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Straight rye whiskey, 100 proof you need a better friend? Yes.        Myself. The lights the lights the lonely        lovely      fucking       lights and the bridge on a rainy Tuesday night Blue/green double-stars      the line that is the drive and on the dark alive gleaming river Xmas trees of tugs scream and struggle Midnite Drops on the train window wobble  .  stream My trouble is it is her fate to never learn to make anything grow be born or stay Harbor beginnings and that other gleam  .  The train is full of long/way/home and holding lovers whose flesh I would exchange for mine The rain, R.F., sweeps the river as the bridges sweep Nemesis is thumping down the line But I have premises to keep & local stops before I sleep & local stops before I sleep The cree- ping train joggles rocks across I hear the waves below lap against the piles, a pier from which ships go to Mexico a sign which reads PACE O MIO DIO oil “The flowers died when you went away” Manhattan Bridge a bridge between we state, one life and the next, we state is better so is no backwater, flows between us is our span our bridge our naked eyes open here see bridging whatever impossibility. . . PACE! PACE O MIO DIO oil “The flowers died. . .” Of course they did Not that I was a green thing in the house I was once. No matter. The clatter of cars over the span, the track the spur the rusty dead/pan ends of space of grease We enter the tunnel. The dirty window gives me back my face

I had a little brother And I brought him to my mother And I said I want another Little brother for a change. But she said don’t be a bother So I took him to my father And I said this little bother Of a brother’s very strange. But he said one little brother Is exactly like another And every little brother Misbehaves a bit he said. So I took the little bother From my mother and my father And I put the little bother Of a brother back to bed.

Brother, I’ve seen some Astonishing sights: A lion keeping watch Over pasturing cows; A mother delivered After her son was; A guru prostrated Before his disciple; Fish spawning On treetops; A cat carrying away A dog; A gunny-sack Driving a bullock-cart; A buffalo going out to graze, Sitting on a horse; A tree with its branches in the earth, Its roots in the sky; A tree with flowering roots. This verse, says Kabir, Is your key to the universe. If you can figure it out.

(being a conversation in eight poems between an aged Lucifer and God, though only Lucifer is heard. The time is long after.) 1 invitation come coil with me here in creation’s bed among the twigs and ribbons of the past. i have grown old remembering the garden, the hum of the great cats moving into language, the sweet fume of the man’s rib as it rose up and began to walk. it was all glory then, the winged creatures leaping like angels, the oceans claiming their own. let us rest here a time like two old brothers who watched it happen and wondered what it meant. 2 how great Thou art listen. You are beyond even Your own understanding. that rib and rain and clay in all its pride, its unsteady dominion, is not what you believed You were, but it is what You are; in your own image as some lexicographer supposed. the face, both he and she, the odd ambition, the desire to reach beyond the stars is You. All You, all You the loneliness, the perfect imperfection. 3 as for myself less snake than angel less angel than man how come i to this serpent’s understanding? watching creation from a hood of leaves i have foreseen the evening of the world. as sure as she the breast of Yourself separated out and made to bear, as sure as her returning, i too am blessed with the one gift You cherish; to feel the living move in me and to be unafraid. 4 in my own defense what could I choose but to slide along behind them, they whose only sin was being their father’s children? as they stood with their backs to the garden, a new and terrible luster burning their eyes, only You could have called their ineffable names, only in their fever could they have failed to hear. 5 the road led from delight into delight. into the sharp edge of seasons, into the sweet puff of bread baking, the warm vale of sheet and sweat after love, the tinny newborn cry of calf and cormorant and humankind. and pain, of course, always there was some bleeding, but forbid me not my meditation on the outer world before the rest of it, before the bruising of his heel, my head, and so forth. 6 “the silence of God is God.” —Carolyn Forche tell me, tell us why in the confusion of a mountain of babies stacked like cordwood, of limbs walking away from each other, of tongues bitten through by the language of assault, tell me, tell us why You neither raised your hand Nor turned away, tell us why You watched the excommunication of That world and You said nothing. 7 still there is mercy, there is grace how otherwise could I have come to this marble spinning in space propelled by the great thumb of the universe? how otherwise could the two roads of this tongue converge into a single certitude? how otherwise could I, a sleek old traveler, curl one day safe and still beside YOU at Your feet, perhaps, but, amen, Yours. 8 “.........is God.” so. having no need to speak You sent Your tongue splintered into angels. even i, with my little piece of it have said too much. to ask You to explain is to deny You. before the word You were. You kiss my brother mouth. the rest is silence.

(T HE M OB SPEAKS :) See! There he stands; not brave, but with an air Of sullen stupor. Mark him well! Is he Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye! No light is there; none, save the glint that shines In the now glaring, and now shifting orbs Of some wild animal caught in the hunter’s trap. How came this beast in human shape and form? Speak man!—We call you man because you wear His shape—How are you thus? Are you not from That docile, child-like, tender-hearted race Which we have known three centuries? Not from That more than faithful race which through three wars Fed our dear wives and nursed our helpless babes Without a single breach of trust? Speak out! (T HE V ICTIM SPEAKS :) I am, and am not. (T HE M OB SPEAKS AGAIN :) Then who, why are you? (T HE V ICTIM SPEAKS AGAIN :) I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull—and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong. Lessons in degradation, taught and learned, The memories of cruel sights and deeds, The pent-up bitterness, the unspent hate Filtered through fifteen generations have Sprung up and found in me sporadic life. In me the muttered curse of dying men, On me the stain of conquered women, and Consuming me the fearful fires of lust, Lit long ago, by other hands than mine. In me the down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers Of wretches now long dead—their dire bequests. In me the echo of the stifled cry Of children for their battered mothers’ breasts. I claim no race, no race claims me; I am No more than human dregs; degenerate; The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; I am—just what I am. . . . The race that fed Your wives and nursed your babes would do the same Today. But I— (T HE M OB CONCLUDES :) Enough, the brute must die! Quick! Chain him to that oak! It will resist The fire much longer than this slender pine. Now bring the fuel! Pile it round him! Wait! Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose The agony and terror in his face. And now the torch! Good fuel that! the flames Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek! And there’s another! wilder than the first. Fetch water! Water! Pour a little on The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so! Now let it slowly blaze again. See there! He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly out, Searching around in vain appeal for help! Another shriek, the last! Watch how the flesh Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it sifts Down through the coils of chain that hold erect The ghastly frame against the bark-scorched tree. Stop! to each man no more than one man’s share. You take that bone, and you this tooth; the chain, Let us divide its links; this skull, of course, In fair division, to the leader comes. And now his fiendish crime has been avenged; Let us back to our wives and children—say, What did he mean by those last muttered words, “Brothers in spirit, brothers in deed are we”?

The sea was one thing, once; the field another. Either way, something got crossed, or didn’t. Who’s to say, about happiness? Whatever country, I mean, where inconceivable was a word like any other lies far behind me now. I’ve learned to spare what’s failing, if it can keep what’s living alive still, maybe just awhile longer. Ghost bamboo that the birds nest in, for example, not noticing the leaves, color of surrender, color of poverty as I used to imagine it when I myself was poor but had no idea of it. I’ve always thought gratitude’s the one correct response to having been made, however painfully, to see this life more up close.The higher gods having long refused me, let the gods deemed lesser do the best they can

Metaphor     metaphor     my pestilential aesthetic A tsunami powers through     my mother’s ruins Delta     delta     moist loins of the republic Succumb to the low-lying succubus     do! Flagpole     flagpole     my father’s polemics A bouquet of     fuck-u-bastard flowers Fist me     embrace me     with your phantom limbs Slay me     with your slumlord     panegyrics Flip over     so I can see your pastoral mounts Your sword     slightly parting     from the scabbard Girl skulls     piled like fresh-baked loaves A foul wind     scours my mother’s cadaver Ornamental     Oriental     techno     impresarios I am your parlor rug     your chamber bauble Love me     stone me     I am all yours Pound     Pound     my father’s Ezra Freedom     freedom     flageolet-tooting   girls Dancing     on the roof     of the maquiladoras

Humanscape 62, 1970, by Melesio Casas Three years before I’d hear the word /beaner/ from the / white boys / who’d spit first in my broccoli, then in my hair, / my mother / dressed me each Wednesday in that / brown / sheath: I was seven. It’d be the only time I’d wear a sash — Miss / America, / she said. Twenty Miss / Americas, we made / kitsch from clothespins, pipe cleaners — our / brown / socks / banded and complicated / with orange tassels just below the / brown / / rosettes / of our knees, little / skulls / knocking together in our elementary / school / cafeteria. How we jumped the day / we heard / voices raising there instead of / at home, / when Tracy’s mom slapped our / troop / leader / and Tracy cried. And Tracy’s / mom was white / and only her / dad was brown / and Tracy was a little / prettier than the rest of us. / At the lunch tables, /white bitch/ stuck to our fingers like glue; /fucking Mexicans/ landed like glitter onto the sashes laid across our / small / hearts. / With Tracy, / we watched / manifest between us / a line, / risen from the tiled floor where / we shared / meals as tears clung to the eye-rims of my seven-year-old / compañeras. / Lorena chewed her nails till blood / bloomed / on her ring finger. Andrea peed quietly / on her brown knee / socks. None of us knew where to hide. This was not / home, / where / we could run / to the / broom / closet or to the / feet / of our big / brothers. /

Brutal to give the prisoner a window— a blue sky glimpse— as if an afterlife existed. Brutal for you to parade in a body in the same room where I dream you.

Floodlights have flared on behind and above Where I sit in my public chair. The lawn that had gradually darkened has brightened. The library windows stare. I’m alone in a crowd—e pluribus plures. Far from a family I miss. I’d almost say I’m lonely, but lonely Is worse, I recall, than this. Loneliness is a genuine poverty. I’m like a man who is flush But forgot his wallet on the nightstand When he left for work in a rush, And now must go without food and coffee For a few hours more than he’d wish. That’s all. He still has a wallet. It’s bulging. It floats through his brain like a fish... Money for love: a terrible simile, But maybe it’s fitting here, A couple of blocks from Madison Avenue Where commodities are dear, Where all around me, rich skyscrapers Woo the impoverished sky, Having sent on their way the spent commuters Who stream, uncertain, by— And as for this whole splurge of a city, Isn’t money at its heart? But I’m blathering now. Forgetting my subject. What I meant to say at the start Is that I noticed a woman reading In a chair not far from mine. Silver-haired, calm, she stirred a hunger Hard for me to define, Perhaps because she doesn’t seem lonely. And what I loved was this: The way, when dusk had darkened her pages, As if expecting a kiss, She closed her eyes and threw her head back, Book open on her lap. Perhaps she was thinking about her story, Or the fall air, or a nap. I thought she’d leave me then for pastimes More suited to the dark. But she is on intimate terms, it seems, With the rhythms of Bryant Park, For that’s when the floodlights came on, slowly, Somewhere far above my need, And the grass grew green again, and the woman Reopened her eyes to read.