Eyeshine Part 1

Eyes.h.i.+ne.

by Paul Cameron Brown.

STILLNESS

Invitingly, the sea s.h.i.+nes her stars, captive flames within an impatient heart as darkness loads the pleasent isles with coa.r.s.eness, slow sparks rise over a roaring fire.

And strolling beaches near dawn when the sand fleas & crabs are seen to flee, one catches upon the imperfect stillness a song of one - wind with sea drawning near inward, such stars turn as bonds at last worked free.

7

HEWANORRA

The moon, at most a shudder or two away.

The sky, bivouaked and cloudy, is within twin sloops of a bay.

The lagoon opens, spars with the greater ocean by island hopping, green azure blue, as the wind steps before an open sea.

The great ridge of the mountain lies obscured by rain; jasmine, frequent colour and plantations with cocoa, soursop, and cinnamon.

Arawaks, Pelee, Carriacoi, Anegada, Josephine of the Creoles, let Admiral Rodney atone Lord Byng.

And my Patois beauty, breath laced Oleander sweet - take the hemming from your dress then come sit down with me.

8

THE INTRUDER

The colouring of s.p.a.cious flowers rove delicious to the eye.

The road above the harbour fickle, carousing in its tendency to pull too gray by sky enamelled water.

The tropical foliage, still and languorous, to my touch.

Each particle of sunlight dangling as if hoisted from a perfumed ledge.

Newly mown gra.s.s in streaks, browns serpent-like across the path.

Low erogenous puffs of dust are swathed by pa.s.sing feet.

Near by, bushes wear the foliage of streaked mud as a mantle might cottonwool at Christmas.

Life in such climes is built on connotations rather than pure innuendoes of purpose.

The southern sky, the heat above the sea allude to this.

This triumphant trilogy embossed upon volcanic slate, more crumpled paper than firm land.

Gravesides lying in twilight nakedness.

The scion moon in her damaged vestry between acolyte clouds.

Hamlets resembling clotted blood, nicks across an earmarked horizon.

The poor, wavering to transfixed in their hotly owned sun; the one commodity they rightly possess.

The outpouring sea, loosing herself in bridged inlets, countless points that nudge the land in acknowledged supremacy.

The irrelevance of time, inbreeding of pale intruder.

9

DINNER AT EIGHT

At times, I thought of swizzling white rum in the tropics (not as a vocation), dropping into the club for a round of tennis before dinner at eight or a quiet set of darts before retiring.

I had grown accustomed to my new routine (at least vicariously).

In the best Somerset Maugham tradition I would dress for dinner, decline to be patronizing, avoid the potential slur if crisp linen did not appear regularly on my bed or table.

I still found time to stop for breakfast coffee, take a moment from regimen to fondle fresh, wet flowers, look over the balcony at the blueness of the bay.

The metaphysical qualities that come into play erode such morning somnambulations.

The heat depreciated any vainglorious attempts to lionize the native Caribbean rum.

Tennis and darts become ho-hum, more of a task than a pleasant diversion.

The little yellowed board seemed to symbolize not convivial cordiality but crabbed provincialism.

The tie & collar were intolerable against the saline tropic night and seemed rigid in a place and time the locals could not possibly share.

In short, such things celebrated my apartness.

Linen rarely, if ever, appeared and to resort to complaints resulted in only furthering the distance between one and his hosts.

Even the coffee tasted bitter and seemed unsuited to the needs of an interloper.

Neither was fruit juice the promised manna.

And one can take only so much nostalgic flower warbling.

The hummingbirds and oleander came to grow as commonplace and exhausting as the rain.

I began ruminating thoughts back to my previous existence.

Surprised at my illogical s.h.i.+ft in allegiances, I began stealing thoughts more and more surrept.i.tiously about the naturalness of working a full day, donning the apparel of a civilized man, dropping the white man's burden.

Disgust filled me with my former Rousseauian yearnings.

With trepidation, one's dreams can erect barriers more effective than the most ill-sponsored illusions.

10, 11

THE BAY OF CORTES

The sea is a requisitioned article in my possession.

Above, in fat circles of conformity, glide turkey vultures, their combs a rich obscenely red.

The guano rocks are isles and stepping stones of bird waste.

They lie thick and bedeviled with fish fur, a dull lavender cached hard to the sun seems to s.h.i.+ne a metallic harvest white as desert rocklets scattered to the breeze.

A speck of a fisherman dots the horizon.

His craft a barque in loneliness across the sea.

Dolphins inveigh the richness of the depths, persuade lat.i.tudes to drift about their wake.

Pelicans sour the parabola distances between light and sound, become chancy over this distant breath of song.

Above the cliffs and the inner roads that follow the desert into geometric squares, stand abodes.

The thin supremacy of shadows at dusk disparage the traveller here.

Burros strayed lie dead by the highway's edge.

The liquid depth of the mountains reinforces vulnerability.