One of the greatest choruses in the Song of the South is that of the magnolia blossom on a warm june night.

Sarah

her hair on my shoulder
weighed more than the kisses
she dropped upon my sun burned neck.

ah- her eyes!

blacker than her hair.

deeper than the night we sat beside the river
watching the frost of our breath
drift upward
toward the crisp stars too cold to twinkle.

#16 from sun city blues

16

winter queen angel
licks her wintergreen lips
pokes her ice cube tongue
into the hot air and chills it
with her rigid words.
her dark eyes shift
like black snow dunes
from me-- to somewhere beyond me.
the moon hangs behind her head
outlining her olive face
like a catholic crown--


i fall across her altar feet

and weep.

49-51 from: sun city blues

49

drove the flat tire car
to the corner of 7th & washington
to the corner where
women in lace & whalebone
with 8 lbs a makeup on their face
stood rockin
talkin
bawkin about which no pecker
faithless husband cheated her.
to the corner where a wirey black man
stood smokin kool after kool
starin at the girlies
to the corner where the magic a music
bumped its rhythm
pumped its blood flow
humped its listeners


50

drove down to the corner
thumpin tire tired car
slumpin forward
leanin to one side
where a doe eyed black cutie
smiled wide
at me while shakin her hips
to the hip hop song a night.
the corner where strung out angels
with black hungover eyes
hung to one another with the shakes
lookin to get baked.
the corner of neon light
meets black flannel darkness
alonlihood


51

to the corner where every envy child
sucked the bitter pap
a red streetlights
blinkin out their mouths.
to the corner where
lovers & strangers share cigarettes
pickin up throw-away butts
off the shoe-worn concrete
to steal one last drag apiece.
to the jazz corner
where life lives
and breathes
out an old man’s
tarnished sax
above his upturned hat
that holds 3 quarters
and a dollar bill.

#5 from: sun city blues

 









          5



this is not my mountain

buddha said,

and this is not my hand

   wrinkled & curling in front

   of this what that is not my face. 

the ground swelled to meet the feet

buddha borrowed to stand

one sole on the mountain

the other sole in the sea



buddha smiled with someone else’s teeth.

#2 from: sun city blues

 







puffed away my camel dreams

til i had no money to rent them

& had to get generic visions instead

wife kids jello after dinner.



i’ll roll my own.

ain’t wantin to dream

wanton perfunctoryness want the wet

messa happy-go-tardy

come as i don’t call and wash

the dust of each city off

whenever i get to the next.



no hurry.

      no prefab heart.

            just dreams like arizona:



hot

         dry

                  waiting to be walked

from: visions of a desert angel

 







                154



angel wraps her bright eyes

around a dark man

warps her lips into a smile

that screeches like a train.



she is hipping and hopping

watching the still gray air of others

circle away from them

and return

more still

and darker than when it left.



in her heart of God she is beating out

a slow burial

for the doomed. in her other heart

of God she is singing

and clapping

dancing raindrops over the ground.







                    156



in her fantasies-- like mine

and yours and our mothers’

she is no longer a romantic paraplegic

but an able-bodied lover

able to cover another with her soul

while they cover her--

stitched together like a two-sided quilt.

   it does not matter one soul may be more right

what is important

is that one body may be more wrong

than another-- and there is time to search.

always time to search--

though her invisible rose heart

is approaching the end of spring

and preparing to hit the july desert

of too long alone,

unwatered.









               157



angel dances

zips zings zims and zooms

through the universe

capitalizing fire

screaming to the fire trucks--

   you there--

run over that apple!

   and you--

water my garden!



through the night

   like a bright

      chip of blue ice

   she cuts

      jagged

          and melting sharper--

ripping the flesh off of heaven.













                 158



naked, and disemboweled, heaven

weeps out its blood for her--

washing her tattered garments of failure

wishing she would face the pithy night

and pray one golden prayer

for the collective soul.



illegitimate angel

does not know who her father is

does not understand

when she prays for one

she prays for all

and when she prays for all

she is really praying for herself



instead, she prays for herself

and no one-- not even her-- is helped.







               159



she is not illegitimate-- she knows

who her father is-- rather

she is illiterate. she cannot read

people any bettern the rest of us

can read assembly instructions.

but the buddha truth of it is

when she left me on the floor

she was not careful

because no one else was around

and we were both laughing

wildly drunk with the human experience

our lunatic hair both frayed and matted

with the burning sweat of madness.

it was not bad

it was good

just as all things

are unequivocally

      good.

She is all the time

She is all the time
harvesting the fields of my mind
tearing the wheat from the tares–

she is brightly consuming;
engulfing;
raging through silent eyes–
eyes
which are mute
eyes which pantomime
desperation in a shrinking
box–
eyes which beat against the pavement
like a yellow jackhammer.

Blue

I watch the art of her masturbating
the heart of her naked soul
beating through the narrow wind
like a hummingbird
loving
something distant.
She is coolly shallow and reflective–