Ode to William Carlos Williams (1997)

I couldn't escape
the mexican food
from the refrigerator
and I ate
and thought of you
fingering my forks
playing with my spoons
and I could smell you
as your scent danced on my shirt
and spewed forth from my breath
and I could taste you
in the directionless direction of our days
of idle play
and simply being
for the evening
as the sun is setting
and the rain is making love
to the streets of man
I thought of you.

Breathe (1998)

I need to organize
the thoughts within my head
have them touch to my tongue
the answers
that revel in my eyes
as I take in forty thousand snapshots
in three seconds
and my brain is left
rearranged
unable to circumnavigate
my fingers back to this page

I rise and I am blinded
by life's surprise of sight
how the moon wakes up the sun
and the stars shuffle their gaze
to a westward sun
westbound one
as colonies grew
underneath the vision of the sun
worlds won
then destroyed
however everything ceases to exist
until we fumble over our lips
the gift of breath

now breathe
and see what I've seen
take in my suggestion
of the lessons
never lost in vision
though some are blind
they can still tiptoe through ambition
go on their quest to find
the pulses in silence
that plays in moonlight
as you sleep and dream
never losing vision
only gaining perception
in spontaneous waves subconscious with suggestion
now breathe
and back again.

In Light of Faulkner (1999)

the south was a mule
a mulatto mixture in time
and brown earth
bound together by shackles
shackles that separated
the history from the overseer

I saw those lost souls
in the light of my night
tilling the soil
brown and hard
their spirits worn
their bodies torn

worn as if the dust of the Mississippi
had risen then settled
softly on their bones
gently on my clothes
burrowing beneath my fingernails
scratching at the past
running down endless streets
where corners cease
and straight is the walk
the run into the past
as if I could get closer
to the Christmas I already am.

Sleep Pecola Breedlove (1999)

the light is out
I can still see its reflection
beating and pulsating
on the backs of my lashes

the moon is full
I can hear the whisper of white angels
descending the night
hovering over and parting
the fullness with their touch

the crickets have come
come to accompany me in my dance
of sheltered sleep
a stolen glance
asleep asleep
in the romance of my day

my body is warm
warm to the touch
the chill has heated itself away
and soon I will sleep
but I dare not to open
opening my eyes
would awaken my feet
my hands
my life in the dream is shaken
my body in this world broken
my youth taken
while my misery is reflecting
among the falling of autumn leaves
under the black moonless sky
that never turns blue.

The Father Gone (For Toni Morrison 1999)

they said that he had robbed me
I did not understand
they said he placed the seed
the seed that only hate could reap
but I never shook his hand
never looked into his eyes
fleeting dumbfounded
awestruck in the light
the light of his true faith
the fate that he was a man

now I push against these bars
of this body
looking for the keys
and I pray that there are locks left
because I can't escape
I just can't escape
lord I keep trying
but I can't stop
blaming her bruising her
for him and them
and their thoughts of praise that scatter my self
my conscience
they dance whirlwinds on my eyelids
and seep into my dreams
as if they were the keys
to those locks I never knew
from a man
I never met
from a future I could only see
through eyes that could never
be my own.

Mantra (1998)

fear not
to open your eyes
for life is unknown
and uncertain
the days shall pass like rivers
across the sanded earth
and you shall see your life's amazement
fear your worst
and best creativity
take refuge in the solid of self
for self will set you free
in an action of becoming
what you have always been
a human stranger
meeting yourself
among the castles of time.

Prisms (2000)

I venture into this world
divine with the intention of knowing
these clouded cataracts of time
that cloud my eyes
divide worlds into thoughts
and ideas
jailed and barred
among prisons of prisms
blocking the road less travelled by man in search of self
when self nature is to nurture
the mundane
not to throw loopholes
among the definition of sane
but are you in?
in between understanding and accepting
the art of knowing
not all of those who know think
those thinking do not always know
the lessons of love and leisure
time spent during holiday seasons
when seasons greetings are said
then done
like the passing of strangers
among the crowded corners
of a thousand cities
the waves of the forgotten
from future spouses
and past life siblings

and yet
she dances with the wind at her back
the flapping of autumn birds who dared to come back
in three seasons told
by my winters of thoughts
spring ideas unknown

to bend the bars of the prisms
casting shadows of light
red and yellow to the dancers
who eclipse the moon
giving birth to the sun
in rays of the oblique
and unseen
forgotten forest floors of the city

and as the skyscrapers send smoke signals
to the sea in their past
I wait patiently
my ear pressed cold to the glass of another day
do I hear the birds returning?
will I see the sidewalks breeding
green grass in cracks of concrete
laid to rest among the remembrance
of forgotten things
I have spent lifetimes on bended knee
praying in moonshines
for glimpses of sunshine
to waken the dead
rebirth of man
conscious and cold
is this who I am?
a scribe born to scribble down the facts of the forgotten
laid to rest among the building plans
six feet beneath
the forgotten forest floor of the city.