“It’s all empty, empty,” 
he said to himself.
“The sex and drugs. The violence, especially.”
So he went down into the world to exercise his virtue,

thinking maybe that would help.
He taught a little kid to build a kite.
He found a cure, 
and then he found a cure 

for his cure.
He gave a woman at the mercy of the weather 
his umbrella, even though 
icy rain fell and he had pneumonia.
He settled a revolution in Spain.

Nothing worked.
The world happens, the world changes,
the world, it is written here, 
in the next line,
is only its own membrane—

and, oh yes, your compassionate nature,
your compassion for our kind.

1.
             In the first place—I wanted him and said so
when I had only meant to say. His eyes
opened beyond open as if such force would unlock me
to the other side where daylight gave reason
for him to redress.

                                          When he put on his shirt,
after I asked him to keep it off, to keep putting off
the night’s usual end, his face changed beneath
the shirt: surprise to grin, to how even the body
of another’s desire can be a cloak behind which
to change one’s power, to find it.

2.
                                                                 In the first place
he slept, he opened the tight heat of me that had been
the only haven he thought to give a name:

Is-it-mine? Why-you-running? Don’t-run-from-it—as though
through questions doubt would find its way away from me,
as though telling me what to do told me who I was.

^{Where are you from?
      There.}

^{Where are you headed?
      There.}

^{What are you doing?
      Grieving.
            —Rabia Al-Adawiyya}

Little brother, we are all grieving
& galaxy & goodbye. Once, I climbed inside
the old clock tower of my hometown
& found a dead bird, bathed in broken light,
like a little christ.

Little christ of our hearts, I know
planets light-years away
are under our tongues. We’ve tasted them.
We’ve climbed the staircases saying, There, there.

Little brother, we are all praying. Every morning,
I read out loud but not loud enough
to alarm anyone. Once, my love said, Please
open the door. I can hear you talk. Open the door.

Little christ of our hearts, tell anyone
you've been talking to god & see
what happens. Every day,
I open the door. I do it by looking
at my daughter on a swing—
eyes closed & crinkled, teeth bare.
I say, Good morning good morning you
little beating thing.

Little brother, we are all humming.
More & more, as I read, I sound
like my father with his book of prayers,
turning pages in his bed—a hymn
for each day of the week, a gift
from his mother, who taught me
the ten of diamonds is a win, left me
her loose prayer clothes. Bismillah.

Little christ of our hearts, forgive me,
for I loved eating the birds with lemon,
& the sound of their tiny bones. But I couldn’t
stomach the eyes of the fried fish.

Little brother, we are always hungry.
Here, this watermelon. Here, some salt
for the tomatoes. Here, this song
for the dead birds in time boxes,
& the living. That day in the clock tower,
I saw the city too, below—

                    the merchants who call, the blue awnings,
                    the corn carts, the clotheslines, the heat,
                    the gears that turn, & the remembering.

You know how it pretends 
to have a broken wing to 
lure predators away from its 
nest, how it staggers just out 
of reach . . . if, at this moment,
you’re feeling metaphorical, 
nest can be the whatever 
inside us that we think needs 
protection, the whatever that is 
small & hasn’t yet found its 
way. Like us it has lived so long 
on scraps, on what others have 
left behind, it thinks it could live 
on air, on words, forever almost, 
it thinks it would be better to let 
the predator kill it than to turn 
its back on that child again, 
forgetting that one lives inside 
the other. 

Because I did not have to smell the cow’s fear,
because I did not have to pin the man, watch his eyes
go feral, because I did not have to drag the stones
that formed in the child’s body, because I did not sheathe
my hands in dank soil, or skirt the machine’s battering, the needles
knitting my lower back, because when the factory collapsed
I smelled no smoke, and no one made me kneel at the cop’s boots
and count the pulse slowing beside me as every sound
soured, because my hands have never had to resist being comforted
by the warmth of blood, because the plastic-
wrapped meat and the mousetraps, because my job
was to stay clean and thankful and mostly imaginary, I have been stealing
what little I can:
                           onions. sandpaper. handfuls of skin.
the dumpster’s metal groan. hurried breath. hot knives.

                           I
O Ye young and thoughtless youth, 
     Come seek the living God,
The scriptures are a sacred truth,
     Ye must believe the word.
				                Eccle. xii. 1.

                             II
Tis God alone can make you wise, 
     His wisdom's from above,
He fills the soul with sweet supplies
     By his redeeming love.
				                Prov. iv. 7.

                        III
Remember youth the time is short,
     Improve the present day
And pray that God may guide your thoughts,
     and teach your lips to pray. 
				                Psalm xxx. 9.

                        IV
To pray unto the most high God,
     and beg restraining grace,
Then by the power of his word
     You'l see the Saviour's face.

                        V
Little children they may die,
     Turn to their native dust,
Their souls shall leap beyond the skies,
     And live among the just.

                        VI
Like little worms they turn and crawl,
     and gasp for every breath,
The blessed Jesus sends his call,
     and takes them to his rest.

                        VII
Thus the youth are born to die,
     The time is hastening on,
The Blessed Jesus rends the sky,
     and makes his power known.
				                Psalm ciii. 15.

                        VIII
Then ye shall hear the angels sing
     The trumpet give a sound,
Glory, glory to our King,
     The Saviour's coming down.
				                Matth. xxvi. 64.

                        IX
Start ye saints from dusty beds,
     and hear a Saviour call,
Twas Jesus Christ that died and bled,
     and thus preserv'd thy soul.

                        X
This the portion of the just,
     Who lov'd to serve the Lord,
Their bodies starting from the dust,
     Shall rest upon their God.

                        XI
They shall join that holy word,
     That angels constant sing,
Glory, glory to the Lord,
     Hallelujahs to our King.

                        XII
Thus the Saviour will appear,
     With guards of heavenly host,
Those blessed Saints, shall then declare,
     Tis Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
				                Rev. i. 7, 8.

                        XIII
Then shall ye hear the trumpet sound,
     The graves give up their dead,
Those blessed saints shall quick awake,
     and leave their dusty beds.
				                Matth. xxvii. 51, 52.

                        XIV
Then shall you hear the trumpet sound,
     and rend the native sky,
Those bodies starting from the ground,
     In the twinkling of an eye.
				                I Cor. xv. 51, 52, 53, 54.

                        XV
There to sing the praise of God,
     and join the angelic train,
And by the power of his word,
     Unite together again.

                        XVI
Where angels stand for to admit
     Their souls at the first word,
Cast sceptres down at Jesus feet
     Crying holy holy Lord.

                        XVII
Now glory be unto our God
     all praise be justly given,
Ye humble souls that love the Lord
     Come seek the joys of Heaven.

when did we become friends?
it happened so gradual i didn’t notice
maybe i had to get my run out first
take a big bite of the honky world and choke on it
maybe that’s what has to happen with some uppity youngsters
if it happens at all

and now
the thought stark and irrevocable
of being here without you
shakes me

beyond love, fear, regret or anger
into that realm children go
who want to care for/protect their parents
as if they could
and sometimes the lucky ones do

into the realm of making every moment
important
laughing as though laughter wards off death
each word given
received like spanish eight

treasure to bury within
against that shadow day
when it will be the only coin i possess
with which to buy peace of mind

What still grows in winter?
Fingernails of witches and femmes,
green moss on river rocks,
lit with secrets... I let myself
go near the river but not
the railroad: this is my bargain.
Water boils in a kettle in the woods
and I can hear the train grow louder
but I also can’t, you know?
Then I’m shaving in front of an
unbreakable mirror while a nurse
watches over my shoulder.
Damn. What still grows in winter?
Lynda brought me basil I crushed
with my finger and thumb just to
smell the inside of a thing. So
I go to the river but not the rail-
road, think I’ll live another year.
The river rock dig into my shoulders
like a lover who knows I don’t want
power. I release every muscle against
the rock and I give it all my warmth.
                              Snow shakes
onto my chest quick as table salt.
Branches above me full of pine needle
whips: when the river rock is done
with me, I could belong to the evergreen.
Safety is a rock I throw into the river.
My body, ready. Don’t even think
a train run through this town anymore.

Yesterday, the final petal curled its soft lure into bone.

The flowerhead shed clean, I gathered up your spine

and built you on a dark day. You are still missing

some parts. Each morning, I curl red psalms into the shells

in your chest. I have buried each slow light: cardinal’s yolk, live seawater,

my trenza, a piece of my son’s umbilical cord, and still you don’t return.

A failure fragrant as magic. Ascend the spirit into the design. 

My particular chiron: the record that your perfect feet ever graced

this earth. Homing signal adrift among stars, our tender impossible longing. 

What have I made of your sacrifice. This bone: it is myself.

What is the point of travel
For a DeafBlind person
Other than the food the people the shops
And all that

*
 
Part one young
Question mother father
Know right name
Work some day

*

The mutant four-fingered carrot
Is in the pot and growing
Sweeter as it relaxes
Its grip

*

When we say good morning
In Japanese Sign Language
We pull down a string
To greet each other in a new light

* bring us to dark knots the black
eyes along white aspen skin to scrape
with a rock on surface where I press
I carve the initials of all and **
*** bring us to a returning no
an urning a vessel of corpse
ash in the active state of being
held by two hands positioned
gripping the sides to tip
and scatter my night dream
of an acquaintance who
presented me a ledger opened
to a page handwritten in pencil
dates names and meetings ****
***** I said I don’t want to
see it I don’t want to know
if my father betrayed me
as the words left
my dream mouth I woke I shook
to the bone a hot line notched
from heart to elbow throbbing
vein-ache in my body how
I’d replaced another man’s name
-a man I once loved I mean to say-
with the word father in a flash
the sleeping eye ripped me
from denial I’m not so complex
see my mind unclothed
is a crying newborn
predictable
aspen leaves in untimed
wind-filled rhythm my mother
turned eighty what at that age is left
to surprise though
                                        suddenly

the tone here shifts to listen
she said I don’t know if I ever said
when I was pregnant with you
I found out he’d cheated
I threw ****** into the yard
I locked him out
pregnant with you I cried
and I cried so long and hard
I thought I was going to
die yes she said it a heavy bass line
beneath aspen music and timbre
I sit on the patio to smoke I think
at night always at night maybe
cause I was born / at night or
my name means night God bless
my mother she believed
my name meant pure
spirit so it may be the darkest
hours are when I’m purest
when I am I          I am fluid
a clear stream over rock or
*******
as poetry goes ********
I think about a baby in utero I can’t help
but wonder what the baby knows
a study says babies and toddlers
remember
through impression not specifics
I rummage the syllables and stress
of each line in *********
impression is a mark
on the surface
caused by pressure or
a quick undetailed sketch or
the imitation
of someone / I
carried her nine months
beneath my own skin her small toes
relaxed her eyes shut
within me her fingertips
pressed into palms she made
                                                                    a fist
                                                                    or was it

a symbol
for the Sun what rising
what of battle my child knows
scares me to the pure
the one I           I burn in question

*            may all the grief
**          may all
***        the loss
****                  all your misdeeds
*****                love of my soul
******              all his things
******* spit in a cup
********          night is a womb
*********        the definition

Onliest man who lay hands on me. Pointer finger pad between my eyes.
Pinky knuckle cool on cheekbone. God of precision, blade at my throat,

for a half hour, you love me this way. Together we discover what I got
from my folks—widows peak, dandruff, hair growing fast in concentric O’s.

Claude, so damn beautiful, I can count on one hand the times I’ve looked
directly in your face, for fear I might never come back. You knower of me.

To get right I come to you. When I’m finna interview. When I’m finna banquet
or party. When I must stunt, I come to you—

It is mostly you, but, not always. After all you gotta eat too.
So sometimes it’s Percival, face like stones, except when he’s smiling.
Sometimes it’s Junior who sings the whole time he lines up the crown.

No matter how soft my body or how many eyes find it and peel
         when I walk in the shop         in the chair, I am of them.
                  Not brother. Not sister.         When he wields the razor and takes me
                           low it’s like when a woman gets close to the mirror to slide the lipstick
                                    on slow. Draws a line so perfect she cuts her own self from the clay.

To think that my eyes once could draw your eyes down for a moment,
    From their lifting and straining up toward the opulent heights— 
To think that my face was the face you liked best once to look on,
    When fairer ones softened to pleading ’neath shimmering lights! 

Regret you? Not I! I am glad that your proud heart disowned me,
    The while it was lying so sullenly under my feet; 
Since Love was to you but a snare and a pain, and you knew not
    Its height and its depth, all unsounded, and soundless, and sweet. 

Too dark was the shadow that fell from your face bending over me—
    Too hot was the pant of your breath on the spring of my cheek! 
I but dimly divined, yet I shrank from the warring of passions
    So strong that they circled and shook me while leaving you weak. 

Acknowledge! You knew not aright if you loved me or hated;
    But you pushed me aside, since I hindered your seeing the heights. 
They were but the cold, barren peaks up which selfish sould clamber,
    And for which they surrender the gardens of scented delights. 

From where I am sitting I watch your lone steps going upward,
    And to-night I am back in those nights that we knew at the start.
I think of your eyes dark with pain, full of thwarted caressings,
    And suddenly, after these years, from my hold slips my heart! 

But no matter! There’s too much between us—we cannot go back now
    I’m glad of it!—yes, I will say it right on to the end!— 
I’m glad that my once sore-reluctant, tempestuous lover
    Hasn’t leisure nor heart now to be my most leisurely friend! 

My lover! Why how you would fling me the word back in fury!
    Remembering you loved me at arms’ length, in spite of denial; 
That the protests were double: each went from the struggle unconquered:
    The hour of soft, silken compliance was not on our dial. 

You were angry for loving me, all in despite of your reasoning—
     I was angry because you were able to hold your love down; 
And jealous—because in the scales of your logic you weighed me,
    And slighted me for the dry bread of a sordid renown. 

So I laughed at your loving—I laughed in the teeth of your passion;
    And I made myself fair, but to stand in you light from sheer malice;
Delighting to hold up the brim to the lips that were thirsting,
    While I scorned to let fall on their dryness one drop from the chalice!

Alas, for the lips that are strange to the sweetness of kisses—
    The kisses we dream of, and cry for, and think on in dying! 
Alas, for unspoken endearments that stifle the breathing;
    Since such in the depths of two hearts, never wedded, are lying! 

You say, “It is best!” but I know that you catch your breath fiercely.
    I say, “It is best!” but a sob struggles up from my bosom; 
For out of a million of flowers that our fingers are free of,
    The one that we care for the most is the never-plucked blossom.

Yet, O, my Unbroken, my strong one—too strong for my breaking!—
    I am glad of the hours when we warred with each other and Love:
Though you never drew nearer than once when your hair swept my fingers
    And their touch flushed your cheek as you bent at my side for my glove. 

Never mind! I felt kisses that broke through the bitterest sayings.
    Never mind! since caresses were hid under looks that were proud.
Shall we say there’s no moon when she leaves her dear earth in the shadow
    And hides all her light in the breast of some opportune cloud? 

Yet this germ of a love—could it ever have bourgeoned to fulness?—
    For us could there ever have been a sereneness of bliss, 
With the thorns overtopping our flowers, turning fondness to soreness?
    Ah, no! ’twas a thousand times better it ended like this! 

And yet, if I went to you now in the stress of your toiling—
    If we stood but one moment alone while I looked in your eyes— 
What a melting of ice there would be! What a quickening of currents!
    What thrills of despairing delight betwixt claspings and cries!

What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.

“Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”
Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?

After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.
And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.

Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
For mixers, my love, you’d poured—what?—even the rain.

Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:
Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.

How did the Enemy love you—with earth? air? and fire?
He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.

This is God’s site for a new house of executions?
You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?

After the bones—those flowers—this was found in the urn:
The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.

What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.

How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames—
To help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.

He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves;
he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.

New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me—
To make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.

They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.

^{—Issa Rae}

Everybody Black is my hometown team. Everybody Black 
dropped the hottest album of the year, easy. Everybody Black 
is in this show, so I’m watching. Everybody Black is in this movie, 
so I’m watching. Everybody Black wore it better, tell the truth. 
Everybody Black’s new book was beautiful. How you don’t 
know about Everybody Black?! Everybody Black mad 
underrated. Everybody Black remind me of someone I know. 
I love seeing Everybody Black succeed. I hope Everybody Black 
get elected. Everybody Black deserves the promotion more than 
anybody. I want Everybody Black to find somebody special. 
Everybody Black is good peoples. Everybody Black been through 
some things. Everybody Black don’t get the credit they’re due. I met 
Everybody Black once and they were super chill and down-to-earth. 
I believe in Everybody Black. There’s something about Everybody Black.

          which do you love more
a feather or a rock

                                                     to be good is to be ‘natural’
                                                              I mean to appear

              you are not good
you are holding up though

                                                              you are holding up
                                                     you are getting a drink of water

                    you are eating
          you are concealing your identities

                                                     this is like a riotous wilderness
                                                              but more like a persistent dread

                              your ferocity, almost mycological

                                           mythological

                    I said mycological

                                                     oh god

	                    oh my god
                                         
                                                     your laughter has undertones
                                                                      of oak and berries
and martial law
            conceived, as it were, in a garden

        bieng tran is a unique kinde off organe / i am speeching

        materialie / i am speeching abot hereditie / a tran

        entres thru the hole / the hole glomes inn the linden / a

        tran entres eather lik a mothe / wile tran preceds esense

        / her forme is contingent on the feeld / the maner sits

        cis with inn a feeld / wee speeche inn 2 the eather / wile

        the mothe bloomes / the mothe bloomes inn the yuca

for Octavio


There's a book called
"A Dictionary of Angels."
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She's very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

given his showing up to teach at the U 
disheveled, jittery cigarette and cigarette and probably 
the drink, losing the very way there 
over river, river of all song, all American story 
which starts way north of St. Paul quiet or undone 
wandering south, not 
enraged mostly, something stranger. 
That’s one epic shard of John Berryman anyway.

Notorious. And par for the course in a classroom
destined, struck-by-lightning 
in sacred retrospect, the kind those long-ago students 
now can’t believe themselves 
so accidentally chosen, grateful though one 
probably claimed the poet absolutely 
bonkers then, out of his tree toward the end, 
so went the parlance. Wasn’t he 
always late—Give them back, Weirdo!—with those
brilliant papers they eked out, small dim-lit 
hours when a big fat beer would’ve 
been nice. Really nice. 
Fuck him, I hear that kid most definitely 
blurting were he young right now 
though the others—  From the get-go their
startle and reverence. But not even that malcontent 
did the damning I can’t believe 
they gave him tenure. 

Here’s where I think something else, think
of course it’s the Dream Songs that rattled him until—
as grandparents used to say—he couldn’t 
see straight. Like Dickinson’s bits of shock and light 
did her in between naps and those letters to
some vague beloved unattainable. Or Plath, her 
meticulous crushing fog. Maybe closer to Milton working 
his blindness—literally blind rage, if you want 
to talk rage—into pages soaked through with triumphant 
failure and rhyme, always 
that high orchestration, that alpha/omega big voice thing.  
And Satan, after all, as wise guy
and looming because for chrissake, Jack, get an interesting 
character in there! Someone must have
lobbed that right. 

All along, Berryman: how those Dream Songs surely
loosened a bolt or a wheel in his orderly
scholar-head, must have come at him 
like Michael the Archangel, 77 days of winged flash 
searing him to genius, some kind of
whack-a-mole version. Maybe like Gabriel
cutting that starry celebrity deal 
for a most dubious conception in the desert, near a fig tree, 
no proper human mechanics required. At last 
Berryman’s rage wasn’t rage 
but sorrow turned back on itself. With teeth. 

Henry my hero of crankiness and feigned indifference,
unspeakable industry, exhaustion 
and grief, half funny-crazy, half who-knows-what-
that-line-means. A henry whole 
universe of Henry, of 
there ought to be a law against Henry—pause 
and pause—Mister Bones: there is.  
Will be! Was! Not to say poetry’s
worth it or the most healthy fascination for the sane.
I’m just, I mean—is this love?  

There’s break, as in lucky, as in 
shatter. There’s smitten and there’s smite.

Behold that Tree, in Autumn’s dim decay, 
   Stript by the frequent, chill, and eddying Wind; 
   Where yet some yellow, lonely leaves we find 
   Lingering and trembling on the naked spray, 
Twenty, perchance, for millions whirl'd away! 
   Emblem, alas! too just, of Humankind! 
   Vain Man expects longevity, design'd 
   For few indeed; and their protracted day 
What is it worth that Wisdom does not scorn? 
   The blasts of Sickness, Care, and Grief appal, 
   That laid the Friends in dust, whose natal morn 
Rose near their own;—and solemn is the call;— 
   Yet, like those weak, deserted leaves forlorn, 
   Shivering they cling to life, and fear to fall!

here among them        the americans        this baffling
multi people        extremes and variegations        their
noise        restlessness        their almost frightening
energy        how best describe these aliens in my
reports to The Counselors

disguise myself in order to study them unobserved
adapting their varied pigmentations        white black
red brown yellow        the imprecise and strangering
distinctions by which they live        by which they
justify their cruelties to one another

charming savages        enlightened primitives        brash
new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy        how
describe them        do they indeed know what or who
they are        do not seem to        yet no other beings
in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity

like us they have created a veritable populace
of machines that serve and soothe and pamper
and entertain        we have seen their flags and
foot prints on the moon        also the intricate
rubbish left behind        a wastefully ingenious
people        many it appears worship the Unknowable
Essence        the same for them as for us        but are
more faithful to their machine made gods
technologists their shamans

oceans deserts mountains grain fields canyons
forests        variousness of landscapes weathers
sun light moon light as at home        much here is
beautiful        dream like vistas reminding me of
home        item        have seen the rock place known
as garden of the gods and sacred to the first
indigenes        red monoliths of home        despite
the tensions i breathe in i am attracted to
the vigorous americans        disturbing sensuous
appeal of so many        never to be admitted

something they call the american dream        sure
we still believe in it i guess        an earth man
in the tavern said        irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around        and its okay the dreams
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better        means every body in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day        as for myself
i do okay        not crying hunger with a loaf of
bread tucked under my arm you understand        i
fear one does not clearly follow i replied
notice you got a funny accent pal        like where
you from he asked        far from here i mumbled
he stared hard        i left

must be more careful        item        learn to use okay
their pass word        okay

crowds gathering in the streets today for some
reason obscure to me        noise and violent motion
repulsive physical contact        sentinels        pigs
i heard them called        with flailing clubs        rage
and bleeding and frenzy and screaming        machines
wailing        unbearable decibels        i fled lest
vibrations of the brutal scene do further harm
to my metabolism already over taxed

The Counselors would never permit such barbarous
confusion        they know what is best for our sereni
ty        we are an ancient race and have outgrown
illusions cherished here        item        their vaunted
liberty        no body pushes me around i have heard
them say        land of the free they sing        what do
they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom
they boast of in their ignorant pride        have seen
the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities
paradox on paradox        how have the americans
managed to survive

parades fireworks displays video spectacles
much grandiloquence much buying and selling
they are celebrating their history        earth men
in antique uniforms play at the carnage whereby
the americans achieved identity        we too recall
that struggle as enterprise of suffering and
faith uniquely theirs        blonde miss teen age
america waving from a red white and blue flower
float as the goddess of liberty        a divided
people seeking reassurance from a past few under
stand and many scorn        why should we sanction
old hypocrisies        thus dissenters        The Counse
lors would silence them
a decadent people The Counselors believe        i
do not find them decadent        a refutation not
permitted me but for all their knowledge
power and inventiveness not yet more than raw
crude neophytes like earthlings everywhere

though i have easily passed for an american        in
bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans
hard hat yarmulka mini skirt        describe in some
detail for the amusement of The Counselors        and
though my skill in mimicry is impeccable        as
indeed The Counselors are aware        some thing
eludes me        some constant amid the variables
defies analysis and imitation        will i be judged
incompetent

america        as much a problem in metaphysics as
it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy        an organism that changes even as i
examine it        fact and fantasy never twice the
same        so many variables

exert greater caution        twice have aroused
suspicion        returned to the ship until rumors
of humanoids from outer space        so their scoff
ing media voices termed us        had been laughed
away        my crew and i laughed too of course

confess i am curiously drawn        unmentionable        to
the americans        doubt i could exist among them for
long however        psychic demands far too severe
much violence        much that repels        i am attracted
none the less        their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital        and that some thing        essence
quiddity        i cannot penetrate or name

You must not think that what I have 
accomplished through you

could have been accomplished by any other means.

Each of us is to himself
indelible. I had to become that which could not

be, by time, from human memory, erased.

I had to burn my hungry, unappeasable
furious spirit

so inconsolably into you

you would without cease
write to bring me rest.

Bring us rest. Guilt is fecund. I knew

nothing I made
myself had enough steel in it to survive.

I tried: I made beautiful
paintings, beautiful poems. Fluff. Garbage.

The inextricability of love and hate?

If I had merely made you
love me you could not have saved me.

I have waited all my life to find me find you
perched around my black neck in repose

songing of me in repose                   	    your black legs         	
songing of me in repose

your black legs a dangle around me      I have waited
to find you find your black toes  to find them

sundering at the base   your black toes your black toe-
nails hale and bright 	   your black feet a straddle around me

around my black waist a straddle I finding I
was born I was born who operated

in the white was born who was born
who operated in the white chapel

who found your black thighs in repose
songing to each other in repose
                                            	           across

my chest      	    an extended black for blocks
a neighborhood song in repose

your crotch an extended black
at my neck   	  your black groin a straddle

around me in repose 	   what life what
there it is there               I had been looked at

there o lord sucked His black
thorax which spanned as a fracture
                                            spanned as I

who grow up in you there as a fracture find
your black breast o lord quiescing

atop my head your other black
breast o lord hale and bright around me o lord

a pendulum o lord to my black ear
my black ear that finds you songing

of me in repose in your stature
toppling to one side of my one side

find your black shoulders a gaping
around me    	death your body armless

around me    	death none can
skirt it in your mother's way o lord

is finding black  fingers there your black
neck is finding          	  lord is rising past

the cumulus-line an extended black
o lord is an extended black o lord

is thinking of self and thinking of self is
finding you there so that when I entered I entered
                                            	           the pulpit I entered.

after Gerald Stern

The insect was yellow with crumpled-black banded legs
        and shellacked back that would outlast us
        and wistful eyes from what I could discern on that trail
                between fields,
and we laid him out in the open air under a sky fast-blue with
                change, wedging
        a leaf beneath his triple-belted belly so he didn’t rest on
                plain dirt,
        and we placed two cloverblooms by his head and he was old
you said, could tell by how definite the stripes were, how
                complete
        the patterns bold and dark, almost engraved,
and he was beautiful in that pasture of thirty-three cows and we
                drank
        milk in the blaring heat and ate the cake you’d made. We
                were
        the only humans there—unholy-seeming things with two
                legs, dismal histories—
drinking and eating around his elegant husk,
        and from the furze, fellow insects rose, a frenzied static
                around our bodies,
while he remained in situ an unremitting yellow, the color more
        vivid, louder now that he was a remnant. Was color the
                purpose here?
Yellow had alerted us to him, and we took care
        with leaf and clover to make his bed.
The insect’s gold our togetherness, its death from which we fed.

A rose by any other name   could be Miguel   or Tiffany   Could be
David or Vashti   Why not Aya   which means beautiful flower   but
also verse and miracle   and a bird   that flies away quickly   You see
where this is going   That is   you could look at a rose   and call it
You See Where This Is Going   or I Knew This Would Happen   or even
Why Wasn’t I Told   I'm told of a man   who does portraits for money
on the beach   He paints them with one arm   the other he left behind
in a war   and so he tucks a rose into his cuff   always yellow   and people
stare at it   pinned to his shoulder   while he works   Call the rose
Panos   because I think that's his name   or call it   A Chair By The Sea
Point from the window   to the garden   and say   Look   a bed
of Painter’s Hands   And this is a good place   to remember the rose
already has many names   because   language is old and can't agree
with itself   In Albania you say Trëndafil   In Somalia say Kacay
In American poetry   it's the flower you must never name   And now
you see where this is going   out the window   across water
to a rose shaped island   that can't exist but   you’re counting on
to be there   unmapped   unmentioned till now   The green place
you imagine hiding   when the world finds out   you're not
who you've said

On balconies, sunlight. On poplars, sunlight on our lips.
Today no one is shooting.
A girl cuts her hair with imaginary scissors—
the scissors in sunlight, her hair in sunlight.
Another girl steals a pair of shoes from a sleeping soldier, skewered with light.
As soldier wakes and looks at us looking at them
what do they see?
Tonight they shot fifty women at Lerna St.,
I sit down to write and tell you what I know:
a child learns the world by putting it in her mouth,
a girl becomes a woman and a woman, earth.
Body, they blame you for all things and they
seek in the body what does not live in the body.

A little called anything shows shudders.
Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope.
No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.
A little lace makes boils. This is not true.
Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.
If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.
A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.
Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.
I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing.
Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.
Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

The vast waters flow past its back-yard.
You can purchase a six-pack in bars!
Tammy Wynette's on the marquee
 
a block down. It's twenty-five years ago:
you went to death, I to life, and
which was luckier God only knows.

There's this line in an unpublished poem of yours.
The river is like that,
a blind familiar.

The wind will die down when I say so;
the leaden and lessening light on
the current.
 
Then the moon will rise
like the word reconciliation,
like Walt Whitman examining the tear on a dead face.

The joke is orange. which has never been funny.

For awhile I didn’t sleep on my bright side.

Many airplanes make it through sky.

The joke is present. dented and devil.

For awhile, yellow spots on the wall.

Obama on water skis, the hair in his armpits, free.

I thought the CIA was operative.

Across the alley, a woman named Mildred.

Above the clouds in a plane, a waistline of sliced white.

I don’t sound like TED Talk, or smart prose on Facebook.

These clouds are not God.

I keep thinking about Coltrane; how little he talked.

This is so little; I give so little.

Sometimes when I say something to white people, they say “I’m sorry?”

During Vietnam, Bob Kaufman stopped talking.

The CIA was very good at killing Panthers.

Mildred in a housecoat, calling across the fence, over her yard.

If I were grading this, I’d be muttering curses.

The joke is a color. a color for prison.

Is it me, or is the sentence, as structure, arrogant?

All snow, in here, this writing, departure.

All miles are valuable. all extension. all stretch.

I savor the air with both fingers, and tongue.

Mildred asks about the beats coming from my car.

I forgot to bring the poem comparing you to a garden.

Someone tell me what to say to my senators.

No one smokes here; in the rain, I duck away and smell piss.

I thought the CIA was. the constitution.

I feel like he left us, for water skis, for kitesurfing.

The sun will not always be so gracious.

From the garden poem, one line stands out.

Frank Ocean’s “Nights” is a study in the monostich.

Pace is not breathing, on and off. off.

Mildred never heard of Jneiro Jarel.

I’m afraid one day I’ll find myself remembering this air.

The last time I saw my mother, she begged for fried chicken.

My father still sitting there upright, a little high. 

Melissa McCarthy could get it.

Sometimes, I forget how to touch.

In a parking garage, I wait for the toothache.

I watch what I say all the time now.

She said she loved my touch, she used the word love.

In 1984, I’d never been in the sky.

My mother walked a laundry cart a mile a day for groceries.

Betsy DeVos is confirmed. with a broken tie.

Mildred’s five goes way up, and my five reaches.

1. 	It bejins in Berlin
	
	A Historical Case
	Study 
	In Disappearance + Cultural Theft:
	Exhibit YZ:

	Brinj back to me Nefertiti 
      Her 
	Bust

Take her
From behind 
	the vitrine 
	
	For I know where to find her missinj eye
	
	Then put a woman in charje of all antiquities. 
	She-law: just because somethinj is beautiful 
	doesnt mean it was meant to be consumed; just because there are
 	tourists doesnt make it an attraction. 

2. 	everywhere anytxme atm her
	vxolatxon: guaranteed.  sxlence bought             or your settlement
 	money back. objectxfactxon xn the mxrror xs closer than xt appears.
	please mxnd the wage gap. cautxon: not chxld resxstant to open hold 	
	down 	and turn away squee geez use daxly, mornxng, and nxght
 	supported by an aroma of certified organxc heavens:

	for every gxrl who grows 
	xnto a woman
	who knows
	the best threat’s: 
	one she never 
	has to make
	
	she sublxmates your sublxmxnal
	even your affectxon has been xnfected


3. this poem cant go on without hex i mean 
	hex 
	heeee x
	hex
hex and hex
		hex 		hej heq hez hex

she was stolen bought sold lost put undex buxied alive at bixth she was dxagged in blue bxa duxing a xevolution with vixginity tests she waits then she doesnt she sh sh sh shh she left you she the best thing that happened to you then she lilililililiiii she intifada she moves with two kinds of gxace she ups the ante aging by candid defiant elegance she foxgets but nevex foxgives 

She-language complex 
she complex she so complex she complex got complex complex

4. she spends her time anxious because she knows she is better than 
you rang to say she died from being tired of your everything she knows she is fiyne; gorgeous but she hates it when she infuriates and when she jigs and is kind she minds her own business except when she is new and nervous though she is origin previous and impervious she wont stay quiet she is razor sharp and super tired she undarks, vets, wanes, and xeroxes; yaks and zzzzs the day she dreams 

5. Me tooa B  Me toob Me tooc R  Me tood Me tooe I  Me toof N  Me toog G  

Me tooh                 them 

Me tooi B  Me tooj A  Me took C Me tool K  Mem too Men too Me tooo 

Meep 

too                 Meq too 

Mer too Me too Me too Meu too Mev too Mew too Mex too Mey too Mez too 

            Me     ((too)) Me                               ((((((((((((too))))))))))))

I begin
to talk to violets.
Tears fall into my soup
and I drink them.
Sooner or later
everyone donates something.
I carry wood, stone, and
hay in my head.
The eyes of the violets
grow very wide.
At the end of the day
I reglue the broken foot
of the china shepherd
who has put up with me.
Next door, in the house
of the clock-repairer,
a hundred clocks tick
at once. He and his wife
go about their business
sleeping peacefully at night.