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

i just can't stay
in babylon
all the time
i got to get out or i
forget
which world
is real
i have to sit
in the hut
on my own
crossed legs
i got to light
a candle
beat a drum
or just listen
to the music
of the jungle bird
gandhi's standing
on my head
singing
there's always room
for one more
in africa
and heaven

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

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

icehouse and cigarettes
funny as hell
hyena-laugh-like
doesn’t give two *****

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

I'm standing on weird edges
There's blood in the sky
There's a boy named Pi.

The night is black, so
old blood.  So cruelty,
I've had enough.

I was born with barbed-wire sickness.

Is your blood running high?
Blood is life,
don't spill it.

Watch the mind of day
become the mind of night.
Better is the house of mourning,

better the sky at night,
I can hear God better.
Blood runs from our eyes.

Are you facing the sky,
boy named
Pi?

I was moving
Seeing double
Two of her
Maybe three
Dogs crossing
Almost dying
Wine trying
To unhinge
Me
The loneliness
Corrodes me
Equivocates
And I see
Straight
Again
One of me
One of her
Face
To
Face
Both of us
In this
Seclusion
Alone
Misrepresentation
A lie
We both
Go home
Alone
And cry
The same
Cry
Six hundred
And thirty
Six
Times

we tend to cry
for those who
die young;



why?

A baby sea turtle in my hands:
the outer islanders call him Wol,
he will be a nomad, if anyone will.
What will the world look like to him?
Will he dream of killer whales,
those Swiss Cake Rolls of the sea?
Of winning the three hearts
of an octopus?
See what the turtle sees,
and rejoice.

The sea turtle, like the human, cries saltwater
and the tears cover two-thirds of the earth.
He risks pirate ship, cigarette boat, Chinese net.
He mistakes bait for food. (Who doesn’t?)
But he can swim away from; swim towards:
India, Mombasa, New Zealand, Ulithi.
The world's a turtle’s home,
why is anyone a nomad if not for this?
See what the turtle sees
and rejoice, carrying only
the markings on your shell.

A jungle.
A shack.
Half a moon.
Islands sprinkled like tiny green beads
across the Water of the Sky.
A first tattoo—seven little turtles--
and it hurts in a good way
like the world does.
Dear Creator
keep me from evil
keep my life
keep my going out and my coming in