Enter the Hell of the Fact,
and the Lie is Heaven.
But the Demon of your Love
rules.

II

in every case, the Sun is undone over Time.
but the night, assured as a loose tooth -
is a destiny.
but the Light endures regardless.
ever so wane in the flesh
as we wither without Answer....
and Question
without Knowing.

III

our prayers are paper cranes
lodged in the wind myth
of our tight spot.
a blind thing, that has no mother
but the moonlit crevasse
of our last
Hope.

though we hope
not.

cracked an elbow making a tackle,
ruptured a kidney throwing a body block;
my less than illustrious football
career curtailed

so I chose to run:
an active verb--organs, bones,
are nouns, things to be damaged,
broken, frozen in almighty time

which slowed my sprint to a
jog, then my jog to a hurried hike
on my arid prairies and around
my wooded lane

where the young neighbors eye
me zipping by, deep in thought--who
is that old man pondering parts of speech?
don't let the children listen to him

for I know they have their own bones
yet to break, their own journey to make,
from fanciful fields of fame, to cruel knowledge
nothing remains the same--nouns decay

I'll keep walking wild as long as I can;
I recall making the last tackle, that final
fated block--those nouns now long gone, and no
adjectives can bring them back

my old street,  
a perfect bicycle drag strip,
needed no gutters--all rains drained
into the bay  

but today,
the lane where
I learned to drive, is a place gulls dance
and killdeer prance

this river
is a dozen inches deep
at street’s end, but a yard and growing at the bay
where the hot dog stand once steamed  

the melting monsters
were a million miles from us, you know;
a threat to a Titanic, though  surely inconsequential
to the Atlantic, or so it seemed

all the hype about heat, carbon emissions,
ozone’s demise, and other gassy notions, we thought
belonged in tomorrow’s world of worry  

but tomorrow became today,
and now it’s commonplace to say,
"the shoreline receded--that neighborhood’s gone."    

a continent constricted,
a lowly inch a year, by greed or divine design?
retribution from an earth that never forgets?
or a fickle force we cannot fathom?  

I am ancient now, though I recall those admonitions,
ambiguities that fueled futile debate, until it was too late
and here I be, watching waters at low tide, lapping
against my feet on a once dry and driven street

with our elbows clutched
we grasp at the bleachers
of all our stars
and
worn by Time...
slip the knife
into the Palace of all Flesh
where the integers number themselves
among the Zeroes
of our God's Laugh-matics
as we practice the wind
in a spoon.

we are in Love.
but not in the
Moon.

we are more in the deep
than the candy....
and thrice removed.
more like a Circus Intent
folding in a roustabout's
plucky croon -
that hammers the long toil
of every day
into the locket
of our dream
undeployed.

II

i have seen the middle
and gone mad.

but near the end
i have seen
the rest.

and returned.
more than
that.

at the very bottom of the sun
there lies a cold flame
marching up a babies arm
to reach a newborn face
wailing in the wheel
with cherry cheeks
and the bones
of a brittle bit of Bourbon
on the milk tooth
of an older son
than the Waste
of Time.

Life redeems the thief
and the comet on his tale....
we are just a pinch of unrelenting
Birth.... and any god among Us
must grovel at the feet of our
Oysters... where the pearls
of deadly wishes are born
tongue-tied to the frozen spike
of our glorious
train.
we barrel down the track
of as many stars as there are moons
to blind them.
and have no station
in oblivion, that has No purpose.
We arrive in the speck
of our ascension.... Meant to Be !
And Love is the Word
that invented our peril
from a grain of
Prayers.

Too familiar to be close.
Just dead enough inside
to be my ghost
and you haunt me.
But you don't live like a jellyfish
in my throat...  but your tendrils
have a purpose
and they glow in the dark
when i choke
when you taunt me.

it's the real thing baby
now that we're broke.
now that the ocean prays for rain
and the scorpion sings
while the scarecrow
smokes the red sparrows
and all the long day siege
like an anvil
crushing the lost things mostly
but you forget how to breathe
on a Wednesday
because your Tuesday
was all she wrote
then I lost me.

now I haunt Me.

tonight has no moon and yet the moon is the sun my star has bled for. the very thing all things are bred for.
the elusive wonderment of a moment
to die for. to live so fiercely, that the night is daylight
and all joy is a nail in a palm frond.
And every ghost a friend
pruning your figs
before the sharks come
to pluck your jelly from the heavy vines
your April wrought
in the September of your too many
orchards.

like chasing oceans to quench a stone. Life is a perfect imperfection. It does the thing that loves you most as you hate and undoes the whimsy of your desires
to satisfy an unknowable beauty
that knew your name
before flowers knew bees
were not
slaves.

he imagines
he has carpal tunnel
from channel surfing;
reruns,
his greatest
weapon against
insomnia

the ficus, the
philodendron
she left
(with half
the wedding
china)
are taking
an eternity
to die

a fortnight
without a teaspoon
of water would
wilt the most
hardy specimens
of their kingdom

perhaps she
bequeathed him
cacti in
disguise

he asks
if they are
what they
appear to be:
leafy indoor
greenery

or prickly
survivors
that grow
only where
all things
are venomous
or have thorns

they swear
they are not
botanical
imposters

liars

he turns up
the volume
on his flat screen
to drown out
the mendacity
of flora

the fauna,  
after all,
were not
to be trusted
either

I looked into his eyes
not knowing if he had
a reciprocal vision

no doubt he smelled me; his
sense of scent more developed than
we sluggish two legged beasts

for each step I took
back, he took one forward, our
synchronized death dance

if by chance, I survived
my feckless faith would not
be revived

after all, I had a shotgun
pointed at his noble chest; without
my terrible tool of modernity
I would be his feral feast

when my deed was done
and this creature was supine,
desecrated by the fearful squeeze
of my finger

which God would I thank?
the one man wrote into existence
to allay all mortal fears

or the one I believe carved
canyons from stone, the one who
knew river life was flowing in
every newborn raven's heart

from which one should I dread
retribution for such a profane act?
which would punish me for the slaughter,
the scarlet blood in the pure white snow?

both--both would have seen,
both would have known, the tyranny
of evil men--me, all my brothers cast from
Eden--such a ******* of stardust

on the trail today,
I thought of something
I wanted to say

I told myself
I would remember, but
nothing's there

perhaps I wanted
to mention I had seen
a dozen bikes

peddlers whizzing by under 
cloudless sky, with no whipping
winds to ****** them

where the prairie's rude
riding gusts were hiding,
I do not claim to know

wherever they chose to go
their sabbatical left surface
waters calm, blue

but that's not what I had to
tell you--tales of cyclists unperturbed
by a stiff breeze

i said i wouldn't forget
and yet, here I am rambling,
scrambling to recall

what inspired me most
of all: not nascent blossoms or
butterfly wings, of all things

but the absence of an invisible
symphony, a silenced howling from
the sky's spectral lungs

i said i wouldn't forget; tomorrow
surely the winds will blow, and I will
catch whatever they meant to say

gold, round
it has felt a thousand hands
in sixty years

tomorrow it will be
replaced, the dead door
along with it

the old brass globe
knows nothing of gentrification;
its desecration of memory:

the carpenter who bore its hole
the first child to turn the **** to play;
the last man to yank it in anger

when he felt the bowels of defeat,
the bane of bankruptcy--the effluent epiphany
of eviction

how many tales began with
the spinning of the circle, the opening
of the door, letting in the light

tomorrow, and tomorrow, the door,
the handle, will rest in the landfill, the
graveyard of myriad doorknobs

all with their own stories of auspicious
beginnings, mysterious twists and turns--
plots thickened by the hands of time

coyote yelping helps;
the winds, too, distract him
from the now

the Comanche who
put the arrow in his back
lays beside him

gone before him;
that is condign comfort
to him

he cannot speak, nor move
his tongue, but he smells the
*****, the creosote

he sees the clouds,
stingy white whiffs in a hot
summer sky

as good a day to die
as any he reckons, and
he feels no pain

again the yelping,
closer now -- are they talking
about him?

will they beat the buzzards
to his body? would they begin their
feast while his eyes are yet open?

he closes them; the flapping of
the wings does not arouse him--he
knows they are on the Comanche

beaks and talons at work
he lets himself drift, content the
vultures are choosing the dead

but they fly off; the coyote pack
approaches--the pads of their paws
patter on the hard caliche

he lets himself sleep
dreaming now of sweet green grass
and good water

and the coyotes begin their work:
the ***** and he now a solitary offering
for the ravenous dogs

Langston* said what happens
when dreams don't come true:
they fester, stink, or explode

but hell, hear what I say
colored girls ain't got no dreams,
what we got is schemes to make it
from here 'til tomorrow

and we don't drown saggin'
sorrow in gin, or the big H--least ways
not all of us do

it's true, the man done piled
on ****, high as it can be stacked on us
but we don't all ride no pity bus

the streets don't weep for the weak
or those of us who spread our legs to get us
a baby--a toy all our own

cause when he's all grown, he ain't
goin' be there to fill our empty bellies
or make us proud

so go on say it loud:
black girls don't need nobody
show 'em the way

and one day, we goin'
take what's ours--we just don't expect
to reach for no stars

we be fine with settlin'
for someone callin' us by name
and not feelin' no **** shame

Covenant Avenue, Harlem, 1968