light song of light spits from its mouth
………….the things that occasionally gather:
………….the dull taste of morning and cobwebs
………….(you would not believe their thickness),
………….and the strangest word—caranapa—
………….so much larger than its letters, a Maroon
………….of a word, and a word so silent
………….it is the opposite of song.
.
.
iii)…..A light song of light occasionally stutters.
………….This is par for the course.
………….There is no need for concern
………….no need for bed-rest or vitamins
………….no need to take your song in
………….to the song specialist for treatment.
.
.
iv)…..But were you to take your light song in
………….for a thorough checking-up, a blood screening,
………….you might discover your song has cancer,
………….HIV, diabetes, is going blind in its left eye.
………….You may not have strength to sing
………….your song for this season or the next.
………….But a light song of light cannot be
………….held back. It cannot wait on health
………….or its perfect occasion.
.
.
v)…..A light song of light meditates in the morning,
………….does yoga once a week, accepts the law
………….of karma. It may not worship in a synagogue
………….it may not worship in a balmyard
………….but still it believes in a clean heart
………….in righteous living and the general
………….avoidance of pork. It would like to touch
………….your feet, pronounce a blessing
………….before you go:
………………Jah guide and protect always.
………………Selah.
………………Ashe.
………………Ashe.
.
.
vi)…..A light song of light will summon daffodils,
………….bluebells and strawberries, humming birds;
………….will summon silver, the shine of sequins,
………….the gold of rings—and the dreadful luminosity
………….of everything we had been told to close
………….our eyes to (because they had no sharp
………….edges, because they could not be wielded
………….against our enemies) will be called back into service—
………….retired weapons that have no memory of war,
………….or that they could fight, or that they could win.
.
.
vii)…..A light song of light is not reggae,
………….not calypso, not mento or zouk,
………….not a common song from a common island,
………….not a song whose trail you have followed for umpteen years,
………….a song trembled from the single tooth of
………….the Singerman—the Singerman who had beat his tune
………….out from a sheet of zinc
………….and how it surprised you, the thin bellies
………….from which music could be drawn.
………….You did not know then that his song came
………….at the price of history and cane
………….and the terrible breadth of oceans: a price
………….which, even now, you cannot fully consider.
.
.
viii)…..A light song of light don’t talk
………….the way I talk most days.
………….To tell the truth I never know at first
………….what this country was going do me—
………….how I would start hearing myself
………….through the ears of others,
………….how I would start putting words on a scale
………….and exchange the ones I think in
………….for the ones I think you will understand,
………….till it become natural, this slow careful way
………….of talking, this talk like the walk of a man
………….who find himself on a street he never born to,
………….who trying hard to look like nothing
………….not bothering him. And maybe nothing wrong
………….with a false talk like that, but that
………….is no way to sing.
.
.
ix)…..A light song of light is not understood completely
………….not in the moment it is sung
………….and maybe not for months after.
………….But it sings with a faith common
………….in those who never lost their accents
………….who talk their talk knowing, tssst
………….you may not catch everything but chu—
………….you will catch enough.
………….And if you don’t catch nothing
………….then something wrong with your ears—
………….they been tuned to de wrong frequency.
.
.
x)…..A light song of light tells knock-knock jokes
………….and tells them in order
………….to illustrate the most heart-breaking points.
………….It is not that the song
………….does not know the weight of sadness;
………….it is not that the song
………….does not take things seriously;
………….it is not that the song
………….needs to write one hundred times on a chalkboard—
………….I will be heavy,
………….I will be heavy, I will be heavy, I will be heavy…
.
.
xi)…..A light song of light is distant cousin
………….to songs we sing in bath tubs,
………….is related then, by accident, to water
………….and to soap and to square white tiles
………….that bounce sound one from another,
………….is related also to rain and to blankets
………….and to the little things we say
………….to get us through the hurricane.
.
.
xii)…..A light song of light says thank you
………….to the paper it is written on—
………….this most solid evidence of its existence
………….however thin. Sometimes though,
………….a light song of light wishes it were written
………….on material even thinner, the shaft of morning
………….that slides through a shut window.
………….A light song of light believes nothing
………….is so substantial as light, and
………….that light is unstoppable,
………….and that light is all.
.
.
•••

Kei Miller is from Jamaica but presently teaches in a cold country. His next collection of poetry, A Light Song of Light, is published by Carcanet this July. A new novel, the Last Warner Woman, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, also in July.)

Kei Miller

In the Bay

webmaster — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:01:55 +0000

the waves surging towards the seashore
not unlike my spirits

the seashore embracing the waves
not unlike your arms

a whale seems trying to jump above the water
like what is not supposed to be unlike

•••

Changming Yuan grew up in rural China, and currently teaches writing in Vancouver. Yuan’s poems appear in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry (2009), Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and nearly 200 other literary publications worldwide; his first collection Chansons of a Chinaman was recently released by Leaf Garden Press.

Changming Yuan