Sean Wayman: ‘The Traveller’ and ‘British Bencoolen’

The Traveller

Growing disheartened with my life, I went
to seek the village and the monument.
To know the culture and the continent

became my one and only aspiration.
I left behind my close-walled habitation,
the site of wretchedness and deprivation,

telling myself that it was merely home,
which made me fidgety, intent to roam.
The travel books that I began to comb

gave further impetus to take my leave.
My static world began to shake and heave;
adventure called, unsettling to conceive.

I started with the village, roofed in thatch.
The barns, susceptible to lighted match,
and white moths dancing in the cabbage patch

subdued the discomposure of my gaze.
In time, I wearied of these quaint displays,
embarking on my monumental phase.

I stood a while before a bas-relief
whose enigmatic, cosmic-tree motif
supplied a vision of the soul—in brief,

the plucky go-between of earth and sky.
Yet unconvinced that I could learn to fly
I made my way towards the town nearby.

I found myself within a culture zone
where incense smoke entreated the unknown,
and rationalities were overthrown

by those partaking of a mystery.
I hoped, in vain, for an epiphany—
a higher purpose was denied to me.

I set my mind upon the continent,
with hopes of wonder and bedazzlement.
The journey’s coming exultation lent

my preparations an expectant bounce.
The ruts and potholes did their best to trounce
the bold itineraries which I’d announce,

but, in the end, I visited the site,
the park, the peak, the glitzy stalactite.
I guess to some it would’ve looked like flight—

a stir, a restlessness, a wild careening.
In fact, I’d chanced on something worth the gleaning:
Motion rejuvenates a sense of meaning.

Sean Wayman

British Bencoolen

Set on a swampy coast—
forlorn, malarial—
it was a hardship post,
close to unbearable.

The men who crossed the seas
to garrison its fort
would perish of disease
more frequently than not.

“Fever and flux”, stressed Bloome,
then second in command,
were guarantors of doom
in that “unhealthful” land.

Apart from isolation
and pestilential health,
the outpost meant frustration
for traders seeking wealth.

Corruption emptied coffers.
Promises were betrayed.
A tidal wave of losses
beset the pepper trade.

In time, its leaders knew
not to expect too much.
Then Canning scored a coup,
swapping it with the Dutch.

The town was cast aside,
ceded without a battle.
The local rajah cried,
“They’ve bartered us like cattle!”

The British left behind
an undistinguished fort,
a mansion, of a kind,
a seldom-bustling port

and rows of boxlike tombs
abandoned in a yard,
whose grasses, one assumes,
betokened disregard.

Sean Wayman