Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

The air is a mill of hooks --
Questions without answer,
Glittering and drunk as flies
Whose kiss stings unbearably
In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer.

I remember
The dead smell of sun on wood cabins,
The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets.
Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?
Once one has been seized up

Without a part left over,
Not a toe, not a finger, and used,
Used utterly, in the sun's conflagration, the stains
That lengthen from ancient cathedrals
What is the remedy?

The pill of the Communion tablet,
The walking beside still water? Memory?
Or picking up the bright pieces
Of Christ in the faces of rodents,
The tame flower-nibblers, the ones

Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable --
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea

Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.

The heart has not stopped.

I glimpse your eyes staring at the shadows in my soul
Seeking to calm the wildly rushing storm
Keeping my heart out of control
Unable to keep
The beat
Pulsating whole

I stare into eyes seeking to calm the storms
To make my heart their own
Leaving chambers once cold now warm
My heart begins to pulsate
To the beat
Of a song, it's always known

Buried longings softly rush, to be finally freed
From this heart out of control
Once a half now pulsates complete
Your eyes chase shadows
Calming storms,
My heart
Returns to whole

Dear Mama,
Is life worth living or should I blast myself?
I'm always searching for those better days
knowing that peace on earth will come. In Thugs Mansion.
Where I can sip champagne
while I listen to Billy Holliday sing
and sit there kickin it with Malcolm till the day came.

Should I ride on my enemies?
Become one of Amerikas most wanted?
Or should I remember
that the road is hard so I'll never give up?
And time don't stop, always going by.
So I'll puff on mine, hoping that it will get me high.

Smile for me.
Won't you smile for me now?
It ain't easy being a changed man
so when it feels like all eyez on me.
I just remember that
heaven ain't hard to find.

The walls screamed poetry disease & ***
an inner whine like a mad machine -
dropped in a
cave of roaches
or rodents

The Computer
faces of the men

The wall collage
reading matter

The Traders (dealers)
~~~

I am a guide to the labyrinth
Come & see me
in the green hotel
Rm. 32
I will be there after 9:30 p.m.

I will show you the girl of the ghetto
I will show you the burning well
I will show you strange people
haunted, beast-like, on the
verge of evolution

-Fear The Lords who are
secret among us
~~~

Leaving the phone-booth, I was
Struck by a whiff of
the weird.
Insane old country woman
come to nag the haunts
of town
Hairy legs w/open sores.

From what swamp or under-rock
did you crawl to remind
us what we choose
to leave

Long I fought the driving lists,
  Plume a-stream and armor clanging;
Link on link, between my wrists,
  Now my heavy freedom's hanging.