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CH Gorrie Jun 2013
There were six horses,
Abaco Barbs - black, white, tan -
enclosed in my Olympus's lense.

The camera reached through deadwind
that whipped the Huey's window,
painted a staggered line where the herd had been.

It was fall 1977,
Abaco's Independence Movement had ended;
Oliver and WerBell were gone,

having run off like photographed horses -
distant, almost ignorant of me (at some point,
they must've assumed there were wildlife

photographers inside Abaco). It was fall
1977:
the ornamental Allamanda still rustled in deadwind;

the starfruit still ripened and fell. It was fall
1977 and that country
was nearly the same as it'd always been.
"The Abaco Barb is an endangered strain of the Spanish Barb horse breed found on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. The Abaco Barb is said to be descended from horses that were shipwrecked on the island during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. The population of wild Abaco Barbs that run free on Great Abaco once numbered over 200 horses. The Abaco Barb is found in different colors than the European/African Barb, including pinto (including the relatively uncommon splashed white), roan, chestnut, black and other colors. They range between 1.32 to 1.47 m (13.0 to 14.2 h)."

"The Abaco Islands lie in the northern Bahamas and comprise the main islands of Great Abaco and Little Abaco, together with the smaller Wood Cay, Elbow Cay, Lubbers Quarters Cay, Green Turtle Cay, Great Guana Cay, Castaway Cay, Man-o-War Cay, Stranger's Cay, Umbrella Cay, Walker's Cay, Little Grand Cay, and Moore's Island. Administratively, the Abaco Islands constitute five of the 31 Districts of the Bahamas: North Abaco, Central Abaco, South Abaco, Moore's Island, and Hope Town. Towns in the islands include Marsh Harbour, Hope Town, Treasure Cay, Coopers Town, and Cornishtown."

"In August 1973, shortly after the Bahamas became independent, the Abaco Independence Movement was formed as a political party whose stated aim was self-determination for the Abaco Islands within a federal Bahamas. In October 1973, AIM published a newsletter to launch it's campagn for 'self-determination through legal and peaceful political action'. AIM proposed that all Crown land on Abaco would be placed in a land trust. Each citizen would receive a one acre home lot from the trust plus shares giving them an income from land sales and leases. The land trust would enter into a joint venture to develop a 60 sq mile free trade zone. When AIM was formed by Chuck Hall and Bert Williams, they contacted an American financier named Michael Oliver, who through his libertarian Phoenix Foundation agreed to support AIM financially. The Phoenix Foundation had previously sought to establish a libertarian enclave in the South Pacific, the Republic of Minerva. AIM's first convention, held on February 23 1974, was addressed by John Hospers, the Libertarian Party's 1972 US presidential candidate. Hospers was later refused entry to the Bahamas. The maverick British MP Colin Campbell Mitchell also visited Abaco to offer support."

"Michael Oliver (born 1930) is a Lithuanian immigrant of Jewish descent, Las Vegas real estate millionaire, and political activist. He was the founder of the micronation project the Republic of Minerva, a failed attempt to create a sovereign state in the South Pacific in 1972. In the following decades, Oliver and his Phoenix Foundation were also involved in similar projects on the Bahamian island of Abaco and in Vanuatu with the New Hebrides Autonomy Movement (MANH) which was done by financing an insurrection. He also published a manifesto of his libertarian beliefs. Oliver is prohibited to enter in Vanuatu and his nation-building projects seem to be on hiatus."

"Mitchell Livingston WerBell III, (1918–1983), was an OSS operative, soldier of fortune, paramilitary trainer, firearms engineer, and arms dealer.In 1972 WerBell was approached by the Abaco Independence Movement (AIM) from the Abaco Islands, a region of the Bahamas, who were worried about the direction the Bahamas were taking and were considering other options, such as independence or remaining a separate Commonwealth nation under the Crown in case of the Bahamas gaining independence (which they did in 1973). AIM was funded by the Phoenix Foundation, a group which aims to help build truly free micronations. The AIM collapsed into internal bickering before a coup by Werbell could be carried out."

^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb_horse
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacos
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaco_Independence_Movement
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oliver_(real_estate)
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_WerBell
D Becker Nov 2019
You call when I’m reading
(Every article, like I’m in prison,
Something about rifles and cartridges)
Even in second language jokes
You’re the best part of their day
You talk of Abaco and water
Anne and the Mud
I can only say
It washed over.
I wake in the night
And my mother’s up
With a light cane thumping and florescent lighting.
In the early morning I *** outside
Relieved by open space
I pull the arrows
I list groceries
It’s the best part of the day.

The feedback of his hearing aids
The forgotten novel
Solitaire
The lightly fondled newspaper
What’s your mother doing?
Did your Dad go back to bed?
What day is it?
They mostly miss each other
When death idles under the carport
When the starving aren’t hungry
I miss them too
While she was forgetting
And he was dying

I remember when my grandmother died
My father, aunts and uncles around her
A minute in the bedroom
A hug, sudden
Death crisp as a *******
But this, it’s not you
The table you made was there, and here
Refinished
I’m not sure how to clean the pellet stove
I hug your wife
The ballot issues alongside her coffee
“Oh, ****!”.  Just vote yes.
Toasted banana bread
As I stand at the bedroom door
Checking for signs of life

She asks me who your wife is
Who your brother is married too
Who am I
Marriage is a fading order,
My kids don’t know.
After 66 years of her own,
Now my mother doesn’t either.


I stop for fossil fuel
For the long-handled sponge and squeegee
Radio whites talking Jesus between scans
My sister caring, weary, crying
Competency smiling
I lean there
Eat raisined grapes, frog eye salad, boiled egg
You sit bedside in my brace
With alabaster thighs and raspy breath
You want to write checks
You guess to stay in bed
I don’t know what death is
But I want it for you

My hunger is a coated almond
Next to your pill box
Only Monday is empty
You thank me, not knowing about tomorrow
Creases in the carpet, shrinking
You’re the smallest of the nesting dolls
You want an Oregon pill
Not what Tuesday offers
Your disappointment breathes
I wonder about your loving God

I have a birthday card
Still blank
Don’t know if you’ll make it to Friday
Doubt you’ll breathe enough to wake
wake enough to read
What to wish for you
I wish for the end
I scribble deep breaths

We came, somehow all of us converging
They came, and wrapped your body
Wheeled it out the front way
The bed changed, a meal shared
Lives diverge again
For six decades
We had you
To gather around
To go first
I’d like to miss you
But you’re still here…
What day is it?

Cookie crumbs and flower petals
Sympathy cards when death is over
Moments when you miss him so much
His ashes noticed by parcel post
I clean the pellet stove
I rummage in his drawer
For a T-shirt
In your overheated house
Stain of glue
So like mine
Home where you were

I took some nails, washers, some trowels
Rags, wing nuts, his stuff
You think I’m as obvious as lasagna
But I’m more than layers
Today I found the post office
Took the box marked
Cremated remains
She put the canister
Behind the chrysanthemum
Blooming in November
I stretched on the floor
She on the couch
We napped
Had ravioli for dinner

— The End —