Beloved, In what other lives or lands Have I known your lips Your Hands Your Laughter brave

There is no warning rattle at the… nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer… Safe in the dark prison, I know t… light slides over the fingered work of a toothless

There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win

Pretty women wonder where my secre… I’m not cute or built to suit a fa… But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say,

FOR DAVID P—B The eye follows, the land Slips upward, creases down, forms The gentle buttocks of a young Giant. In the nestle,

I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry

Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city

Give me your hand Make room for me to lead and follow you beyond this rage of poetry.

Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleev… to peer into my eyes while I within deny their threats and answer them with lies. Mushlike memories perform

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you?

I keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs,

Lying, thinking Last night How to find my soul a home Where water is not thirsty And bread loaf is not stone

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of lonelines… until love leaves its high holy te… and comes into our sight

Some clichty folks don’t know the facts, posin’ and preenin’ and puttin’ on acts, stretchin’ their backs.