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I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest. I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather. A bunch of violets without their roots, And sorrel intermixed, Encircled by a wisp of straw Once coiled about their shoots, The law By which I'm fixed. A nosegay which Time clutched from out Those fair Elysian fields, With weeds and broken stems, in haste, Doth make the rabble rout That waste The day he yields. And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, Drinking my juices up, With no root in the land To keep my branches green, But stand In a bare cup. Some tender buds were left upon my stem In mimicry of life, But ah! the children will not know, Till time has withered them, The woe With which they're rife. But now I see I was not plucked for naught, And after in life's vase Of glass set while I might survive, But by a kind hand brought Alive To a strange place. That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, And by another year, Such as God knows, with freer air, More fruits and fairer flowers Will bear, While I droop here.

I am an atheist who says his prayers. I am an anarchist, and a full professor at that. I take the loyalty oath. I am a deviate. I fondle and contribute, backscuttle and brown, father of three. I stand high in the community. My name is in Who’s Who . People argue about my modesty. I drink my share and yours and never have enough. I free-load officially and unofficially. A physical coward, I take on all intellectuals, established poets, popes, rabbis, chiefs of staff. I am a mystic. I will take an oath that I have seen the Virgin. Under the dry pandanus, to the scratching of kangaroo rats, I achieve psychic onanism. My tree of nerves electrocutes itself. I uphold the image of America and force my luck. I write my own ticket to oblivion. I am of the race wrecked by success. The audience brings me news of my death. I write out of boredom, despise solemnity. The wrong reason is good enough for me. I am of the race of the prematurely desperate. In poverty of comfort I lay gunpowder plots. I lapse my insurance. I am the Babbitt metal of the future. I never read more than half of a book. But that half I read forever. I love the palimpsest, statues without heads, fertility dolls of the continent of Mu. I dream prehistory, the invention of dye. The palms of the dancers’ hands are vermillion. Their heads oscillate like the cobra. High-caste woman smelling of earth and silk, you can dry my feet with your hair. I take my place beside the Philistine and unfold my napkin. This afternoon I defend the Marines. I goggle at long cars. Without compassion I attack the insane. Give them the horsewhip! The homosexual lectures me brilliantly in the beer booth. I can feel my muscles soften. He smiles at my terror. Pitchpots flicker in the lemon groves. I gaze down on the plains of Hollywood. My fine tan and my arrogance, my gray hair and my sneakers, O Israel! Wherever I am I become. The power of entry is with me. In the doctor’s office a patient, calm and humiliated. In the foreign movies a native, shabby enough. In the art gallery a person of authority (there’s a secret way of approaching a picture. Others move off). The high official insults me to my face. I say nothing and accept the job. He offers me whiskey. How beautifully I fake! I convince myself with men’s room jokes and epigrams. I paint myself into a corner and escape on pulleys of the unknown. Whatever I think at the moment is true. Turn me around in my tracks; I will take your side. For the rest, I improvise and am not spiteful and water the plants on the cocktail table.

Is everything a field of energy caused by human projection? From the crib bars hang the teething tools. Above the finger-drummed desk, a bit lip. The cyclone fence of buts surrounds the soccer field of what if. Sometimes it seems like a world where no one knows what he or she is doing, eight lanes both directions. How about a polymer that contracts in response to electrical charge? A swimming pool on the 18th floor? King Lear done by sock puppets? Anyone who has traveled here knows the discrepancies between idea and fact. The idea is the worm in the tequila and the next day is the fact. In between may be the sacred—real blood from the wooden virgin’s eyes, and the hoax— landing sites in cornfields. Maybe ideas are best sprung from actions like the children of Zeus. One gives us elastic and the omelette, another nightmares and SUVs. There’s considerable wobble in the system, and the fan belt screams, waking the baby. Swaying in the darkened nursery, kissing the baby-smelling head: good idea! But also sadness looking at the sea. The stranded whale, guided out of the cove by tugboats, turns and swims back in. The violinist will not let go her violin which is 200 years old and still on the train thus she is dragged down the track. By what manner is the soul joined to the body? Answer: an arm connecting a violin to a violinist. According to Freud, there are no accidents. Astrologists and Presbyterians agree for different reasons. You fall down the stairs with a birthday cake. You try to fit a blunderbuss into a laptop. Human consciousness: is it the projector or the screen? They come in orange jumpsuits and spray the grass so everything dies but the grass. It is too late to ask Kafka what he thinks. Sometimes they give you a box of ash, a handshake, and the rest is your problem. In one version, the beggar turns out to be a king and grants the poor couple a castle and a moat and two silver horses said to be sired by the wind. That was before dentistry, which might have been a better gift. You did not want to get sick in the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th centuries. So too the 19th and 20th were to be avoided but the doctor coming to bleed you is the master of the short story. After the kiss from whom he will never know, the lieutenant, going home, touches a bush in which birds are singing.

The first time I ever heard about coyotes Was in a book called (in Japanese)Seton’s Animals for Boys and Girls There I encountered Lobo the Wolf King, bighorn sheep, a family of wild boars, cottontail rabbits, and raccoons, but it was the stories of the wise coyote I loved the best I read the book over and over, over and over, it taught me the wisdom of rabbits, wolves, wild boars, but nothing surpassed the wisdom of the coyote Tito was raised by humans, was kept constantly on a leash No one loved her, they teased her until she ran away She learned to survive Ran for her life with her pups in her mouth Trying to get away from dogs and people I read about her over and over, over and over There was a map of America in the front of the book with pictures of animals where the stories took place: coyotes in the central plains, wolves in the southwest and north, elsewhere there were cottontails, boars, and partridges During my childhood, that was America to me Where did that book go? I no longer live in my childhood home, not even in the same town, not even in the same country, I lost my place there, I lost people and relationships, almost lost others too, I lost my language, but what about that book I read over and over, over and over? I must have lost it too Just the other day I tried searching for it on Amazon It popped right up, and I ordered it straight away Lives of the Hunted it’s called in English Published in 1901, reprinted in 1967 It arrived at my home A former library copy, the word discard stamped on it in big letters, probably the library didn’t want it because the stories are too cruel, too cruel for today’s youth, nowadays kids are used to killing one another in the virtual world, but even so, the stories are too cruel, 
a mother coyote was giving her cubs her milk, was licking them when hunters shot her dead, her cubs fled into their den, only to be dragged out one by one Here is how the book describes it: Even at this age there was a certain individuality of character among the puppies. Some of them squealed and some of them growled when dragged out to die. One or two tried to bite. The one that had been slowest to comprehend the danger, had been the last to retreat, and so was on top of the pile, and therefore the first killed. The one that had first realized the peril had retreated first, and now crouched at the bottom of the pile. Coolly and remorselessly the others were killed one by one, and then this prudent little puppy was seen to be the last of the family. It lay perfectly still, even when touched, its eyes being half closed, as, guided by instinct, it tried to “play possum.” One of the men picked it up. It neither squealed nor resisted. Neither squealed Nor resisted ... The book was in English, but I could read it quickly Since I remembered the Japanese I had read the book over and over, over and over All the coyote pups were killed Only one survived, only a single pup Tossed with its dead littermates into a sack and taken to a farm In the original, the hunters named her Tito That’s what I had suspected, I had read it in an old translation, kids in Japan back then couldn’t be expected to pronounce the unfamiliar sound ti, but that’s the version I was brought up on So for me, her name was always Chito I was always Chito Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-w-o-o-o-o-o-o-w I remember her voice When I was a child, I read the book over and over, over and over Here is how the book describes it: an inborn hankering to sing Her songs were a volley of short barks mixed with doleful squalls — Wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-w-o-o-o-o-o-o-w Here is how the book describes it: when the sun went down she would feel the impulse to sing that wild song of the West which means so much to the Coyotes. It is not the invention of an individual nor of the present, but was slowly built out of the feelings of all Coyotes in all ages. I’m not sure if I remember the Japanese correctly Getting old is no fun at all, you forget important things like that It is not the invention of an individual nor of the present, but was slowly built out of the feelings of all Coyotes in all ages and Her experiences all emphasized for her that old idea to “lay low”— that is, to be quiet, unobtrusive, and hide when danger is in sight Those were the most important things I learned as a child Chito’s wisdom How to survive Seeing the book, I remembered why I came to this place called America The most important things I learned as a child Were in that book I read over and over Maybe I had lost them for a while Or just forgotten The fate of the animals, their lives and deaths Their lives upon the plains, and my life too Chito was killed over and over again But each time she came back to life The humans tenaciously, persistently killed her She tricked them and was tricked by them in return She scattered her feces, went into heat The more they hunted her The more clearly things came into focus In other words, all the things she thought along the way Not the invention of an individual nor of the present But slowly built out of the feelings of all coyotes in all ages It was for Chito For Chito That I abandoned my home, bought an airline ticket And came to this place There was someone I barely knew, I’d only barely caught his scent But still I followed my nose and pursued him I found a room, rented a car And stayed the full three months permitted without a visa, I thought I’d try to stay When people asked me why I’d come, I said I’m a poet, I’ve come to learn about the oral traditions of the Native Americans And that was true But I didn’t even know what I wanted to know I didn’t know where to go I didn’t know whom to ask I was terrible at speaking with people in my native tongue, so in English it was damn near impossible, I couldn’t even tell them who I am (it took me decades to say that even in Japanese) But the real reason I came Was because I wanted to encounter a coyote I wanted to prick up my ears and listen to its howl Rattling dryly over the roads, through the darkness of night Translated from the  Japanese

After Rilke I carried a bowl of menudo into the forest / I carried my bisabuela’s tripas not daring ask whose intestines I carried / con cilantro y radish y cebolla chopped fine / I carried the sewing machine they’d chained her to in the garment district downtown I carried the forest crackling against asphalt where her chanclas burnt & melted so I carried her too / I wore no red / I bore no basket / there was no forest but an avocado tree in the backyard of the house they made her sell to get her Medicare for her diabetes shots / I carried her sugarwater / a hummingbird great-granddaughter I carried her flickering / her black- 
& white-screened / I carried her face / the scars her warped esposo left her granddaughter / carried those wounds through the womb / not wolf but blue-eyed man / I stirred the menudo / my belly the pot / & scalding into the forest I carried / & that tree I chopped down chopped into a boat & carried my mother & my bisabuela across the chile-red sopa the blood-water broth / named her daughter / what forest have we made for her I cannot see / I carried darkness into the forest & sliced it out.

I am happy living simply: like a clock, or a calendar. Worldly pilgrim, thin, wise—as any creature. To know the spirit is my beloved. To come to things—swift as a ray of light, or a look. To live as I write: spare—the way God asks me—and friends do not. 1919

I am in love, hence free to live by heart, to ad lib as I caress. A soul is light when full, heavy when vacuous. My soul is light. She is not afraid to dance the agony alone, for I was born wearing your shirt, will come from the dead with that shirt on.

I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me. Already I have given up the moon and snow, closing my shades against the claims of white. And the world has taken my father, my friends. I have given up melodic lines of hills, moving to a flat, tuneless landscape. And every night I give my body up limb by limb, working upwards across bone, towards the heart. But morning comes with small reprieves of coffee and birdsong. A tree outside the window which was simply shadow moments ago takes back its branches twig by leafy twig. And as I take my body back the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap as if to make amends.

I am merely posing for a photograph. Remember, when the Nomenclature stops you, tell them that—“Sirs, he was posing for my camera, that is all.” . . . yes, that may just work. My eyes: clear, hazel like my father’s, gaze across the sea, my hands at my side, my legs spread apart in the wet sands, my pants crumpled, torn, withered, my shirt in rags, see-through in places, no buttons, what a luxury, buttons, I laugh a little, my tongue slips and licks itself, almost, I laugh, licks itself from side to side, the corners of my mouth, if only I could talk like I used to, giggle under moonlight, to myself, my arms destitute, shrunken, I hadn’t noticed, after so many years sifting through rubble stars, rubble toys, rubble crosses, after so many decades beseeching rubble breasts—pretend I came to swim, I am here by accident, like you. My face to one side. Listen to gray-white bells of rubble, the list goes on—the bones, hearts, puffed intestines, stoned genitalia, teeth, again I forget how to piece all this together, scraps, so many scraps, lines and holes. The white gray rubble light blinds me, wait, I just thought—what if this is not visible, what if all this is not visible. Listen here, closely: I am speaking of the amber thighs still spilling nectar on the dust fleece across Gaza, the mountains, the spliced wombs across Israel, Syria. The amber serums cut across all boundaries, they smell incense, bread, honey—the color of my mother’s hands, her flesh, the shrapnel is the same color the propellers churn.