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In the flame of the flickering fire The sins of my soul are few And the thoughts in my head are the thoughts of a bed With a solitary view. But the eye of eternal consciousness Must blink as a bat blinks bright Or ever the thoughts in my head be stilled On the brink of eternal night. Oh feed to the golden fish his egg Where he floats in his captive bowl, To the cat his kind from the womb born blind, And to the Lord my soul.

There is the torch and the only thing That will prevent us from using it Is whether or not we can allow Jellyfish in the otherwise Crystalline surf. It would be easy To dismiss this view as beautiful and walk away Because it is buggy and we forgot The spray, to cancel the conversation Because its ease is perilous with conjunctions, To not touch because the sky would Separate from the sky and the mothership Would fall through with a banner Waving in a language we wouldn’t Understand though the meaning is As clear as these intercontinental Contrails hatching mackerel sky Saying we are full we are full Of sound and fury, we are signifying Nothing. Damned universal law. Damned categorical imperative Elbowing its way between my hands And your face. The sparrows again Exploding against windows As a circle of men sitting outside The cafe while away their intentions With invisible motor tics they can’t Even feel unless the right empire of light Covers every last inch of them And brings to the surface the names — Those loves they chose To stable. And there it is: The choice — if only the metaphor Were more complex if I could only Adverb away my existence And say what a remarkable Sunday This is a perfect Sunday And turn my breath to stone. I’ve done it before, I spoke The language of sweating cavern walls And electric light. But I won’t go there again. We are all and only our distances And when we touch that is what we touch. Our messy shelves. Our sullen privations And overabundance of lemons. Our grief, our mountains and fields And rivers of grief. Our dismissals And the love we ignore when we don’t run After the sparrows because the sparrows Will fly away. My sparrow, fly away if you have to But know that I am coming. I am low in the grass. I am burning With patience. I am every song. I know all the math in the shore Says you shouldn’t but my distance Is yours if you want it. And it is yours If you don’t. Dandelions and honeysuckle Surround me, the world’s ineluctable fire Is looking right at me, and I am making my stand.

even a small purple artichoke boiled in its own bittered and darkening waters grows tender, grows tender and sweet patience, I think, my species keep testing the spiny leaves the spiny heart

I. The first question is always phrased this way: “So. How much Indian are you?” II. We did not live in tepees. We did not braid our hair. We did not fringe our shirts. We did not wear war bonnets. We did not chase the buffalo. We did not carry shields. We were never Plains Indians. We tried to ride, but we kept falling off of our dogs. III. A local official came to our office to ask our help with a city event. He had a splendid idea, he said. To kick off the event and show everyone in town that our tribe was still around, we should go up to the bluff overlooking the city and make a big smoke signal. Then they would know we were here. Who ever heard of smoke signals in the forests? I imagined us upon the bluff, lighting one of those firestarter bricks. We haven’t made fire since the Boy Scouts took over. And how would the citizens know it was us? They’d probably call the fire department. IV. As they ask, they think,yes, I can see it in her face. High cheekbones (whatever those are)and dark hair. Here’s a thought: don’t we all have high cheekbones? If we didn’t, our faces would cave in. (But I do have a colonized nose.) I’m sick of explaining myself. “You know,” I finally say, “It doesn’t matter to my people.” I ride off to my ranch-style home. Time to weave a basket, or something.

All that I know Of a certain star, Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue, Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

I have no illusion some fusion of force and form will save me, bewilderment of bonelight ungrave me as when the El shooting through a hell of ratty alleys where nothing thrives but soot and the ratlike lives that have learned to eat it screechingly peacocked a grace of sparks so far out and above the fast curve that jostled and fastened us into a single shock of— I will not call it love but at least some brief and no doubt illusionary belief that in one surge of brain we were all seeing one thing: a lone unearned loveliness struck from an iron pain. Already it was gone. Already it was bone, the gray sky and the encroaching skyline pecked so clean by raptor night I shuddered at the cold gleam we hurtled toward like some insentient herd plunging underground at Clark and Division. And yet all that day I had a kind of vision that's never gone completely away of immense clear-paned towers and endlessly expendable hours through which I walked teeming human streets, filled with a shine that was most intimately me and not mine.

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love, And though the sager sort our deeds reprove, Let us not weigh them. Heaven’s great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive, But soon as once set is our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night. If all would lead their lives in love like me, Then bloody swords and armor should not be; No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move, Unless alarm came from the camp of love. But fools do live, and waste their little light, And seek with pain their ever-during night. When timely death my life and fortune ends, Let not my hearse be vexed with mourning friends, But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb; And Lesbia, close up thou my little light, And crown with love my ever-during night.

I hustle upstream. I grasp. I grind. I control & panic. Poke balloons in my chest, always popping there, always my thoughts thump, thump. I snooze — wake & go boom. All day, like this I short my breath. I scroll & scroll. I see what you wrote — I like. I heart. My thumb, so tired. My head bent down, but not in prayer, heavy from the looking. I see your face, your phone-lit faces. I tap your food, two times for more hearts. I retweet. I email: y es&yes&yes. Then I cry & need to say:no-no-no. Why does it take so long to reply? I FOMO & shout. I read. I never enough. New book. New post. New ping. A new tab, then another. Papers on the floor, scattered & stacked. So many journals, unbroken white spines, waiting. Did you hear that new new? I start to text back. Ellipsis, then I forget. I balk. I lazy the bed. I wallow when I write. I truth when I lie. I throw a book when a poem undoes me. I underline Clifton:today we are possible. I start from image. I begin with Phillis Wheatley. I begin with Phillis Wheatley. I begin with Phillis Wheatley reaching for coal. I start with a napkin, receipt, or my hand. I muscle memory. I stutter the page. I fail. Hit delete — scratch out one more line. I sonnet, then break form. I make tea, use two bags. Rooibos again. I bathe now. Epsom salt. No books or phone. Just water & the sound of water filling, glory — be my buoyant body, bowl of me. Yes, lavender, more bubbles & bath bomb, of course some candles too. All alone with Coltrane. My favorite, “Naima,” for his wife, now for me, inside my own womb. Again, I child back. I float. I sing. I simple & humble. Eyes close. I low my voice, was it a psalm? Don’t know. But I stopped.

My tongue is divided into two by virtue, coincidence or heaven words jumping out of my mouth stepping on each other enjoying being a voice for the message expecting conclusions My tongue is divided into two into heavy accent bits of confusion into miracles and accidents saying things that hurt the heart drowning in a language that lives, jumps, translates My tongue is divided by nature by our crazy desire to triumph and conquer This tongue is cut up into equal pieces one wants to curse and sing out loud the other one simply wants to ask for water My tongue is divided into two one side likes to party the other one takes refuge in praying tongue english of the funny sounds tongue funny sounds in english tongue sounds funny in english tongue in funny english sounds My tongue sometimes acts like two and it goes crazy not knowing which side should be speaking which side translating My tongue is divided into two a border patrol runs through the middle frisking words asking for proper identification checking for pronunciation My tongue is divided into two My tongue is divided into two I like my tongue it says what feels right I like my tongue it says what feels right

I am looking at a smallpox vaccination scar In a war movie on the arm Of a young actor. He has just swum Across a river somewhere in Normandy Into the waiting arms of his rejoicing comrades. Of course, the river’s in California, And the actor is dead now. Nevertheless, This is the first of many hotels this trip, And I find myself preferring wars To smut on the networks, Even as I find myself reading The Pisan Cantos for the umpteenth time Instead of the novel in my bag. The poet helps me to the question: Does anything remain of home at home? Next day is no way of knowing, And the day after is my favorite, A small museum really perfect And a good meal in the middle of it. As I’m leaving, I notice a donkey on a vase Biting the arm of a young girl, And outside on the steps A silver fish head glistens beside a bottlecap. Plenty remains. The work of poetry is trust, And under the aegis of trust Nothing could be more effortless. Hotels show movies. Walking around even tired I find my eyes find Numberless good things And my ears hear plenty of words Offered for nothing over the traffic noise As sharp as sparrows. A day and a day, more rivers crossing me. It really feels that way, I mean I have changed places with geography, And rivers and towns pass over me, Showing their scars, finding their friends. I like it best when poetry Gleams or shows its teeth to a girl Forever at just the right moment. I think I could turn and live underneath the animals. I could be a bottlecap. Going to the airport going home, I stop with my teacher, now my friend. He buys me a good breakfast, berries and hotcakes. We finish and, standing, I hear One policeman saying to another Over the newspaper in a yellow booth "Do you know this word regret, Eddie? What does it mean?" Plenty of words over the traffic noise, And nothing could be more effortless. Catching a glimpse of eternity, even a poor one, says it all.