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Water spurts incredibly Clear up under simple feel And that is how We drank water A loon fled Into water Because a raven Could not dive Or swim. Only spinning is a star Dizziness       simple Ceremony appeasing weather With you sky, with for you sky Between A feeling a sky Heartfelt redolent in June Roses fume. May day Perpetual field of velvet horizon At a slant is the unicorn’s mane Realization from seed to flower We made contact chalices Filled, a sticky sweet Rim Oenone in layers tissue white Garb blooming staunchly Against salt caking waves Tosses the self Secret she has into the sea A volume into silence Liquid shadow engulfing liquid Ruin. Dumbess as condition Obsolete In generalization Sea flowers join Her hair. A music hummed In the mind otherwise mute In sedge hats we walk along pulling Iris and water oats for our vases Lysistrata’s cool Logical edge Lance leaved Golden Rod Linear leaves Untoothed edges Note the fringed beards And the relatively short Spurs on this deep yellow Orange species. Spur Shorter than that deeply Fringed lip. Sepals rounded And curved inward. Thickets Boys

1. The ice hook untwists inside the whirlwind like a tail. A raven’s rib ripped from the electric socket heats the palm, its rusted core bound by the apple’s shaven hide. Like a concussion cushioned between fingertips— egg batter congeals in cracks of concrete. The fourth generation of bees flee the unlocked mouth. The stoplight blinks midway between wing, beak, and worm unwinding inside braided corn husk, pulsing near the foot of the interrogator as he slams the gate shut. The interrogator, Every atom belonging to him, says: You there—hook and worm, you there—carved pebbles tucked under the glacier, your apathy grows like gray hair in these untied shoes. The tundra’s anvil and spine are flung back into the quarried pockets of the pilgrim. The “safe feeling” blossoms next to the caged wren. Motor oil trickles from the harpooned log. The Milky Way backbones the nervous system of the stream the deer sips. This is where I broke the ice, broke the sun’s neck, and the city raised its sunflower above a pond of gathered lice. The storm took care of it! Reached down, hammered them flat. Walls erected, stoned down, down, and as we fled, we unbraided our hair from the fan belt of the exhumed engine. One twin kissed the other in the uncovered wagon. 2. We watched them unravel from their neckties, and took the shape of rain clouds blotting out the noon sun. In their houses— The long night gloved the mist inside our gills. And I stained the plaques clean, memorized each brick flung from the window, while roosters crowed the grip loose. Who made them leap from shelves unnamed? Made them buckle down low, pulled out by their tails from between each lie cupped inside another one? A spear was driven into it— Underneath the pilgrim’s skirt: the skyline of a missing tooth.

Three jets are streaking west: Trails are beginning to fray already: The third, the last set out, Climbs parallel a March sky Paying out a ruled white line: Skywriting like an incision, Such surgical precision defines The mile between it and the others Who have disappeared leaving behind Only their now ghostly tracks That still hold to the height and map Their direction with a failing clarity: The sky is higher for their passing Where the third plane scans its breadth. The mere bare blue would never have shown That vaultlike curvature overhead, Already evading the mathematics of the spot, As it blooms back, a cool canopy, A celestial meadow, needing no measure But a reconnaissant eye, an ear Aware suddenly that as they passed No sound accompanied arrival or vanishing So high were their flight-paths on a sky That has gone on expunging them since, Leaving a clean page there for chance To spread wide its unravelling hieroglyphs.

Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's Insignia on our sneakers, We outmaneuvered to footwork Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot Swish of strings like silk Ten feet out. In the roundhouse Labyrinth our bodies Created, we could almost Last forever, poised in midair Like storybook sea monsters. A high note hung there A long second. Off The rim. We'd corkscrew Up & dunk balls that exploded The skullcap of hope & good Intention. Lanky, all hands & feet...sprung rhythm. We were metaphysical when girls Cheered on the sidelines. Tangled up in a falling, Muscles were a bright motor Double-flashing to the metal hoop Nailed to our oak. When Sonny Boy's mama died He played nonstop all day, so hard Our backboard splintered. Glistening with sweat, We rolled the ball off Our fingertips. Trouble Was there slapping a blackjack Against an open palm. Dribble, drive to the inside, & glide like a sparrow hawk. Lay ups. Fast breaks. We had moves we didn't know We had. Our bodies spun On swivels of bone & faith, Through a lyric slipknot Of joy, & we knew we were Beautiful & dangerous.

If the angle of an eye is all, the slant of hope, the slant of dreaming, according to each life, what is the light of this city, light of Lady Liberty, possessor of the most famous armpit in the world, light of the lovers on Chinese soap operas, throwing BBQ’d ducks at each other with that live-it-up-while-you’re-young, Woo Me kind of love, light of the old men sitting on crates outside geegaw shops selling dried seahorses & plastic Temples of Heaven, light of the Ying ‘n’ Yang Junk Palace, light of the Golden Phoenix Hair Salon, light of Wig-o-ramas, light of the suntanners in Central Park turning over like rotisserie chickens sizzling on a spit, light of the Pluck U & Gone with the Wings fried-chicken shops, the parking-meter-leaners, the Glamazons, the oglers wearing fern-wilting quantities of cologne, strutting, trash-talking, glorious: the immigrants, the refugees, the peddlars, stockbrokers and janitors, stenographers and cooks, all of us making and unmaking ourselves, hurrying forwards, toward who we’ll become, one way only, one life only: free in time but not from it, here in the city the living make together, and make and unmake over and over Quick, quick, ask heaven of it, of every mortal relation, feeling that is fleeing, for what would the heart be without a heaven to set it on? I can’t help thinking no word will ever be as full of life as this world, I can’t help thinking of thanks.

I want to write my lover a poem but a very bad one. It'll include a giant squid and some loose change and cuff links and two blue ferries chugging headfirst on the East River at twenty-six knots and only at the last minute averting disaster through quick thinking and sure reflexes. Also a bow and arrow and glossy red apple I perch in front of my heart. To be honest my lover doesn't really like poetry, which I guess is why I plan to write such a bad one, so he can feel right and strong and good in his beliefs. Tonight when I go see my lover he’ll hold me as I've never been held except by him and then I'll have to give him back. When you get new things you treat them like glass for a while and then get used to them and manhandle them like everything else. I don't want to give him back but partly it's not up to me and partly I don't want to be his old sofa. I want to radiate and gleam arrestingly until the certain, premature end. You can compose a whole life out of these rollercoasters. You can be everywhere and nowhere, over and over life slapping you in the face till you’re newly burnished flat-out gasping and awake.

The sale began—young girls were there, Defenseless in their wretchedness, Whose stifled sobs of deep despair Revealed their anguish and distress. And mothers stood, with streaming eyes, And saw their dearest children sold; Unheeded rose their bitter cries, While tyrants bartered them for gold. And woman, with her love and truth— For these in sable forms may dwell— Gazed on the husband of her youth, With anguish none may paint or tell. And men, whose sole crime was their hue, The impress of their Maker’s hand, And frail and shrinking children too, Were gathered in that mournful band. Ye who have laid your loved to rest, And wept above their lifeless clay, Know not the anguish of that breast, Whose loved are rudely torn away. Ye may not know how desolate Are bosoms rudely forced to part, And how a dull and heavy weight Will press the life-drops from the heart.

Heard you that shriek? It rose So wildly on the air, It seem’d as if a burden’d heart Was breaking in despair. Saw you those hands so sadly clasped— The bowed and feeble head— The shuddering of that fragile form— That look of grief and dread? Saw you the sad, imploring eye? Its every glance was pain, As if a storm of agony Were sweeping through the brain. She is a mother pale with fear, Her boy clings to her side, And in her kyrtle vainly tries His trembling form to hide. He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother’s pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins! He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart. His love has been a joyous light That o’er her pathway smiled, A fountain gushing ever new, Amid life’s desert wild. His lightest word has been a tone Of music round her heart, Their lives a streamlet blent in one— Oh, Father! must they part? They tear him from her circling arms, Her last and fond embrace. Oh! never more may her sad eyes Gaze on his mournful face. No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks Disturb the listening air: She is a mother, and her heart Is breaking in despair.

To begin with, the slaves had to wash themselves well, and the men who had beards had to shave them off; the men were then given a new suit each, cheap but clean, and a hat, shirt, and shoes; and the women were each given a frock of calico and a handkerchief to tie about their heads. They were then led by the man selling them into a large room; the men placed on one side, the women at the other; the tallest at the head of each row and then the next in size and so on to the shortest. Many called to look at the slaves for sale and the seller kept talking about their qualities; made them hold up their heads and walk about briskly; and those who might buy had them open their mouths to look at their teeth, and felt their arms and bodies, just as they might a horse for sale; and asked each what they could do. Sometimes a man or woman would be taken to a small house in the yard, to be stripped and looked at carefully: if they had the scars of whips on their backs that would show they had been troublesome. During the day a number of sales were made; and a planter from Baton Rouge bought Eliza’s little son. Before that the boy had to jump and run across the floor to show his activity. But all the time the trade was going on, his mother was crying and wringing her hands and kept begging the man who was thinking of buying the boy not to buy him unless he bought her, too, and her little daughter: and Eliza kept saying that if he did she would be “the most faithful slave that ever lived.” But the man from Baton Rouge said he could not afford to buy her, and then she began to cry aloud in her grief. The man selling the slaves turned on her, his whip lifted, and told her to stop her noise: if she would not stop her “sniveling” he would take her into the yard and give her a hundred lashes. She tried to wipe away her tears but could not and said she wanted to be with her children and kept begging the man selling the slaves and the man from Baton Rouge— who by that time had bought her son— not to separate the three of them, mother, son, and daughter; and over and over again kept saying how faithful and obedient she would be and how hard she would work day and night. But the man from Baton Rouge said again he could not buy mother and son, let alone the three, and that only the boy must go with him. Then Eliza ran to her son, hugged him and kissed him again and again and her tears kept falling on his face. The man selling the slaves kept cursing her and called her a blubbering, howling wench and ordered her back to her place in line and to behave herself or he would give her something really to cry about.

If Heaven has into being deigned to call Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all; Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray To earth distribute only partial day? Since no resisting cause from spirit flows Thy universal presence to oppose; No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed, Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest; Not swayed by matter is they course benign, Or more direct or more oblique to shine; Nor motion’s laws can speed thy active course; Nor strong repulsion’s powers obstruct thy force: Since there is no convexity in mind, Why are thy genial rays to parts confined? While the chill North with thy bright beam is blest, Why should fell darkness half the South invest? Was it decreed, fair Freedom! at thy birth, That thou should’st ne’er irradiate all the earth? While Britain basks in thy full blaze of light, Why lies sad Afric quenched in total night? Thee only, sober Goddess! I attest, In smiles chastised, and decent graces dressed; To thee alone, pure daughter of the skies, The hallowed incense of the Bard should rise: Not that mad Liberty, in whose wild praise Too oft he trims his prostituted bays; Not that unlicensed monster of the crowd, Whose roar terrific bursts in peals so loud, Deafening the ear of Peace; fierce Faction’s tool, Of rash Sedition born, and mad Misrule; Whose stubborn mouth, rejecting Reason’s rein, No strength can govern, and no skill restrain; Whose magic cries the frantic vulgar draw To spurn at Order, and to outrage Law; To tread on grave Authority and Power, And shake the work of ages in an hour: Convulsed her voice, and pestilent her breath, She raves of mercy, while she deals out death: Each blast is fate; she darts from either hand Red conflagration o’er the astonished land; Clamouring for peace, she rends the air with noise, And, to reform a part, the whole destroys. Reviles oppression only to oppress, And, in the act of murder, breathes redress. Such have we seen on Freedom’s genuine coast, Bellowing for blessings which were never lost. ‘Tis past, and Reason rules the lucid hour, And beauteous Order reassumes his power: Lord of the bright ascendant may he reign, Till perfect Peace eternal sway maintain! O, plaintive Southerne! whose impassioned page Can melt the soul to grief, or rouse to rage; Now, when congenial themes engage the Muse, She burns to emulate thy generous views; Her failing efforts mock her fond desires, She shares thy feelings, not partakes thy fires. Strange power of song! the strain that warms the heart Seems the same inspiration to impart; Touched by the extrinsic energy alone, We think the flame which melts us is our own; Deceived, for genius we mistake delight, Charmed as we read, we fancy we can write. Though not to me, sweet Bard, thy powers belong, The cause I plead shall sanctify my song. The Muse awakes no artificial fire, For Truth rejects what Fancy would inspire: Here Art would weave her gayest flowers in vain, The bright invention Nature would disdain. For no fictitious ills these numbers flow, But living anguish, and substantial woe; No individual griefs my bosom melt, For millions feel what Oroonoko felt: Fired by no single wrongs, the countless host I mourn, by rapine dragg’d from Afric’s coast. Perish the illiberal thought which would debase The native genius of the sable race! Perish the proud philosophy, which sought To rob them of the powers of equal thought! What! does the immortal principle within Change with the casual colour of a skin? Does matter govern spirit? or is mind Degraded by the form to which it’s joined? No: they have heads to think, and hearts to feel, And souls to act, with firm, though erring zeal; For they have keen affections, soft desires, Love strong as death, and active patriot fires: All the rude energy, the fervid flame Of high-souled passion, and ingenuous shame: Strong, but luxuriant virtues, boldly shoot From the wild vigour of a savage root. Nor weak their sense of honour’s proud control, For pride is virtue in a Pagan soul; A sense of worth, a conscience of desert, A high, unbroken haughtiness of heart; That selfsame stuff which erst proud empires swayed, Of which the conquerors of the world were made. Capricious fate of men! that very pride In Afric scourged, in Rome was deified. No Muse, O Qua-shi! shall thy deeds relate, No statue snatch thee from oblivious fate! For thou wast born where never gentle Muse On Valour’s grave the flowers of Genius strews; And thou wast born where no recording page Plucks the fair deed from Time’s devouring rage. Had fortune placed you on some happier coast, Where polished Pagans souls heroic boast, To thee, who sought’st a voluntary grave, The uninjured honours of thy name to save, Whose generous arm thy barbarous Master spared, Altars had smoked, and temples had been reared. Whene’er to Afric’s shores I turn my eyes, Horrors of deepest, deadliest guilt arise; I see, by more than Fancy’s mirror shown, The burning village, and the blazing town: See the dire victim torn from social life, See the sacred infant, hear the shrieking wife! She, wretch forlorn! is dragged by hostile hands, To distant tyrants sold, in distant lands: Transmitted miseries, and successive chains, The sole sad heritage her child obtains. E’en this last wretched boon their foes deny, To weep together, or together die. By felon hands, by one relentless stroke, See the fond links of Nature broke! The fibres twisting round a parent’s heart, Torn from their grasp, and bleeding as they part. Hold, murderers! hold! nor aggravate distress; Respect the passions you yourself possess: Ev’n you, of ruffian heart, and ruthless hand, Love your own offspring, love your native land; Ev’n you, with fond impatient feelings burn, Though free as air, though certain of return. Then, if to you, who voluntary roam, So dear the memory of your distant home, O think how absence the loved scene endears To him, whose food is groan, whose drink is tears; Think on the wretch whose aggravated pains To exile misery adds, to misery chains. If warm your heart, to British feelings true, As dear his land to him as yours to you; And Liberty, in you a hallowed flame, Burns, unextinguished, in his breast the same. Then leave him holy Freedom’s cheering smile, The heaven-taught fondness for the parent soil; Revere affections mingled with our frame, In every nature, every clime the same; In all, these feelings equal sway maintain; In all, the love of home and freedom reign: And Tempe’s vale, and parched Angola’s sand, One equal fondness of their sons command. The unconquered savage laughs at pain and toil, Basking in Freedom’s beams which gild his native soil. Does thirst of empire, does desire of fame, (For these are specious crimes) our rage inflame? No: sordid lust of gold their fate controls, The basest appetite of basest souls; Gold, better gained by what their ripening sky, Their fertile fields, their arts, and mines supply. What wrongs, what injuries does Oppression plead To smooth the crime and sanctify the deed? What strange offence, what aggravated sin? They stand convicted — of a darker skin! Barbarians, hold! the opprobrious commerce spare, Respect His sacred image which they bear. Though dark and savage, ignorant and blind, They claim the common privilege of kind ; Let Malice strip them of each other plea, They still are men, and men should still be free. Insulted Reason loathes the inverted trade — Loathes, as she views the human purchase made; The outraged Goddess, with abhorrent eyes, Sees Man the traffic, souls the merchandise! Man, whom fair Commerce taught with judging eye, And liberal hand, to barter or to buy, Indignant Nature blushes to behold, Degraded man himself, trucked, bartered, sold; Of every native privilege bereft, Yet cursed with every wounded feeling left. Hard lot! each brutal suffering to sustain, Yet keep the sense acute of human pain. Plead not, in reason’s palpable abuse, Their sense of feeling callous and obtuse, From heads to hearts lies Nature’s plain appeal, Though few can reason, all mankind can feel. Though wit may boast a livelier dread of shame, A loftier sense of wrong, refinement claim; Though polished manners may fresh wants invent, And nice distinctions nicer souls torment; Though these on finer spirits heavier fall, Yet natural evils are the same to all. Though wounds there are which reason’s force may heal, There needs no logic sure to make us feel. The nerve, howe’er untutored, can sustain A sharp, unutterable sense of pain; As exquisitely fashioned in a slave, As where unequal fate a sceptre gave. Sense is as keen where Gambia’s waters glide, As where proud Tiber rolls his classic tide. Though verse or rhetoric point the feeling line, They do not whet sensation, but define. Did ever wretch less feel the galling chain, When Zeno proved there was no ill in pain? In vain the sage to smooth its horror tries; Spartans and Helots see with different eyes; Their miseries philosophic quirks deride, Slaves groan in pangs disowned by Stoic pride. When the fierce Sun darts vertical his beams, And thirst and hunger mix their wild extremes; When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, And his strained eyes in burning anguish roll; Will the parched Negro own, ere he expire, No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire? For him, when agony his frame destroys, What hope of present fame or future joys? For that have heroes shortened Nature’s date; For this have martyrs gladly met their fate; But him, forlorn, no hero’s pride sustains, No martyr’s blissful visions soothe his pains; Sullen, he mingles with his kindred dust, For he has learned to dread the Christian’s trust; To him what mercy can that God display, Whose servants murder, and whose sons betray? Savage! thy venial error I deplore, They are not Christians who infest thy shore. O thou sad spirit, whose preposterous yoke The great deliver Death, at length, has broke! Released from misery, and escaped from care, Go, meet that mercy man denied thee here. In thy dark home, sure refuge of the oppressed, The wicked vex not, and the weary rest. And, if some notions, vague and undefined, Of future terrors have assailed thy mind; If such thy masters have presumed to teach, As terrors only they are prone to preach; (For should they paint eternal Mercy’s reign, Where were the oppressor’s rod, the captive’s chain?) If then, thy troubled soul has learned to dread The dark unknown thy trembling footsteps tread; On Him, who made thee what thou art, depend; He, who withholds the means, accepts the end. Thy mental night they Saviour will not blame, He died for those who never heard his name. Not thine the reckoning dire of Light abused, Knowledge disgraced, and Liberty misused; On thee no awful judge incensed shall sit For parts perverted, and dishonoured wit. Where ignorance will be found the surest plea, How many learned and wise shall envy thee ! And thou, White Savage! whether lust of gold, Or lust of conquest rule thee uncontrolled! Hero, or robber! — by whatever name Thou plead thy impious claim to wealth or fame; Whether inferior mischief be thy boast, A tyrant trader rifling Congo’s coast: Or bolder carnage track thy crimson way, Kings dispossessed, and provinces thy prey; Whether thou pant to tame earth’s distant bound; All Cortez murdered, all Columbus found; O’er plundered realms to reign, detested Lord, Make millions wretched, and thyself abhorred: — Whether Cartouche in forests break the law, Or bolder Caesar keep the world in awe; In Reason’s eye, in Wisdom’s fair account, Your sum of glory boasts a like amount: The means may differ, but the end’s the same; Conquest is pillage with a nobler name. Who makes the sum of human blessings less, Or sinks the stock of general happiness, Though erring fame may grace, though false renown, His life may blazon or his memory crown, Yet the last audit shall reverse the cause, And God shall vindicate his broken laws. Had those adventurous spirits who explore Through ocean’s trackless wastes, the far-sought shore; Whether of wealth insatiate, or of power, Conquerors who waste, or ruffians who devour: Had these possessed, O Cook! thy gentle mind, Thy love of arts, thy love of human kind; Had these pursued thy mild and liberal plan, Discoverers had not been a curse to man. Then, blessed Philanthropy! thy social hands Had linked dissevered worlds in brothers’ bands; Careless, if colour, or if clime divide; Then, loved and loving, man had lived, and died. Then with pernicious skill we had not known To bring their vices back and leave our own. The purest wreaths which hang on glory’s shrine, For empires founded, peaceful Penn! are thine; No blood-stained laurels crowned thy virtuous toil, No slaughtered natives drenched thy fair-earned soil. Still thy meek spirit in thy flock survives, Consistent still, their doctrines rule their lives; Thy followers only have effaced the shame Inscribed by slavery on the Christian name. Shall Britain, where the soul of Freedom reigns, Forge chains for others she herself disdains? Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nations know The liberty she tastes she will bestow; Not to herself the glorious gift confined, She spreads the blessing wide as human kind; And scorning narrow views of time and place, Bids all be free in earth’s extended space. What page of human annals can record A deed so bright as human rights restored? O may that god-like deed, that shining page, Redeem our fame, and consecrate our age! And let this glory mark our favoured shore, To curb false freedom and the true restore! And see, the cherub Mercy from above, Descending softly, quits the spheres of love! On Britain’s isle she sheds her heavenly dew, And breathes her spirit o’er the enlightened few; From soul to soul the spreading influence steals, Till every breast the soft contagion feels. She speeds, exulting, to the burning shore, With the best message angel ever bore; Hark! ’tis the note which spoke a Saviour’s birth, Glory to God on high, and peace on earth! She vindicates the Power in Heaven adored, She stills the clank of chains, and sheathes the sword; She cheers the mourner, and with soothing hands From bursting hearts unbinds the oppressor’s bands; Restores the lustre of the Christian name, And clears the foulest blot that dimmed its fame. As the mild Spirit hovers o’er the coast, A fresher hue the withered landscapes boast; Her healing smiles the ruined scenes repair, And blasted Nature wears a joyous air; While she proclaims through all their spicy groves, ‘Henceforth your fruits, your labours, and your loves, All that your Sire possessed, or you have sown, Sacred from plunder — all is now your own.’ And now, her high commission from above, Stamped with the holy characters of love, The meek-eyed spirit waving in her hand, Breathes manumission o’er the rescued land: She tears the banner stained with blood and tears, And, Liberty! thy shining standard rears! As the bright ensign’s glory she displays, See pale Oppression faints beneath the blaze! The giant dies! no more his frown appals, The chain, untouched, drops off, the fetter falls. Astonished echo tells the vocal shore, Oppression’s fallen, and slavery is no more! The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain, And hail that mercy long invoked in vain. Victorious power! she bursts their two-fold bands, And Faith and Freedom spring from Britain’s hands. And Thou! great source of Nature and of Grace, Who of one blood didst form the human race, Look down in mercy in thy chosen time, With equal eye on Afric’s suffering clime: Disperse her shades of intellectual night, Repeat thy high behest — Let there be light! Bring each benighted soul, great God, to Thee, And with thy wide Salvation make them free!