from The Brooklyn Sonnets

BQE Rhapsody

black dots being really puddles
pauses in a symphony on the BQE
words being what they are -- harsh English words
ski on a very difficult river
painters paint a new language
out of the junk yards of their tongues
I, like any other fili,
count by eights as my mother´s son

though I dip my pen in too many wells
the hand is mine, on my own paper
and it´s my stomach where it´s done

dancers dance into other dimensions
with ancient gestures made anew
as well as we, one day, will too

on the beach she sleeps her drink

warming on a sand bench
life in a bunch around her swarms
the sea, the salt punch taste
here everyone is someone´s lunch




in her dream she´s fighting to write
as white seagulls in both halves whine
and suns shine back from the wave peaks
while a child plays with a small seine




what lore taught her to weave syllables?
and what love drives her to make them mean?
what will move a story from a sandy track
more than the fierce wound of every day?





as we comb her hair with our fingers
we listen to the words from her womb

why

on a hill, a child sings                                              a woman chisels in her garden

when I sit here clocks stop                                          only the one moment it always is

there must be a word that says what happens in the center ripple or something concrete
like color to paint your birthright in you


or a story that meanders to a point between utterance and understanding something that
tastes right enough to tear the moon into dust



it´s a feeling; that´s all I´ll say

red cinders on ash grey flesh

fox demons

light
green light
shims over earth
water organs
of sight                    burden the air




fox demons guard
the tomb of youth
on a hill stone lanterns
comb wind with a bell



long days away eating piles of smog viewing the city through the eyes of a frog

lunch can't last                                                                                                        it can't last