I am glad
we are
doing this
instead of
Facebook

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I carry my homeland as if it were in my arms.
Remembering:
chairs made of wooden crates,
footballs made of newspapers,
cigarettes made of camel dung.
Someone once said: a best friend will help you move
and a best friend will help you move bodies
but if you have to move your best friend’s body,
you’re on your own.

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I think about how you and I
belonged where nothing belonged:
shimmering with heat waves Africa,
rainy season pounding the mabati roof Africa,
weaver birds weighing down acacia trees with their nests,
Africa.  Where do we lay the blame and the bodies?
It could have been me holding the machete,
could have been me holding the machine gun.
Why is that?

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I see acts of courage and sacrifice that take my breath away.
A boy, shielding his sister's body with his own.
A girl, leading a blind woman to safety.
And you, holding an old man in your arms,
his life dripping down your clothes.
What I wished for you was a place where you would not fear
the terror by night, nor the arrow by day,
nor the plague that walks in the darkness,
nor the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
I wished for you the deep red sunsets over the vast hollow of the Chalbi desert,
the brother that reads to you in your break-bone fevers,
the camel that carries you and doesn't get tired.

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I wonder why I lived
and you didn’t.
And for your sake, and mine, and the world’s, and God’s,
I want to leave behind the failed resolve and the excuses
that keep me from leaving the world better than I found it.
When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will learn
to fear no evil.

'best friday
ever,'

because:

look
around

we all
need
saving

When I was a child I once sat writing
where Hemingway once wrote, at a table made of a canoe,
overlooking Turtle Bay, that little dip of Indian Ocean,
where my mother body-surfed the waves with us,
where my father spent some nervous scuba minutes
on the ocean floor, beneath a whale.
A lot has happened since then;
sometimes life is hard and sometimes
we don't know how to talk to each other.

What is a father? A Mother?  Child?
The answer is so different for so many.
Who are you?  I dream
I'm saying goodbye to you,
I don't know which of us is leaving
or where we're going but
I cry asleep and wake up crying;
and I remember there's been a few times
when there were tears in your eyes too.

And what is a Creator?  That infinite spiritual being
who fathers us, mothers us?  Acts 17 says
we are His offspring:
the children are hurting,
the children are crying,
the children are killing,
the children are dying and their dreams are dying.
But love still covers a multitude of sins.

Oh fathers of the world oh mothers
we do not say it often enough: thank you,
for what you could give, thank you,
for what you did give; and know
that I understand, finally,
that you were hurting too.

To the Creator, also, I say thank you
for fathering, mothering, even me.
We are Your offspring.
Deep down we're all dreaming the same kind of dream,
I haven't met a human yet who doesn't hurt about something;
we're all in this together if we let ourselves be

And love still covers a multitude of sins

just like you
could feel my fever
when it broke

i could feel
your fever
when it broke

i wept
like the ocean
for a few nights

you told me
to tell you
the truth

that's
what i'm
craving too

we're far
but i hear
your consciousness tonight

these bodies are broken down boats
our souls though
are still being

held
above
water

Greyhound station the midnight customs man
goes through my backpack looking
for a glock or **** I guess; instead
he pulls out Thich Nhat Hanh's
Teachings On Love.

You teaching love?
says he; I say

learning it

if you think
i’m talking
to you

then
i guess
i am

usually
i'm just talking
to myself

or my brother

i
still
need

those
cigarette
prayers

b


efore   i
formed
y
o
u

in
the
wo
mb

i
k
n
e
w

y
o
u

Is it the American
dream or nightmare
I so seldom know

the average American
whatever that means
encounters

thirteen thousand
advertisements
every day:

all saying
outward things
meet inward needs

but a lie repeated
thirteen thousand times
is still a lie

god would rather
have a you
that fails
than no you
at all
so i

like jasmine's comment
on facebook, when you can't
have hope, hold on to the hope
others hold for you

like desmond tutu
says, you know?
god says to you,
i don't have
anybody else!
except you!

god would rather
have a you
that fails
so i

we're god's babies.
tonight
i'm saying

god?

it's me again
with more pain.

god.

gives me a cup of chai
faces me
waits

i told bunkle,
if dostoyevsky's right
that the person

god trusts is
the one to
whom he gives

a lot of
pain, think he
trusted us too

much this time,
he said well
we gotta trust

him he knows
what he's going
to do with

all of this
i looked down
at my sweatpants

someone other than
me and none other
than me had

written you say
you have faith,
where is it?

save Your people

...save me
god, i don't
have much left

but bruises today,
it hurts to
wake up it

hurts to try
to sleep it
hurts to think

we tend to cry
for those who
die young;



why?

dear saint broken heart
i'm glad you're here
it's been a rough few weeks
between the cancer and the ward,
his dead brother and us losing
each other, less than nothing
i can do but it helps to have you here
your beautiful silence
your saint brokenness
on my shoulder

dear saint bro
we'll be okay
someday
someday
someday

you won't be so scared
and i won't be so blue
i'll be chirping
i'll be dancing
i'll be trying something new

just
like
you

you've always cried
with me you've always
been my dear my only
saint broken hearted birdy boy

everyone
has the right
to be

to make choices
to take a stand
to think

to work for their
own reasons

to value
what they value

to believe
what they believe

everyone has the right
to a life of the body

and a life
of the spirit

even if the crowd
says they don't

even if the government
says they don't

i'll dance in the streets,
cry in them, saying

who god bless
no man curse

I'm not making
an argument
for the Communist

I'm not trying
to Robin Hood anything
from you

I'm just saying
sharing is so much happier
than nonsharing

Please
take what you want
off my plate

my mouth is full of silence
it runs down my neck
and hides inside my shirt

i walk the ruins and find my words
tied to train tracks, try though
i might i cannot free them

the city drags me to the river’s edge
i want to weave a raft of words
but my mouth is full of silence

the city too is full of silence
choking suits and skyscrapers
only words are sharp enough scalpels

for the tracheotomy but the world is full
of silence and my mouth is full
of silence until you

open yours
and say

mine, too

all of us
want to think
'my place is best'

to have a place
that is yours
though, is enough

i can't believe
you thought i
wouldn't come back

i used to think
that in order to think
i would have to stop
believing

i used to think
that in order to believe
i would have to stop
being

but really
i just needed
to let myself be
honest and loved

he's coming over

he said he'll bring
the carbon monoxide

because he
hates people

waking up

I’m standing on the edge of a broken porch in New Jersey,
pink 3 AM clouds around a bowl of stars.
This jacket’s been warm for nine years.

Yes,
I still despair sometimes.
But I am learning to claw out of it by writing it.

Also, Jesus.

Tonight on this porch I’m thinking
what are symbols of happiness, what is
happiness, experience of it, etc.

I think of:
driving an overpass into the city tonight
all that color like spilled Christmas lights
like driving up into the sky.

--Think of:
7th grade boy with an earring and soft eyes.  
Angelo.  His name is.
Translating the story into Spanish for his friend.

--Of:
The blue, the green.  Of the reef.
Pacific silence.  Coconut cathedral.

Of: The Avett Brothers song, The Perfect Space.
Of friends who are like that.

: Africa, all seasons.


Also,
Jesus

if you
are


happy


and you
know
it


clamp your hams

I'm not saying
I'm in love
w/you
except
I am.

i feel much safer with animals
than people, i tend
to close off
when i'm scared
of crowds
or
another human being
and
what's going to happen
in an encounter
that is real
and somewhere along the deathbeds
i forgot any other way to be
i guess it is the unreal i'm afraid of

life seems long, it's not
real or nothing
that's all i can survive
silence i can do
but true
silence
not the silence
barb-wired
with lies

denial cannot keep death away
and in the meantime
suffocates life
god has gotten this
longtime prodigal-thief,
petri dish
of strange
and deadly
parasites,
ready to be
alive

ready to be part of a revolution
of values, a conversation
of justice, a
consciousness
of peace
and
love

despair
and fear-of-failing
have broken my legs and back and neck
for long enough,
i do everything
knowing
i will fail

and that's okay
because you know
this really is not about me,
not at all

i'm ready to be happily lost
in the jungle of life
because i am
happily found

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

Bald headed mountains with thin tree hair.
We're okay, though
we didn't think we would be.
I got a message today
from an ex-coal miner
with anti social paranoid depression:
keep them coming,
he said, of the poems;
and I too felt less alone.
The snow darkens sky,
lightens ground.
I don't know about you but I think
I've been making too many excuses.
Sometimes I sleep in the coal mine
because I want to, that's all.
Three brown birds say,
"See me!"  "See me!"
Snow falls on my head and I'm thinking:
I don't want any more birds to die for me

4:17 AM
Robbie's studying Japanese
and cooking bacon

On a Greyhound bus from NYC to New Haven
I sit down next to a skinny man named Fatz
who looks at me askance.  He says:
Long as you ain't crazy.
Long as you ain't gonna
stab me up in here.
Fatz? I say.
We agree.

life

does not
happen
in
a

drive-by

death does

in salt
water
tears

stuck
on
you

ocean
ocean
ocean

am empty until         you fill me
am broken until        you heal me
am lost until               you find me

tears
are
not

male
female
straight
gay
young
old

free

The last time
I saw my landlady in the hood

She said, 'I hear you been spending
a lot of time in the woods'

It's true, I said

'I thought so
That's you
you'll sleep in the woods
before you'll sleep in a hotel
have your tea and you'll be happy'

It's true, I thought
happy
in hoods and woods

there's a lot
of different
ways

to
speak
english

island english
hood english
mountain english

etc

some carry
many englishes
in their heads

english belongs
to everybody
cheers

for that
on this bright
afternoon

when all of
my englishes,
in one english

or another,
are all
missing


you

we gotta watch
this movie.

you are the main character.

except that
you don't have

scissors
for hands

that's the only difference

Lust is toxic
sad and
hollow.

Love says
somebody else
throw the first stone.

I wonder what You're writing in the dust.

I am hungry.
I think homeless.
I wish naked.
I am flesh.

I am calling.
I think answering.
I wish cries.
Here I am.

I am pouring.
I think satisfied.
I wish darkness.
I am noonday.

I am scorched places.
I think strong bones.
I wish spring of water.
I am child of what does not fail.

half of grace
is letting
your
self
accept it

yo

we have always
been the crocodile
twins of tears

the purpose
of a home
is to give
shelter

there is a
time:

to be
blessed

and be
cursed

Oh Lord--you know me--
I'd be totally happy with a thatch hut
by a heavenly ocean;
a few birds maybe,
a typewriter,
and cigarettes that are good for you:
you know me so really
I'd be happy
with anything

The road has taught me
so much about universal
fragility.

With enough time and chances
almost anyone
can end up almost anywhere;

guard yourself
but be kind
to the unguarded.

It's been ten million miles.
Few, and blessed,
the undefiled.

Christ mourns
with me as we
walk down rainy street

towards caged and crying child

As soon as I said that
God laughed upstairs.

You inspired me at least.

There's two huge mistakes:
when you shoot and you shouldn't,
and when you should and you don't.

Nobody knew
about the killing
but all of them knew how to get out.

Don't fix a mistake with a mistake.
             Don't be pride.
                              Don't disappear.
I know you have a tendency to do that.

We know who we are
but we try to convince each other
that we are something else.

And I don't want to do that anymore

there
                                               that's why i can never seem to totally despair

The Croc has been hacked by her little croc brother...

Man fire
street guitar
world dance

******
pain
heartache
shame

safety love
comfort love
everybody love

heartache
rage
panic
strange

man fire
street guitar
world dance

safety love
comfort love
everybody love

I don't want to keep
any of this beauty to myself
nor can I

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

'Baybo,' say I,
'do you think
my car is okay?'
'Well what you
gone do with it?' says he.
'Bring it into
the house?'

my name is
written
on the hand of
my God