LIFE IS SHORT
AND WE'RE A LONG TIME DEAD
Whether we are riding a unicorn
Across a rainbow
While the wind blows majestically
Our lustrous eye haloed by seagulls
We may act and act
Like we are tall
And our finger nails have
A big heart of their own
We may play kittens or puppies
And get excited about plastic bones
We may get lost in the grammar constructions and commas of sunset
In and out of our comfort zone
We may want to belong to two life clubs
And finish a movie every seven ten days
Always up for subtitles
Be it old sci fi 30's 40's 50's 60's noir war
We may try with a pair of scissors or a broom
To put death sleeping in socks  and plan ahead endless possibilities of karma
If we're wildly in love with life
And understand that life isn't a pie
That being in life isn't a sport
And that faith on life is a little like a full time job
But that death is like a hook living just around the corner whom we share
With the same post code.
Life is short, life is petite
Life is a ******, a dwarf, a suckling
Life is fast as a snap of our fingers
Life is a bait, a worm
Life is sparks
And we're a long time dead
So let's fish capers and mangoes
In and out the apparences
In and out the distance
While the harvest season is booming
Up there in the blooming volcanoes of sunset.

You practice non-attachment
Yet you  wouldn't want to do
Without water.
You let water own you like a lotus leaf
You allow it to hold you in its never ending cul-de-sac
Flowing between the total bliss of nirvana
And the joy of samsara.
You practice non-attachment to desire
Yet you're wanting
Desiring
Craving
Water. Ponds. Lakes. Streams. Seas
Your thirst is inextinguishable
Wild awake rain
And as you drink that unquenchable flood
Your lips are watering springs,
Sipping fountains of primordial tears.

"Caliban must have dinner."
Let him have first a bit of scansion
Of the vowels marooned to his feet
Along with the consonants washed ashore
By a called up mock storm
Inhabited by catalectic trochaic Trimeter, hexameter or pentameter
Name it !
This muse is his.
For his is the muse
This muse is his island
And every storm of hers is a beatitude
Passed on him by his  Sycorax.
So blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of light
This muse is a perfect antilabe
He has pampered her with caesurae
He has spoiled her with feminine
Stressed and unstressed syllables
Kissed her with iambic pentameter
Caressed her with hemistichs
A trochee here
A spondee there
Caliban is beatitude in scansion.
Blessed is Caliban
For his is the musedom of  light.

Le vaisseau fantôme brûle de toutes parts
Et j'essaie de trouver une issue de secours
Une écoutille
Un hublot
Un sabord
De tribord ou babord
Par où je pourrais fuir de ma geôliere
Tel un boulet de chair à canon
Des flammes qui me pourlèchent.
C'est Sycorax, mon adorable sorcière,
Qui a sonné le branle-bas de combat
Et qui souffle ses braises chaudes et tièdes
A travers ses eaux déployées comme des barreaux de voiles
Me voilà fait prisonnier
Tous les sabords sont calfeutrés
Goudronnés, parfaitement étanches
Au diable ces mantelets
J'étouffe, je me noie, je me débats
Âprement
Entre ligne d'horizon
Ligne de flottaison
Ligne d'eau
Tout se confond
Dans le feu à volonté
Qu'a décrété Sycorax.

I'm not within 60 miles
And not even 600
But if you could see my barbaric eyes
When I look at your full figure silhouette
You'd be amazed how fire can burn
Even long distance.

Kamau Brathwaite wrote
That "the hurricane doesn't roar in pentameters"
And I really believed it could be true
That Caribbean hurricanes had their own cadences, their own dances :
Ida was reggae, Allen was merengue Brigitte was gwoka
David was cha cha cha and Edith was kadans rampa and Dorian calypso
All dactyls hatched instead of iambic pentameters
Out of each island Zeus 's head
Until i met the still eye of Hurricane Muse.

Muse was her nickname
Her real name was Shar
Named after shark and share and shear
and sharon,
Named after a calypso rose
Fearless except for lizards, a rose of  tiny thorns
With a taste of a stormy black coffee
Born to a dragon of Jade and a   white *** tigress
In the midst of the 1961
hurricane season.
Shar has the S of Sébastien Sally Sam Shary Sean and Sara
The H of Humberto Hanna Henri Hermine Harold and Hélène
The A of Andrea Arthur Ana Alex Arlene and Alberto
And the R of  Rebecca René Rose Richard Rina and Rafael
And she dances not only calypso
And quadrille and zouk
But a mix as well of Salsa Hustle Affranchi and Reggae
In iambic pentameters
While she gently paints fearless green lizards
Having her five iambs of coffee
First thing in the unstressed and stressed morning
Before she even opens the syllables of her still Muse eye.

If six were nine
And Jimi Hendrix a nun
Would nine be none
Null and nil ?
And if sixth were ninth
And Jimi Hendrix a ninja
Falling like a sun into the sea mountains
on Ninety-null street
The world famous Quatre-vingt-dix-nullième rue
Would you mind ? Would you mind ?
Would you mind if September stopped to exist
And all the dead of September came back from Null None or Nil
And Jimi Hendrix were seventy-six.