the devil allegedly
comes to steal **** destroy
which sounds like a lot of work

but probably isn't
in a place like this
even a first-grade massacre

won't undistract
us for long; the devil
doesn't have to cook

a *** of tsunami
or epidemic or
genocide

all he has to do is let us
worship shiny toys
on the altar of Time

and as ever
i'm as guilty
as anyone

Look at us, I'm carrying a basket made of trash
and you're carrying a mouse, well
the dog chewed up your glasses
but you're still rockin it
you have a single drop of coffee on your nose,
we're ready to go to D.C.

I had another where-are-we moment, it was fun.
Good, that's downtown Baltimore right there,
****** capital of the world.  

An elaborate mural graffiti.
Wall after brick wall.
A rustbelt city like Grand Rapids
Detroit Cincinnati.

Did you sleep well?
Yes I woke up feeling like a clam in a cocoon.
A sea creature inside of a forest insect, okay.

I've wasted too much time on both desire and regret.
Yellow bridge.
Blue-green supports.
Singer on the radio saying, we're young right now.

There's a healthy and an unhealthy way of dealing with pain,
I'm sorry for my selfish behavior in the islands.
I want to go back and leave a better legacy.
'Word.'

Last night to come see you I drove I-95 N, the overpass
and though the rest of the city was really moving
I was all alone up there, it was like
driving in the sky.

We pass signs saying: Icy Conditions:
bridges and ramps freeze first.
And a billboard: Learning Kick Flips
Takes Work, So Does College

We listen to our favorite island song:
love the islands, love the islands, oh.

You look like a rasta snowboarder girl
There's something really right
about having you in this car

An old man is sprawled
across my steps, in the night,
shouting for cigarettes,
crying out—as he does—
Lord, have mercy on a poor man’s soul.

**** or be killed.
That’s how it was
in North Vietnam.
He’d said that and pulled out London dry gin
to wash away only God knows what thought that got in--
I do not understand him
but I understand him
better than I used to.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to do right.
Have you ever collapsed the bridge under which you slept?
Leapt from your bed when the earthquake hit
or lay awake in it when the kids came to school
with black eyes and suicide eyes?

Blessed are the poor in spirit
but the kingdom hasn’t come yet
and the children are too beautiful for their own good
and I am not good enough.

I am on Your steps, crying
Lord have mercy
on Your poor kingdom

in a Me society
you stand on my broken back
to climb

in a We society
you share roof & blanket
we look at stars, both warm

in a We society
you share knowledge,
story, guitar

for the good
of everyone because
it's not about Me

in a Me society
you are showing off
if you do that

unless you are making money
(can someone explain this
to me?)

everyone though is always free
to be a Me
or a We

and life America
despite what you say
is not a competition

come be
a We
with me

to me it seems that the truly rich
are the contemplative,
the homed
are the ones
who can find a home
or create one
for someone else
the orphaned
are the ones who have forgotten
to look into the soul of the world
and one another's eyes

the blessed are the ones
who find themselves cradled
in the arms of the stars
feeling themselves more beloved
than anyone on earth
knowing the Creator
wishes everyone
to feel like that

knowing
love is waiting:
like a favorite woven hammock
in the jungle between the betel-nut and the soursop tree

like the tiny waves that seek the shore
to say hello over and over
to kiss the cheeks
of the hermit *****

like the seahorse clouds
brilliant orange and red
mirroring the ocean until
the whole world is a sunset,
i am in the sunset, i am the sunset

and the sun never really sets after all
it's bringing light to india
kenya hawai'i
it will
be back

At his little hippie college
he shows me a *** that looks like a wall
in a Rwandan museum, all skulls, he

learned clay in the Rift Valley
boarding school, on a kick wheel,
still his favorite

My brother is a potter
multicolor plaid shorts
little goatee

Banjo
Japan dreams
girl from Mozambique.

When we were little in Loiyangalani
we made tiny huts out of obsidian
while our Rhodesian Ridgebacks

sniffed the ground for cobras
sand vipers
scorpions

while twenty camels
walked by in a row
followed by tiny replicas

My brother is a potter, says to me
'When I am doing this I am
doing what I was created to do'

He makes a green and blue
candleholder for me which he calls
'The Islands,' light escapes through many holes

which look like sea turtles
pockets of air and
an atomic bomb just gone off

we turn off the lights
in my room in the hood,
snorkel in candlelight

My brother gives me
Rumi, incense, peace flags
We walk the silent night

smoke a clove
look at stars
like we used to do in the African riverbeds

waiting for Jina;
can't write poems
till he comes back