Above all others. Who drown.
Arise.
In cement. Stuck in earth.
Arise.
Clods. Hopeless. Arise.
A rumor. A mysterious stranger.
Alights. An appearance.
Talk of elegance.
The old days.
Rising above all others.
Always clean.
Operating room floor.
Cell.
Black & red tiles.
This closet. A window.
Big enough to hold screams
You say are poems.
Who writes these verticals.
Held back.
Who is it in there.
Wiring these poems.
Peek through.
Who.
Held back.
Verticals.
Black cloth over eyes.
Gaggle of kitchen gossip.
Downstairs.
Scrape against peg-board
Fingernails wearing down.
The lot. Held all time.
Together in its fences.
No one to see it. Go.
But it was. There.
The lot.
Forever.
Inside news. Locale. The page.
How many times. Does the gun go. Apart in our face.
To die. Without once. Ever.
What a shame.
Did it hurt.
How can I. On TV. So easy. Yawn.
Dull. Death all over the place.
Dismiss. Dismantle. Blood holes.
How many more deaths.
How many more bullets.
How many more. To restore. The page.
Tell it
to the kids.
Bang bang.
A song.
Three Amulets
1.
Slow. To go
against it.
The word. The page.
Marks. On the white.
My whole life.
Marked by words.
Slow to go against it.
To go against their hard shapes.
To wound the page with metal.
Holes in the paper.
I wave in your face.
We follow each other.
I'm behind you. At night.
You're behind me when I stand up to leave.
We face each other on the page.
2.
Invoke.
Invoke.
Invoke. Invoke.
It begins to look Swedish.
Or German.
Her blond hair.
Her black hair.
Roots of her blood.
Perfume of cups.
Inner white thigh.
Soft silk hidden from the sun.
Teeth. Tongue.
Prospects of song.
Invoke. Invoke.
Invoke. Invoke.
Her bite.
Against night.
Pulls sheets apart.
Spine tangle. Knots & eyes.
Paper Japanese mask.
Her tongue pushes through.
A hole in the center of air.
Poems in her hair.
Nest.
Blood of her mystery.
Bloom of her history.
In her stars we rest.
In the dark.
Her body opens.
3.
You do.
That hoodoo.
You do it. In the dark.
Or in the bright hot.
Palms & corked polly.
Scorched parrots.
Rum bubbling on the dirt floor.
Each cloud overhead a loa.
Shadow of your prayer.
Wicker knots.
Drums unhinge.
Each loa wandering until you voice it.
You do that hoodoo.
We do it. Apart. In the dark.
Or in the bright hot.
On or off the page.
Together.
A yellow horse tiptoes the veve's curls.
Your sunglasses frame a falcon.
Rum bumblers drown in jewelry.
Oceans dumbfound the dancers.
But humble souls in white abide.
Hold the sun above pure minds.
Humble souls in white clouds arise.
Darken as you leave the shrine.
Black-winged rooster ducks behind an oil drum.
We turn each other inside out.
You do that. We do that. Hoodoo.
Upon the open wave.
Whereupon the ocean is a recording.
Her radio tuned to news.
Her mouth pressed upon his.
Opens.
We explore breath.
Our germanies.
Upon the open wave.
Oh so low.
So lost. So cold.
Who'll buy my flowers.
Snow on a shrine's dome.
Strike a match.
Knee on wood plank.
Far Rockaway shul.
Daven, David.
Break the ice.
Who is inside will be freed.
Heart knot opening.
Everybody doubled. Othered.
Somebody else.
Not the same.
Restore my sight.
So low. So lost.
Old tapdancer.
Salt statue.
Lights action camera.
Radio
Y: Blue turning grey over you.
Impossible to tell you anything.
You know it all, you know.
H: I know nothing or why would I
sit.
Asking you to tell me something I want to
know.
Y: I'm the person
who is always asleep.
Not one to ask questions of.
Because I talk in my sleep I am not
an oracle.
I know nothing.
H: No.
I've read all your books.
I've heard you speak before crowds.
Everyone agrees you are the wisest of
all.
A phenomenon.
Y: I slept through it all.
That's what I'm telling you.
I slept through it all. That's the
truth.
I know nothing.
It is all radio & television.
Peace talks. Watergate. Fuel Crisis.
Julius & Ethel Rosenberg.
A mountain of rose petals.
What's left of Brooklyn.
Yellow Pages.
Nothing to hold on to.
History.
Easy as pie.
It
stays.
We couldnt.
Dust is the song.
We couldnt
I couldnt.
Dust on all the coleus.
Floor to floor walls.
Electricity.
Record on the turntable.
Sonny Rollins. 1958.
It isn't all over.
There can never be.
Another now.
It stays.
Here.
Cracked.
Dust is what a time machine coughs back.
I spy, we spy.
I must know why.
Information.
She ariseth from bed.
Propelled.
Door opening. Sonata.
Hello, are you there.
Yes, I am here.
Dial tone. Swallows her ear.
Who do you wait for.
At the other end.
Who is there.
The
clear.
Ever more.
Even now.
Start & end here.
Along an edge.
Leaf or lip of brass jar.
Placed on a dark shelf.
Formal.
No picture. No music.
Aftermath.
Along the edge of a word.
Cuts through.
Knife blade tears spider web.
All soaring trapped.
Language lack.
No one can say it.
If only you could.
Know it with me.
Radio
Couldnt.
Didnt you try.
Why. Impossible. She.
What about right & wrong.
She. Nobody else. I couldn't
Oh well. Passé. All over. You know.
I dream we are movies.
Ah it's late.
Or books of pop-up aquarium underwater ballet. Graceful.
No, no. Re-run. Re-run. Re-run.
Back through time.
Corn.
Emblem. Despair. Truth.
Lofty. Corn. Re-run. Re-run.
Re-run. Re-run. Re-run.
I had no. All the time. That way. Blank.
They open doors for my breath.
A fast shadow.
Match-flare. Eye opens. Shuts.
I had no. Every second. No comfort.
She turns. She turns.
I had no.
All my words. Your words. Books. Strobes.
Wont you listen. I had no.
Our song. Silence. She opens the gate.
No house beyond it. A movie lot.
Wheatfield. Overgrown weed field.
Helicopter. 6 oclock news. I had no.
Her teeth at my feet.
Blood at the edges.
All the time. That way. Blank.
Radio
I must do it.
Did you read the drumroll. About the zim & zoom. Or for that matter
jazz.
How it moves inside even when I stand still. A theory linked with
the Greeks.
Outside too with faces & mouths. Are they singing.
Do it again on the page.
Listen to my music. It is 4 square. A building on fire.
They dive out of
windows. We read their names on the ground.
It's been done.
Smoke. Light. Inhale.
Exhale.
Gets you. Out there. Where it's all
happening.
Sure you remember her. The one I told you about back then when I opened
the other end & Africa was there.
We weren't even kids together.
She comes from the other side. They all do.
We bought different goods.
No mystery. Just doorways. In & out.
Her face against the window. Waiting. In smoke. Gone.
I always ate Cheerios. Everything is turned into food. On TV you see it
all.
Or the other one who patted my butt in a club painted black on Sunset
Boulevard.
Remember those Captain Marvel annuals with the cardboard covers. I collect
anything made out of paper.
Never. She had a big nose. Wooden skin. Erotic. Purple sweater. Waves.
Hello. Goodbye. Nothing in between. I never touched her.
She shut the
door. Too late.
Upon the open.
She doth arise.
Eyes hold dream.
Mouth metal.
She doth arise to light through Rembrandt's window.
Fiction is across the river.
Ariseth into light.
Her lover turns against.
Close the book.
Arise to dream's horizon.
Blue rags are what you get when you get there.
It's no longer a he or a she.
A skeleton won't dance.
No looking ahead. Or back. Or down.
Lights out. White orbs. Blank.
Can't see through. Nothing inside.
A ration of blue rags. Tin cup.
Nobody around for miles.
When you get there. Blue rags. There's no doubt.
(1974)