Two floors up, at the corner of Hearst and Shattuck,
he's clamped for good
in an iron lung. When it's time to eat
he nudges his head a sweaty mile
to the edge of the pillow. It takes a while.
His brilliant bloodshot light-blue eyes
steer me from cupboard to fridge:
he would like his chicken burrito
cut into bite-size pieces,
a bent straw for his glass of water, please.
How does the body live its only life
in a cage? I watch him compute the distance
from bar to bar, and squeeze
between them
with a violent compression, a fury of bursting free
that doesn't last.
His will is a crowbar, angled to pry up
the rooted intractable weight
of matter. I watch him slyly, I check out
the way he does it. He
does it. But pain in its absolute privacy
weighs what it weighs.
I come here to study the soul, posing one question
a dozen ways, most of them silent.
"If I'm only a body," he laughs,
"I'm up shit creek." His laugh
...
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'
...
The Storm Within
I'm a big black hole
Trying to see the sun inside of me,
But I come to an end with the powerful storms
Storms that Zeus has made.
Lightning touches my chest like a warrior's sword:
Sharp, hard and distinct.
I'm crying like a newborn baby,
...
It was one of those
beautiful
English summer nights
when levitating
on the moonshine
of a moonlit world
was your entranced lucky
fate.
The lilac shimmer of silent
lakes.
The whisper of ghost fox
through your heartbeat.
But the toad in the hand
stank real.
Stank through his palpitating
skin.
Stank of fear.
Is the fabled hallucinogenic
touch of toads
just as Macbeth
witnessed
a hypnotising snare
of toxic apparition?
What thrilling doors of perception
...
This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers
animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
walking in the dark and the wind over broken earth,
halfmade foundations and unfinished
...
Poetry whispers secrets in a breathless breeze,
A dance of words that set the spirit free,
In every rhyme, a world begins to gleam,
A voice of soul, a fleeting, tender dream.
...
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
...
Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen
Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt
Where can I go
...
If you love your neighbor,
don't forget to love
yourself.
Your spirit is worth more than a thousand
strangers.
And don't seek sacrifice,
make your neighbor sacrifice for you:
their time? Let it be yours,
their thoughts?
Let them be for you.
...
If you die before me
I would jump down into your grave
and hug you so innocently
that angels will become jealous.
...
Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...
The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer
...
The Peace Warrior Of Mzansi, among heroes - a colossus!
Sun Of The Nation; a rare gift of Providence.
Once, entangled in the web of racist succubus;
Unruffled he declares before High Justice:
...
(This is a composition in Pilipino Language the first one I did, the only one, and hope some of the Filipinos will get this funny poem in this site. The poem is updated with English translation)
Noong taong otsenta dekada
...
Rappelle-toi Barbara
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là
Et tu marchais souriante
Épanouie ravie ruisselante
...
you put this pen
in my hand and you
take the pen from you put this pen
...
On this dry prepared path walk heavy feet.
This is not "dinner music." This is a power structure.
...
"Come, pretty birds, present your lays,
And learn to chaunt a goddess praise;
Ye wood-nymphs, let your voices be
Employ'd to serve her deity:
...
If you had the choice of two women to wed,
(Though of course the idea is quite absurd)
And the first from her heels to her dainty head
Was charming in every sense of the word:
...
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
...