and beneath my feet the granite shudders,
and dry bits of cement mortar squeezed
between the granite bricks begin to crumble under the jackhammer
and I see our washbasins crack off the wall
and dead bugs begin falling from windowsills
clouds of dust sunset everywhere
bits of rock fly everywhere
ten feet away and they act like there ain’t nobody here
scribbling out this poem in the dust
collecting on this page
and ten feet away they’re jack blubbering granite
spitting dust in my ears and chips of rock graze my cheek,
and I carry on rejoicing in my humanity, singing.
*
86
my pulses like spent bullets burn in my breath gradually
87
so many faces in me lie dead
and so many untruths crawl without arms and legs
88
I sit here now
and watch the many faces of men
scuttle up from their black dark dens
I see so many come from hiding places
and now that I have finished my spiritual battle
and am strong enough, have survived my own weaknesses
I sit here at the portals of a destroyed being
and everything is calm, a tender lawlessness rules
and now my first step is a step of a breathing man
who has the grace of a wild beast
and I sit here, watching the world, the prison
and find I am richly blessed with
so many things to find out, to touch and hear
with so many men in rags and broken souls
who crawl up with dusty shoes from gutters
and carry blades in their pockets
but they are flowers that have survived their thorns
in dry baked ground
and I see them and I am strong enough to hear them
and I raise myself from contemplation and walk
toward them, to learn their language of sorrows
that hold songs like stars in their heart
songs that tell of lives and feelings that have been stomped on and drowned
songs are the magic that keeps men alive when nothing else will
I begin to sing to them
and my song is that they must sing
as I step forward, onward
through a throng of thorny men
leading them, taking them with me.
89
I carried the vulgar and wrinkled truths
I had found in the badlands of the cursed and exiled
and fingered them like old coins
and found they were worthless in this land
that loved money and chained children with lies
90
I have silenced my poetry and tongue to hear the clear
screams in the night of men slicing their throats
of victims being beaten by men I know,
of the clanging of prison gates and voices of tyranny
while writing my poetry I have met dark eyes.
91
someday the muscles of the universe
shall convulse into orgasm and beauty
92
And like a cat when streets become empty
in the darkness I sprang silently
through broken windows to sing what I learned
*
107
woman, your letters are like those rocky streams one meets on a long journey
and I open the envelope as I might brush aside a bough of heavy branches
and come upon a clearing of flower and soft grass
108
how your voice runs clambering over the smell of my sweating male flesh
*
112
I will tickle you and tell you secrets of strange lands that shine in me
and you will caress my muscles as if they are wings
and I will place feathers with leather strings in your hair
and the lock of hair you have given me I will wear around my neck
my pendant made with eagle claws
and pieces of wood that click and clatter softly lifting against my breast as I run
and run and run
a singer with flights of birds
113
I am a little boy gone mad on the aromas of earth
that call me to sing and dance, my tongue the sun’s spear
114
I would have known me in my disguise
115
the first green sprouts of corn jutted upward
in the dry dirt of my flesh
116
dreams flew into my fields
of my heart like great green-plumed birds
with dark eyes burning burning
as they pecked at strewn kernels of corn
and I climbed the temple steps
to the open square below where creatures gathered
and I reached the altar
where I lit the four torches
that threw light to the four directions
I blew away the ashes on the stone,
placed my heart there and when the sun touched it
it struck up, bursting in high flames exulting in their renewal
and with the holy fire I molded myself feathers
like the prophets made themselves scrolls and wrote holy words
so I made myself rich green and red and blue plumes
and golden light sprayed in me
and spreading my wings I flew and in my flight
were the holy words, alive and each moment was a holy one
like a temple with its fires
and I was the fire of sky and flaming as the earth
117
if only I could open my palm and show the world the diamonds of my heart
*
130
I will be leaving this place
where mad hermits laugh from yellow teeth
and crush black bugs between their fingers in the middle of the night
where convicts scout the silence like wicked pirates
their scarred faces, some have lost an eye or half a finger
tattoos on their arms and legs and back and breast—
spider webs, skulls and the Reaper, always the reaper
and screams of the long dead still night
still hang here like webs in the corner of the ceiling
and pulses crawl like black spiders with a red diamond on the belly
life times are spun from silk that burns easily in the moonlight
where so many condemn themselves for the sin of being born
131
I would like to rest, by a stream
take off my bandana and wet it, then dab my brown rough face
and place it again sopping wet around my neck
by a stream where one could hear the church bells beat deeply
and where one can hear birds take off through the branches.
For a long time I watch a line of red ants crawling up a tree.
I lie naked and sleep so very long
the farmland turns to city
the quiet into car horns
the stream into an asphalt road
and whoever I might have been
must know who I am, a man behind bar
s.
*
138
Inside the letter was a lock of your hair,
taped to the sixth page.
I caressed it
as though it were alive,
I smelled it
and ran my lips across it,
then gently
with my forefinger
caressed the hazel strands
and now I understand how
an enchanted young man is led off into the woods
by secret voices of tales.
I understand how he might have encountered a woman’s hair.
*
141
Your letters arrive, holy, bounding with claws into the heated earth
tearing free of the valleys, they rise into the mountains,
snarl from branches, sniff at the high ascents of rock and crawl the crevices
and scrunch through crisp leaves newly fallen,
through rivers newly gushing
then shake their fur and tramp, tongue loose, in long strides they push through the night and bound over ravines
they come here to me, the letters
they arrive and place their paws upon my chest
they curl next to me
while I listen long into the night
142
small birds whistle to me as I go hunting
143
Sunday morning.
Only one thing matters.
I wait like a small rabbit hidden in a cluster of bushy leaves.
I wait, there is nothing to do but wait
in the transparency of the days and sip the nothingness slowly
as I grow toward that day
as I’m carried toward that day.
In the blue depths of night I kick off the damp sweaty sheets
and lie awake, waiting
with taut readiness to spring for the day
I wait for the day when I will leave.
That day is a seed, yet to bloom.
But tell me, someone.
What is one to do waiting for a day
that is likened to God? How does one meet it?
144
I wear the moon like yanked out roots glowing orange
in my heart’s fangs as I search for secrets in my life
145
By the black gates of each night
I sit, glancing at the lights of the city
listening to night talkers
and pick up the scrapings of their lives
146
the day comes
and each morning I look off
searching the ground
for its coming, checking the walls and clouds
and sense how the sun becomes hotter
how the sidewalks crack hair-thin
and grass tips forward in the breeze
everything seems to crawl out of hiding
in the death of who I was, I sing
the highest notes I reach, singing as never before
a bright blooded fervor
incanting in my silence
the burning wreckage as an offering of my past
in this waiting that has become a temple
*
169
I talk with old haggard veterans of prison
and looking at their wrinkles and tired eyes
and think how much I love you
I talk with warriors here who live by the knife
and as they speak of death and danger
I think how much I love you
I pass men lying on their bunks and say
hey Reggie, hey Marvin, hey Clifford
and think how much I love you
Ole Willie sits quietly on this bunk next to mine
and makes little cards for me to send you
I share my cigarettes and coffee with him
at forty years old he is still afraid to sleep
and stays awake with me late until the night
under my night lamp I write you letters
and think of Willie and how loneliness keeps him up;
we say nothing all night in our little worlds
and I think how much I love you
and feel your arms around my shoulders
your hands rubbing my neck
I close my eyes and your face appears
and no matter where I walk
nothing changes
I think how much I love you.
*
183
I pause to unbutton my shirt, looking into this paper
as if readying for a long walk
184
Mondays in the joint take on a different tone than other days.
Mondays the laundry lines seem longer
and those in line more apt to play and fuck around
Monday is the day when you look into your podner’s face
eyes meeting, and for a second gazing searchingly those eyes
and wondering what really they are saying,
and you both seem to see a hint of softness break the surface like a rippling shadow then it sinks again
185
I’ve been looking at the sky as though I too were a sky
186
two guards standing with metal gadgets in their hands
begin to search me
going beep-beep at my metal belt buckle
and at the silver of my cigarette pack, beep-beep
lifting my legs one at a time
he checks my soles
and I slide through and at last come to my bunk
lie down and think about you baby, my bitch, my puta, my clown-girl,
my woman, my Mariposa, my friend
and I think how I hand each of these women-selves in you
prune them with my love or let them fly wild in heat for me,
healing me with love.
187
Sitting here, a foot in front of my head is a fence
then a slender corridor where the guards walk
then another fence, then a space where men sleep
then window with gray and rusty bars
then a thick wall, then outside pebbles, treeless dirt,
then a granite slab of thirty-foot wall
and barbed wire, then behind the barbed wire, sunglassed guards
pace like clocks, tic-toc, back and forth
always ready to trigger the last minute of a life
that rings with too much freedom.
*
194
You’re with me Mariposa and I’m feeling like a million
because we are together, we stand in line together
and get shook down with the electronic wand searching for shanks
we get shook down about five times a day, coming and going
and you were with me when the guard runs his hand down my legs
under my belt and you and me smile cuz he doesn’t even know
you’re here and you sticking your tongue at him
and make funny faces, you were with me today
195
Now my Mariposa, I am going to lie back in the night
under my night lamp and read your moon talking poem,
and fly to you, over fields I haven’t seen in five years
and streets sprinkled with lamps of nodding light
and turtle small cars in distances crawling long lonely night roads
and I’ll listen to the wind
and go sniffing here a
nd there and take large strides
your way, through tingly night air
passing over sleepy blue rivers
slightly above hordes of night crowds and flashing neon signs
and keep moving over mountains brushing my hands
along their different leaves and tree lines
over closed shopping centers and state houses
and long deserted streets and small cafes and trucks on the highways
over cows in pastures and fences and ranch houses
pass through spring showers and over happy frogs splashing below
over telephone wires and cables and gaunt steel structures
and now smelling dust mingled with sea salt
now heavier green smells and the moon closer now
and now see deer below, a few stray dogs grappling for homes in alleys
see there a stranger walking down a ditch
and the black swamp water glimmering sparkles
and pass over dark homes one window full of light
and I keep flying, keep coming
until I sense your breath along my neck
and I reach out for your arms
and without a second gone I enfold you
belly, legs, hair
as your hands begin rubbing warming me
and I whisper Mariposa, aqui soy tu hombre, to Colibri
196
Oh, people, I am in prison but do not give me sympathy
I sit here watching the dusk and dreaming of love.
197
It’s Saturday morning here, some of the men
are up at the cage rapping with the guard,
some writing letters home, some lying
on their bunks, awake, thinking on small things
that in prison loom large as ever, the rest
sleep because there is nothing else to do.
198
I have picked the seeds out of my rotting life
199
the greatest wisdom is found in darkness
DECEMBER NIGHTS
The sky like black paper
drying in desert heat after the rain,
and this prison sitting like a run-down shack,
on the outskirts of everything,
where people stop only when they must.
I reached up a long time ago, and tore
that black paper away from the sky,
and saw the clear stars like dimes scattered
on my bunk after an armed robbery:
I keep hitting the heavens when it’s dark
with a 45 magnum dream, and someday I’ll hit it big,
blast the moon wide open, and on the other side,
just sitting there, will be freedom.