If the Neuse River was gin
we would’ve drunk to its bottom,

its two-million-year-old currents,
shad, sunfish, redhorse, yellow lance,

All the blood from the Tuscarora War. 

We would have drunk it all,
aunts and uncles would have led us in Big Bill Broonzy’s 
“When I Been Drinking,”

until everything inside us began to dance 
and we all joined in,

silt around our ankles,
everyone kicking sand. 
 

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

American they said + + but Horse I dreamed
                                                                                 , and Horse became

                        ++            ++            ++
+  ++       +++     ++     ++    +++       ++     ++
               +            +++                           +++             +

+ + + I was cleaved + from human-earth + + +
Redsap lymph calcium + + + Atlas and femur
            , A new Chaos—
+ come forth + through the world’s foaming + crust
            + + then licked + into my roan skin

+ + + A flesh being bearing + its first dreamSelf + + +

I came to life + + how stars appear—
            , Of dust + +

collapsed + till struck
                                    +        + +
+ ++              +     ++ to light + + +       +
       +      ++   +        +            +   +     ++

            Dream-erupted—
, Gila Monsters + lavablack + +

                          +++ Land +++ +++ +++
                                                      , All its thunders + + +

            In this great magnetic field + +
I am a knowledge system + + +

My hair is a tangled Mojave Dictionary + + +
            , And my tongue + is a danger + +
I speak a darkwhip + into the haboob’s goldthrob + + +

This valley’s bright-weather is my ceremony + + +
, Flashflood + is my medicine—
            + + how I clean myself of Self

+ + + America + + Hoard of Property + is a debris
            + of my cells— limestone + + wound-porous +
sea-floor + + basalt + trilobite + camel bones +                          
            , glass and Blackmountain + + +
                                         +
                                    + + + +
                              + + + + + + +

+ + + We professional mourners + +
            crying for our lives + and for hire + + +
From dark-colonies + in the caves behind our hearts
+ + we weep the sun to fall + and bats into the sky

+ + + We weep the saguaros to bloom + Eastward
+ and moonwhite + + soft-petaled wounds +
            circling their night-wrists and crowns + + +
                        Grief is our lush and luxury—

            , The strain + of anything + that grows
+ + + Sand rose + + iron wood + + smoke tree + + +
We tend dune-gardens + from Deadlands + +
            till the halite beds + + reap selenite thorns +
from the horned toads’ backs + + + 

+ + + In the a.m. heatwarp + vultures 
+ ripple the violet skydome + + +
A swarm of bloodgloved-archivists + + +
            They sky-write                                  + +
+ + + + +                     + + +                   + +
            + + +      + + + directions—
                + + + +                        + + + + 
          + +                                            + +
    + +                                                        + +
, To the museum , To the university
            , To the hospital + + +

In this Epoch of Citizenship +
I must arrive everywhere twice—
            , Occupied and Unceded + + +
One hand The Comet + +
the other hand + Who Makes the Comet Come
+ + + So call me Lodestone + or Alone + + +
            Whisper me +
                         , Secret Magnet + + +

In pink twilight + + my love and I are effigies
            + + leaching salt +
through our terracotta hands + + +

My language clays + + and maps +
amaranth lather + along my thigh—a migration
            + of Exile—
, A self-determined Relocation of pleasure—
                         , wantneed + + +

We are the origin + + oxygen + and always becoming
            + + + Bloodworms
+ from which new land might grow + + +
            , How we make soil + +
then mud where we laid + + +
Alchemy of our wet denim skinz + and gravity + + +

We pulse animal and sensual + + +
            Thundercats of love + greening the desert—
, Pale grasses + fruit in my breath
            + + grey-green along the belly of the nightbranch + + +

            We are + unacreable
+ + + We abrade + the transit + the survey
+ + hold tight and repeat ourselves +
            in crystal lattice + + +

Come morning + + + Come Mercurylight + + +
We are blessed and scattered + + +
Shards + of a horsehead + water jar—
            , Lonely for a body + + and aching +
for the cool taste + and shape the first water once took + + +

This Nation + is a white bright + magnesium
            + NDN burn + + +
I fume and illumine + in its quantum-arson—
            , Indian Iron Alchemy Horse + + +

+ + + My brothers are the Cold Killers + +
shovelers + of silver anthracite + +
            fuelgods + of the midnight train

            + boxcar + jumptrack + jolt-light
+ + + Vaporing + + nightsalt + to cloud—
            , Mustanging + + +

Every desert highway is sacred +
            and gas station pumps + break our hearts + + +
We have pedal bones + white doctors call coffin bones
+ + + That’s why I’m always dying—

+ + + That’s why—
, I’m always halfghost + + half-back + + half-dressed
+ as the war party who will return—
, With a full tank of gas + + +
            , And a stick of scalps + + +

Tonight the city + + is a tectonic bone radio—
            , Our ancestors are on every channel + + +

Scorpions whip and fluoresce + from the shadows of Settler houses
Green-eyed wolf spiders + emerge from their dens +
            to join the dark hunt + + +

The midnight train + monsoons + around the bend
+ + recognizes me + as a relation + and cries +
            Chuk+Shon     Chuk+Shon     Chuk+Shon

            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +           
            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +                       
            + +     + +        + +     + +        + +     + +                       

+ + + We are each + the other’s + passenger + + +

+ + + On the horizon + my warriors volcano + + +
            + + + I shatter cinders + from my hair
+ + I’ll watch them eat the day-aliens with flame
            + + + American + NDN + horse pyre + + +

The Hohokam canals + crack awake + +
gush their ghostwaters + through the settlement streets + + +
            blister + and boneflower + + +

I war whoop out + into the empty + displaced hip +
of the Ghost-sea + + and the Ghost-sea +
            war-weeps back +
spiraling + the etched shells of my ears + + +

+  + + A + M + E + R + I + C + A—
, Haunted hotel + shiprock + rockwreck + ship of fools + + +
            , Little giant cemetery + of braids
              + +       + +       + +       + +    
                x           x            x           x
             +++     +++      +++     +++
                x           x            x           x
              + +       + +       + +       + +
                +           +          +           +

+ + + Beloved Occupiers + + I am posting notice—
            , There is no more vacancy + + +

When this world has ended + I will carry my people + Home
+ + +

What part of headbanger is pop song
What part of deaf is hearing
What part of hearing is silence
What part of silence is noise
What part of I don’t know is I totally know
What part of I totally know is, I don’t, really
What part of metal is soft
What part of soft is metal
What part of heavy metal is jello
What part of jello is jawbreakers
What part of loss is have
What part of have is loss
What part of the person I was is the person I is
What part of subdued is totally here
What part of totally here is over there
What part again is your crush is the so not like
What part of the so not like is the crush
What part of orange crush is frazzled
What part of frazzle is fizzled
What part of poetix states are mints
What parts of mints are mud
What part of tickets to poetry are roads to nowhere
What parts of roads to nowhere are keys to something
What part of keys to something is the jam of all jams
What part of jams of all jams is the wd-40ed number one lock
What part of Axl Rose is Bennie’s Jets**
What part of Elton is Axl
What part of Rose is weeds
What part of weeds is rose
What part, again is deaf giving way to hear
What part of headbanger is Mariah
What part of headbanger is Whitney )god bless)  ))sic))
What part of headbanger is Anne Murray
What part of headbanger is
                                  Foot  softly
What part of this is that
And as we all know, what part of that is your this.
Thank you.

Footnotes:
* After a line in Julian Talamantez Brolaski’s Phonosemantics and the Real
**Axl has said that it was listening to Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets as a young person that made him want to be a singer.

All right. Try this,
Then. Every body
I know and care for,
And every body
Else is going
To die in a loneliness
I can’t imagine and a pain
I don’t know. We had
To go on living. We
Untangled the net, we slit
The body of this fish
Open from the hinge of the tail
To a place beneath the chin
I wish I could sing of.
I would just as soon we let
The living go on living.
An old poet whom we believe in
Said the same thing, and so
We paused among the dark cattails and prayed
For the muskrats,
For the ripples below their tails,
For the little movements that we knew the crawdads were making
	under water,
For the right-hand wrist of my cousin who is a policeman.
We prayed for the game warden’s blindness.
We prayed for the road home.
We ate the fish.
There must be something very beautiful in my body,
I am so happy.