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Let me die on the prairie! and o’er my rude grave, In the soft breeze of summer the tall grass shall wave; I would breathe my last sigh as the bright hues of even Are melting away in the blue arch of Heaven. Let me die on the prairie! unwept and unknown, I would pass from this fair Earth forgotten, alone;— Yet no! – there are hearts I have learned to revere, And methinks there is bliss in affection’s warm tear. Oh, speak not to me of the green cypress shade; I would sleep where the bones of the Indian are laid, And the deer will bound o’er me with step light and free, And the carol of birds will my requiem be. Let me die on the prairie! I have wished for it long; There floats in wild numbers the bold hunter’s song; ’Tis the spot of all others the dearest to me, And how sweet in its bosom my slumber will be!

after Neruda Go ahead, ask: where are the pomegranates, the dates, the girls with skin brown as hash, the hash? Listen to what’s happening One morning bonfires began to leap from the earth, devouring human beings, lit by matches flicked across the sky with joysticks. And from then on fire, from then on burning hair, from then on limbs and meat. Invisible bandits, pickpockets from ten-thousand feet, faceless, thoughtless, dumb except for humming, bandits marked with tiny flags, controlled from continents away by children, child bandits with letter jackets left hanging in their girlfriends' closets, child bandits with bibles thumbed and highlighted, spear missiles through the sky to kill other children and the blood of children runs through the streets, neither seen nor heard, obedient, simply, like children's blood. Ask away: why doesn’t his poetry describe our urban loneliness, the body drenched in metaphor? There’s nothing to see here, nothing to see, just blood in the sand, blood in the streets, nothing to see.

Took me awhile to learn the good words make the rain on my window grown and sexy now I’m in the tub holding down that on-sale Bordeaux pretending to be well adjusted I am on that real jazz shit sometimes I run the streets sometimes they run me I’m the body of the queen of my hood filled up with bad wine bad drugs mu shu pork sick beats what more can I say to you I open my stylish legs I get my swagger back let men with gold teeth bow to my tits and the blisters on my feet I become electric I’m a patch of grass the stringy roots you call home or sister if you want I could scratch your eyes make hip-hop die again I’m on that grown woman shit before I break the bottle’s neck I pour a little out: I am fallen

Let me not thirst with this Hock at my Lip, Nor beg, with domains in my pocket—

Let me tell you about my marvelous god, how he hides in the hexagons of the bees, how the drought that wrings its leather hands above the world is of his making, as well as the rain in the quiet minutes that leave only thoughts of rain. An atom is working and working, an atom is working in deepest night, then bursting like the farthest star; it is far smaller than a pinprick, far smaller than a zero and it has no will, no will toward us. This is why the heart has paced and paced, will pace and pace across the field where yarrow was and now is dust. A leaf catches in a bone. The burrow’s shut by a tumbled clod and the roots, upturned, are hot to the touch. How my god is a feathered and whirling thing; you will singe your arm when you pluck him from the air, when you pluck him from that sky where grieving swirls, and you will burn again throwing him back.

At the farmer’s market in Rosarito, Mexico, a man touched my arm. He sat on a stool at a wooden table, and in the center, a blue pitcher of water beaded under the sun. Hunkered over his lap, he worked with a gouge on a block of walnut, and he blew at the dust, and the dust swirled in the breeze. Done stripping the sapwood vulnerable to rot, the man held the heart of the wood, a purple wood hard against the chisel’s cutting edge. He looked up from his work, and his gray eyes told me I must listen. “This wood must be strong or the heart cracks before the real work is done. See this?” he asked softly, and he lifted a mallet carved from a branch of apple, “Strong wood,” he said. “It wanted to be more than a tree.” He rubbed fresh walnut dust between his palms. We drank glasses of ice water, talked about life in general, and he used the pitcher, billowed and wet like the sail of a boat, to cool his neck. Later, through the soft meat of an avocado, I felt the pit longing to be free.

Let them sleep and dream the dream of lobsters; I am likewise at peace in my little cottage trying to become Mr. Five Willows. I figure a crabapple is useful to no one but itself, but my safety depends on having no place where death can enter and not acting on every rustling of the smallest branch. My abode is at the bank of a river, a river that comes out of the marsh where the river merchant’s wife has pined for her departed husband for the last 300 years. Beetles fight on a dung heap; that’s the essence of war. With axes and arrows, a superior force approaches my door; let them knock lightly, so as not to disturb the bird in the cage, which I am coaxing to sing, while the candle burns to illumine the midnight lore whose frayed texts drive me to the brink of insanity. Let them all sleep and dream that the God of War has brought them riches in the shape of gold nuggets only to find in the morning an empty store. You can be in my dreams if I can be in yours. In any case, let the Chinese mafia sleep tonight so I can be at peace and in the morning, open wide my door.

The Dying Words of Goethe “Light! more light! the shadows deepen, And my life is ebbing low, Throw the windows widely open: Light! more light! before I go. “Softly let the balmy sunshine Play around my dying bed, E’er the dimly lighted valley I with lonely feet must tread. “Light! more light! for Death is weaving Shadows ‘round my waning sight, And I fain would gaze upon him Through a stream of earthly light.” Not for greater gifts of genius; Not for thoughts more grandly bright, All the dying poet whispers Is a prayer for light, more light. Heeds he not the gathered laurels, Fading slowly from his sight; All the poet’s aspirations Centre in that prayer for light. Gracious Saviour, when life’s day-dreams Melt and vanish from the sight, May our dim and longing vision Then be blessed with light, more light.

Let the light stand for nothing but illumination. Let the naked man and woman out for air. Let the curtain hide only another side of the curtain. Let the food consumed be consummated. Let the consommé be a dish. Let the dish into the bedroom because she is there for the cat. Let the cat be cool as Miles. Let it all happen again if you can. Let it happen again if you can. Let the first word spoken during intercourse be the only definition you require. Let need be need. Let love be need also, if need be. And let it all happen again because it can.

Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son; or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping her shadow off a wall.... Let us consider the old woman who wore smoked cows’ tongues for shoes and walked a meadow gathering cow chips in her apron; or a mirror grown dark with age that was given to a blind man who spent his nights looking into it, which saddened his mother, that her son should be so lost in vanity.... Let us consider the man who fried roses for his dinner, whose kitchen smelled like a burning rose garden; or the man who disguised himself as a moth and ate his overcoat, and for dessert served himself a chilled fedora....