Living

When I’ m running across the city
on the crowded streets
to home, when, in a blur,
the grass turns brown
beneath my feet, the asphalt
steams under every step
and the maple leaves sway
on the branches in my wake,
and the people look,
look in that bewildered way,
in my direction, I imagine
walking slowly into my past
among them at a pace
at which we can look one another in the eye
and begin to make changes in the future
from our memories of the past —
the bottom of a bottomless well,

there was a remember when the mama was my girl
the mama was in my girl biding to turn
my girl turn mama when what I got turn to girl in her
my girl in my girl make my girl mama
they both mine
all three

I remember a when when I only dreamed dreams
but my dreams are remembers now
they a when

my mouth a cunt in reverse and my guts, nuts.
I nose the dark nursery, belly for my dick spurting ink at shit.

Fire. Arrow.
Water. Shadow.
you know no kid’ s name a word, but some shit-to-do.
no kid ain’ t shit but a map to its folk
traced by its folk to where they buried their folk.

took that shit that made me to make me make myself myself,
rolled in on papa’ s red nuts like they a fucking chariot.

•

these days my guts stay aching. my head an empty crib.

Sound of the rain so I know
there’ s constraint
sound of  the train
so I know commerce
has not come to a standstill
now they raise the barrier
now they set it back in place

What coats the bottom
of  the surface of  the sound
when the swifts come in
when the clerks come home
who will bathe the children
who will bake the bread

when the luff is tight
when the mainsheet
starts the boat underway

whatever you do don’ t
let the tongue slip
from its moorings

I am walking through water with one of my sisters,
the river banked with tiger lilies, the sun
like having a lemon juiced into your eye, our senile dog

ecstatic behind us,
and I am yammering
about my discovery —

a chest deep pool, sentried by trees
that caterpillars were killing
with their yearly carnival tents.

Mortal oddment, there’ s no wish in the blood
But beat, but stay gift-strong, but make demands
To keep within veins this ore’ s diffuse gold,
These voices that know without being known —
These voices that riddle thought with herself,
Ridicule thought in her flimsy eternal
Gowns a child can tear in half   with a breath —
That chorus arterial, unbribable,
Blowing song through self as a child blows
A dandelion apart —
All those weeds? —

Fighting a losing battle
lives next door
to a vibrant woman
in her 30’ s.
When he talks to her
sub-mediocre takes over
in a big way.
Zombie-ized by the big eye
she even sleeps with it on.
Just sign me: concerned.

I think it is interesting
though not exactly amusing
how we go from day to day
with no money. How do we
do it, friends ask, suspecting
we really have some stash
stacked away somewhere.
But we certainly do not
and we also do not know
how we do it either.
You sure are lucky,
some of our friends say. I am
none too sure of that though,
as I wait for the winning
lottery numbers to be announced
on CKLW. Thursday in Detroit
is the day of dreams. We have
been dreaming of a place

At least it helps me to think about my son
a Leo/born to us
(Aries and Cancer) some
sixteen years ago
in St. John’ s Hospital next to the Long Island
Railroad tracks
Atlantic Avenue/Brooklyn
New York

at dawn

In through our bedroom window, the full dawn-scape concusses.
Difficult to sustain sleep's equilibrium of wordlessness.
Naming anything, like stepping barefoot in wet sand up to my ankles.
Name after name, sinking me farther beneath waking's buoyancy.

House, this morning, is pale with the rush of what night siphoned off.
Objects, still emptied of resemblance, hum their chord-less cantos.
Bloodless, my knuckles knock on walls without echo, testing singularities.