English Poems

There is a music to this sadness.
In a room somewhere two people dance.
I do not mean to say desire is everything.
A cup half empty is simply half a cup.
How many times have we been there and not there?
I have seen waitresses slip a night's
worth of tips into the jukebox, their eyes
saying yes to nothing in particular.
Desire is not the point.
Tonight your name is a small thing
falling through sadness. We wake alone
in houses of sticks, of straw, of wind.
How long have we stood at the end of the pier

“I’ m glad you’ re positive.”
“I’ m glad you’ re positive,

too, though, of course, I wish
you weren’ t.” I wish you weren’ t

either is the response I expect,
and you say nothing.

And who can blame you?
Not me. I’ m not the one

who’ ll call you after dinner and a movie.
You’ re not the one who’ ll call me.

We both know we have
that — what? — that ultimate date

one night to come, one bright morning.
Who can blame us? Not the forks

and not the knives that carry on
and do the heavy lifting now.

The unrestricted sun
had split the day in two,
and now we went
on the edge of the afternoon
like a tableau of bent figures
made of faded blue duck.
We went like a wandering
and stinking, sweating brotherhood,
pull by pull between
the leafy cotton plants,
with the pathetic appearance of arriving
at the end of the furrow.
But we always arrived
in a rush to get there,
and the sole logic was
we had to move over
to the next furrow,
and no one could stop

Listen, you
who transformed your anguish
into healthy awareness,
put your voice
where your memory is.
You who swallowed
the afternoon dust,
defend everything you understand
with words.
You, if no one else,
will condemn with your tongue
the erosion each disappointment brings.

I swallow a pill but there is no cure
A city map won’ t get me where I want to go

Scaling the scaffold,
mindless of the mall,
unaware of driveways
where housewives dodge the wrecking ball,
I crawl outside these vacant blues

and into the contours of your eyes

Turn it over and look up
into the sphere of heaven.
The tracery is lucent,
light seeping through to write,
white-ink your face, upturned.

Swing it below
and it's a cradle of blue water,
the sea, a womb.
A mixing bowl
for Babylonian gods.
Here, they whirl up the cosmos.

In which everything goes backwards
in time and motion
Palm trees shrink back into the ground
Mangos become seeds
and reappear in the eyes of Indian
women
The years go back
cement becomes wood
Panama hats are seen upon skeletons
walking the plazas
Of once again wooden benches
The past starts to happen again
I see Columbus’ s three boats
going backwards on the sea
Getting smaller
Crossing the Atlantic back to the

you are falling
sun shine miracle
your lips are wet
rain
to our hearts
floods in every opening

on the stoop your skirt rises
fingers go up your legs

you are falling in the streets

the hallways of east harlem
the dark hallways of east harlem
the dark hallways with mattresses
of east harlem
you are falling

The mountain have changed to buildings
Is this hallway the inside of a stem
That has a rattling flower for a head,
Immense tree bark with roots made out of
Mailboxes?
In the vertical village moons fly out of
Apartment windows and though what you
See is a modern city
The mountain’ s guitars pluck inside
It’ s agriculture taking an elevator
Through urban caves which lead to
Paths underground They say Camuy
To Hutuado
Taino subground like the IRT in
Constant motion

La luna
Sang the miles por los palos
de Nebraska
You bunch of lights
And houses How did you walk
to this place
Buffalo Bill
Better know him some Spanish
Para Horses ride
rubber horseshoes
moderno.

El café
Boiled water/no milk in sight.
Homes that will travel interstate
8 o tomorrow in the morning
for the next edge of town.