^{for Alison Saar}

Please approach with care these figures in black.

Regard with care the weight they bear,

                      the scars that mark their hearts.

Do you think you can handle these bodies of graphite & coal dust?

This color might rub off. A drop of this red liquid

                      could stain your skin.

This black powder could blow you sky high.

No ordinary pigments blacken our blues.

Would you mop the floor with this bucket of blood?

Would you rinse your soiled laundry in this basin of tears?

Would you suckle hot milk from this cracked vessel?

Would you be baptized in this fountain of funky sweat?

Please approach with care

                      these bodies still waiting to be touched.

We invite you to come closer.

We permit you to touch & be touched.

We hope you will engage with care.

These, fast asleep in such a little room,

The tawdry grave-wreaths crackling over them,

Might have been men who would have moved the world,

Might have been women, mothers of a race

More great than we can know. The could not live:

We have to build great armaments to fight

Forests of things half man, half animal,

Far in the islands that our trading needs:

We have to build high palaces to keep

White childless women merry and content:

We have no money left to save for these,

These, only little children, only poor,

Life in the heats; we have no place to spare

That they could play in …. Yet we need not grieve,

Not more than they, asleep. We need not grieve

Even for those of them who have not died,

For they, made warped and blind by circumstance

Shall live their round from stupid day to day,

Too dull to know a need; and they shall bear

Dull, blinded folk to rule this world of ours

We shall have died from. Do not mourn for these:

Mourn for that sorry world that still shall be,

Made by our careless hands that make today

These little children so to live or die. 

Swell     you can dream more   the earth
swells      seeds pop
I glance at the prize
eyes closed in the glancing

It's not a time to run
I wear soft shoes
and it took a long time
to walk here

Insects nudge me in my dreams
like the 5 honey bees plus
the strange one
Intelligent bee glances buzzing

to say   Let me out    The fake
lights confuse us
confuses the source

Worker bee buzzed my neck
directly   me not turning off
lamps fast enough

Please
     just open the door
to the sun

            on listening to "Yama"

She asked me what the song

did for me

“Be specific” she said

I tell her Lee Morgan

wrote this song

for someone he loved

& let get away

I try to explain to her

how the blues can be

happy

how they can bring

comfort

I try to give words

to how a song can

crawl up inside you

 shine a light

on something

forgotten & make it

live again

we are

prayer in the long boat

                                               a rhizomatic scream

                                               surrounded by the dark dagger

                                                                        of the ocean

                         scripture

                         in its entirety

                         is anticipation of the lilt

                                                   and yet

there is no word

for the rhythm

             we endure

             across this dirtless moment

                                                    antibird, we sing like birds

                                                    textured and untrained

             rugged the love

             that claps

in the chasm of our black palms

Someone will        love you     many will      love

you         many will brother you   some of these

loves will        bother you   some   will      leave you

one might        haunt   you      hunt you in your

sleep        make you       weep the tearless kind of

weep the         kind of weep   that drowns your

organs     slowly    there are little oars  in your body      

little boats   grab onto them and row and        row

someone will tell you      no       but you won’t   know

he is    right until you have   already        wrung your  

own heart dry    your hands dripping knives    until

you have    already   reached your hands into       his       

body and put them through his        heart     love is

the only thing that       is not    an       argument

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This.  This.  This.