with some help from Ahmad

I wanna write lyrical, but all I got is magical.
My book needs a poem talkin bout I remember when
Something more autobiographical

Mi familia wanted to assimilate, nothing radical,
Each month was a struggle to pay our rent
With food stamps, so dust collects on the magical.

Each month it got a little less civil
Isolation is a learned defense
When all you wanna do is write lyrical.

None of us escaped being a criminal
Of the state, institutionalized when
They found out all we had was magical.

White room is white room, it’s all statistical—
Our calendars were divided by Sundays spent
In visiting hours. Cold metal chairs deny the lyrical.

I keep my genes in the sharp light of the celestial.
My history writes itself in sheets across my veins.
My parents believed in prayer, I believed in magical

Well, at least I believed in curses, biblical
Or not, I believed in sharp fists, 
Beat myself into lyrical.

But we were each born into this, anger so cosmical
Or so I thought, I wore ten chokers and a chain
Couldn’t see any significance, anger is magical.
Fists to scissors to drugs to pills to fists again

Did you know a poem can be both mythical and archeological?
I ignore the cataphysical, and I anoint my own clavicle.

I would be simple again,
Simple and clean
Like the earth,
Like the rain,
Nor ever know,
Dark Harlem,
The wild laughter
Of your mirth
Nor the salt tears
Of your pain.
Be kind to me,
Oh, great dark city.
Let me forget.
I will not come
To you again.

                                    I

The colors of the rainbow are fading in the silent
      and distant West, and the heartache of
      twilight trembles within my aching breast.

   For the light of my love has faded like sunbeams
         in the West, and the color of twilight will
         tremble forever in my breast.

                                   II

I think of thy kindness often, when lonesome I feel
      and cold, I have not forgotten our childhood,
      nor your loving words of old.

   And still my sweetest songs of life are floating
         in dreams to thee, like whisperings at eventide,
         across a clouded sea.

                                   III

We two are sitting in the bark, and listen to the
      wavelets’ play, the shore is melting in the
      dark, day’s echoes silently decay.

   Oh life, with all thy hopes so fair, wilt thou
         too float away, like visions rising in the
         air that greet the parting day!

                                   IV

She stands amidst the roses, and tears dart from her
      eyes that like the fragrant roses her soul
      must fade and die.

   He stares at the twilight ocean on the shore of a
         foreign land, a faded rose is trembling
         within his soft white hand.

                                   V

The rushes whisper softly, the sounds of silence wake,
      large flowers like sad remembrance float
      on the dark green lake.

   Were life but like the waters, so bright and calm
         and deep, and love like floating flowers
         that on the surface meet.

                                   VI

The naked trees of autumn grope shivering through
      twilight’s gloom, athwart the whispering branches
      its dying embers loom.

   I dream of life’s defoliation, as I watch with
         silent dread, leaf after leaf departing, like
         hopes long withered and dead.

                                  VII

In haunting hours of twilight dreams restless the
      turbulent sea, and heaves her white wanton
      bosom in endless mystery.

   Dream on, dream on, titanic queen, beloved sea, at
         thy wanton breast, I would find rest
         in endless mystery.