Poemunity — your poem community

Whatever it is, it must have A stomach that can digest Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems. Like the shark it contains a shoe. It must swim for miles through the desert Uttering cries that are almost human.

Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous Darkness. Probably all my encounters Are existential jambalaya. Which is to say, A nigga can survive. Something happened In Sanford, something happened in Ferguson And Brooklyn & Charleston, something happened In Chicago & Cleveland & Baltimore & happens Almost everywhere in this country every day. Probably someone is prey in all of our encounters. You won’t admit it. The names alive are like the names In graves. Probably twilight makes blackness Darkness. And a gate. Probably the dark blue skin Of a black man matches the dark blue skin Of his son the way one twilight matches another.

May I never be afraid especially of myself but Muhammed Ali are you telling the truth? Well you’re being true aren’t you and you talk so wonderfully in your body that protects you with physique of voice raps within dance May I never be afraid rocked and quaked the mantilla is lace whose black is oak But if I’m dark I’m strong as my own darkness my strength the universe whose blackness is air only starry lace But if I’m alive I’m strong as life Strong as the violets in Marlon Brando’s fist his dissemblance flourished into truth She took them I’d take me too I do and my Ali I see you a hard bright speck of me the savage formalist authentic deed of gossip a kind body

sleepwalker can never die he is the chemical soldier composite of latex and atropine, hellfire, warthogs, desolation, pride, apaches, lasers, dust devils swirling, screaming fire deaths, machine worship, young blond pilots flashing thumbs up, excited smiles of interviewed military wives, shrapnel- paced rockeye anti-personnel bombs spraying death like fireflies over a texas barbecue of human flesh stretching sixty miles across open desert, armageddon over eden, algebraic mosaic of witchcraft, dot pattern magic of omens and signs, victims never knowing what hit them, vivid delivery of hell to nineveh, incendiary reduction of tissue to shadows on the sand, incineration of boots with human feet still in them, pain, mania, technology, history, delirious victims bleeding, eagle with the brains of a weak and frightened victim in its beak, unhappy fate, grief, shame, helpless rage

We loved them. We got up early to toast their bagels. Wrapped them in foil. We filled their water bottles and canteens. We washed and bleached their uniforms, the mud and dirt and blood washed clean of brutality. We marveled at their bodies, thighs thick as the trunk of a spindle pine, shoulders broad and able, the way their arms filled out. The milk they drank. At the plate we could make out their particular stance, though each wore the same uniform as if they were cadets training for war. If by chance one looked up at us and gave us a rise with his chin, or lifted a hand, we beamed. We had grown used to their grunts, mumbles, and refusal to form a full sentence. We made their beds and rifled through their pockets and smelled their shirts to see if they were clean. How else would we know them? We tried to not ask too many questions and not to overpraise. Sometimes they were ashamed of us; if we laughed too loud, if one of us talked too long to their friend, of our faces that had grown coarser. Can’t you put on lipstick? We let them roll their eyes, curse, and grumble at us after a game if they’d missed a play or lost. We knew to keep quiet; the car silent the entire ride home. What they were to us was inexplicable. Late at night, after they were home in their beds, we sat by the window and wondered when they would leave us and who they would become when they left the cocoon of our instruction. What kind of girl they liked. We sat in a group and drank our coffee and prayed that they’d get a hit. If they fumbled a ball or struck out we felt sour in the pit of our stomach. We paced. We couldn’t sit still or talk. Throughout summer we watched the trees behind the field grow fuller and more vibrant and each fall slowly lose their foliage— it was as if we wanted to hold on to every and each leaf.

A board. A slab. A draught. A frame strewn with sand for the delineation of figures. A sandbox. And. Geometrical diagrams. Or. A frame divided in two sections and in which round wooden plums slide upon parallel rods. For performing the functions of arithmetic. Finding mechanical solutions to mathematical problems. Addition and subtraction. Multiplication and division. Both square and cube root operations. On numbers. As. A set of positive integers unique in meaning and fixed in order. But. If the value of the plum changes according to its position on the rod, you find that I am divisible. Can be rendered invisible. That I can be reduced, diminished, and deducted from the larger quantities. I am trying to discover the value of me. But. I am dumb to the wonders of your great numbers. A child puts a penny in a penny loafer. A woman with two broken fingers carries three bags up four stairs. Five or six men stamp their feet in the snow. And. In the middle of a rectangular room, halfway across the world, seven empty chairs form a circle. For. A nine inch statue portrays a man on the back of an ox. And. I am trying to accrue. I am trying to accumulate. But. You have given me the gift of two glass eyes. Or. You've added eight and subtracted ten. The word is derived from a Semitic word ibeq. To wipe the dust. And. In architecture, a slab on the top of the capital of a column. In the Ionic orders, a square flat plate. In the Corinthian and Composite, variously cut and ornamented. See. You are bedazzled. You stand at the edge of a hundred horizons wearing a thousand crowns. While I, in this world, am slowly disappearing. As is this image of you. For. Any number times zero. Always equals zero.

Cherub-bee-dee how does a man who doesn’t read English well know that cherub-bee-dum those aren’t really words-bee-dee. But birds. Cherub-bee-dum, he stumbles, reading to me by the sliding glass door cherub-bee-dee, through which I watch my brother play in the dum-dum-yard. Cherub-bee-dee, cherub-bee-dum, like how my father says Fine then! Leave! My mother shouts,Stupid! Dumb! We live in a small bee-dee-nest too, one hallway to bee-dum-slam doors. Birds? What are birds? Thanks to my father, reading with me, I have more feathers. T-H-E. First word he ever taught me to pluck    ... It is a word used all the time. Cherub-cherub-bee-dum! The mail.The mailbox.The school bus.The the. He asks me to read the mail. Not birds,mail. If you don’t read this, you will turn into birds. And I read it to him the best I can. The end. A feather. Two feathers. The. The end. Mother, mother. Repeat after me. Cherub-bee-dee, cherub-bee-dum! We read together before bedtime.

Angels don’t come to the reservation. Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things. Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing— death. And death eats angels, I guess, because I haven’t seen an angel fly through this valley ever. Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though— he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical Indian. Sure he had wings, jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops, kids grow like gourds from women’s bellies. Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel. Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something— Nazarene church holds one every December, organized by Pastor John’s wife. It’s no wonder Pastor John’s son is the angel—everyone knows angels are white. Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians. Remember what happened last time some white god came floating across the ocean? Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angels up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups, we’re better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and ’xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens. You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they’ll be marching you off to Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they’ve mapped out for us.

1 i want to have your child cuz upon losing you i’ll have more than memory more than ache more than greatness i’ll have laughter i do not mean to be fatalistic know the limits put on you black man me, black woman when you are killed or imprisoned desert or separate from me i’ll continue fill the void of your absence with love between me and ours gods 2 you love me in your eyes. don’t say it loud pain america will never let you 3 you’re home. it’s a surprise you’ve made it thru another day one more night in your arms to fuck merge our bodies merge give wealth/freedom congress cannot legislate away 4 eyes wide as suns inquire where’s daddy? he’s gone away i love my daddy i smile he’s a good man eyes wide as suns burn my hand with a kiss go outside to play in the streets god what god is about

he lives in a house with a swimming pool and says the job is killing him. he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to get rid of him. his novels keep coming back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams “go to New York and pump the hands of the publishers?” “no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a small room and do the thing.” “but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to go by, some word, some sign!” “some men did not think that way: Van Gogh, Wagner—” “oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him paints whenever he needed them!” “look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and this guy walks in. a salesman. you know how they talk. drove up in this new car. talked about his vacation. said he went to Frisco—saw Fidelio up there but forgot who wrote it. now this guy is 54 years old. so I told him: ‘Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera.’ and then I told him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and you don’t know anything!’” “what happened then?” “I walked out.” “you mean you left him there with her?” “yes.” “I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and they think right away, ah ha! he’s too intelligent for this job, he won’t stay so there’s really no sense in hiring him. now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble: you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a job and they look at you and they think: ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire him he’ll stay a long time and work HARD!” “do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a writer, that you write poetry?” “no.” “you never talk about it. not even to me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d have never known.” “that’s right.” “still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a writer.” “I’d still like to tell them.” “why?” “well, they talk about you. they think you are just a horseplayer and a drunk.” “I am both of those.” “well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel alone. I’m the only friend you have.” “yes.” “they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell them you write poetry.” “leave it alone. I work here like they do. we’re all the same.” “well, I’d like to do it for myself then. I want them to know why I travel with you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—” “forget it.” “all right, I’ll respect your wishes. but there’s something else—” “what?” “I’ve been thinking about getting a piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a violin too but I can’t make up my mind!” “buy a piano.” “you think so?” “yes.” he walks away thinking about it. I was thinking about it too: I figure he can always come over with his violin and more sad music.