fired into the beggar’s face—your face, too, if you’re out here—

  shot from an invisible gun, you hear the sounds of whiplashing

  voices speaking in several tongues, dialects settling down,

  become an adagio, a gentle alizé, as the wind transforms itself,

  becomes a whispering, lilting breeze as the raging

  rivers in gullies turn calm, morph into quiet streams,

  when light comes in the morning everything will have gone back

  became normal, things will be viewed clearly again

  in the brightness of a fresh new day, after the storm has passed

  you might think of it as a cleansing dream,

  you might just see your image frozen there, framed

  inside a clean store window, snapped like a self-portrait from long ago

  you dreamed of, recognize it now inside this clean glass—mirror?—

  & it’s like seeing a twin you never knew you had, for the first time

  in this moment everything might become clear again

  as you pass this window, after such a fiend-of-a-storm,

  everything might look new, beautifully fresh, again,

  even smell sweet after such a storm has come & left

  you here, within the refreshing light of this reborn day

  SOUNDS OF NEW YORK CITY

  FROM HARLEM, 116TH & 7TH AVENUE

  for Miles Davis

  sounds quixotically mix human languages—wolof, french,

  patois, african-american-english, spanglish sprinkled

  with pure spanish—inside music—salsa, rap, senegalese mbalax-

  the rackaderack of jackhammers rattling streets, cracking asphalt,

  shaking minds with noise inside skulls wrapped with skin,

  black tar where cars zoom over, shoot down chutes of boulevards,

  hang abrupt changes of direction—left or right, what does it matter—

  then disappear like insistent car horns in times square

  through whatever chaos confronts them—the reality of buildings,

  very tall structures with orifices swallowing stuff if windows are open,

  allows all the quixotic mixes the big apple lives with every moment—dirt,

  debris, pieces of conversations sailing in through open windows like pages

  of ripped-up newspapers, voices salty with accents, the squeal of rubber wheels—

  to enter, commingle with the city’s vociferous languages residing here in the air,

  slipping & sliding, punctuated by buzzing flies, mosquitoes, yapping wings

  of dog tongues, cats yowling, lightning slicing though air over central park,

  where birds skree-skree & yerp-yerp, caw-caw over green grass

  in summer, the welcoming whoosh of winds serenading through tree leaves,

  like eye imagine charlie yardbird parker soloed long-ago in minton’s

  in his love affair with the way music looped-de-looped during april,

  when rains come shimmy-shingling down wet pavements whipping soaked

  newspapers swim down chutes of streets around broadway, close to times square,

  we move inside ourselves when we enter the subway as it screams back uptown,

  the rhythm of train wheels riding the tracks, laying down the syncopation

  underlying the rhythm sluicing through this poem, double-backs,

  trumpets, bass clarinets & saxophones riding over the clicking licks of steel wheels,

  reminds me of lenny white, jack dejohnette pulsating on bitches brew, gumbo

  screeching sounds, when miles ran the voodoo down, the prince of darkness

  stabbing his trumpet breath into a jimi hendrix guitar solo, like a bluesman

  a cat mewing in the dark at a full moon on the corner, like muddy waters,

  howling wolf—through all this chaos of sound all around us in this place,

  so beautifully vital, so creatively imagined in this city of magic

  & mystery full of gargantuan appetites & tastes, art congregating

  in spaces we pass through every moment, everyday, uptown, wherever

  we move through this mesmerizing place all others try measuring up to,

  this galvanizing metropolis many imitate—its beehive overdrive,

  its quixotic mix of skree-skree, caw-caw, music, languages—

  whatever the human cost the energy here is always at a boiling point

  & those who live here recognize the blowback of this scintillating chaos,

  music slipping through cracks to surround you like nirvana & you

  love it, deal with it—if you plan to stay here—just keep “getting’ up

  on the one,” everyday, miles used to say—just keep “getting’ up

  on the one,” on the one, just keep “getting’ up on the one”

  2002 MANHATTAN SNAPSHOT: THE WAR ON TERROR

  two overweight white policemen set up

  a roadblock, at 95th and Amsterdam

  in new york city, on a cold, windy, november

  morning, cars backed up for blocks blared horns

  stuck in their anger, my cabby told me

  it was money spent on the war on terrorism, eye thought

  did they really think osama bin laden or saddam hussein

  would be caught dead or alive in a car

  in manhattan, maybe they thought they’d catch

  some other kind of criminal riding in a van,

  as if they would come this way since everybody

  & their mama knew on this side of town

  the roadblock was there—our cabby blind—

  sided because he was from downtown—

  & especially since the men in blue,

  their bellies bulging like necks of croaking frogs

  strained buttons of their coats, as they walked up

  slowly to check the cars or vans,

  but any terrorists worth their weight in fear,

  paying any attention would have been long gone,

  so what is this farcical drama all about? eye asked,

  my cabby said it was higher-ups in government

  just letting us know the transfer of tax dollars

  they took from us was working to keep wool

  pulled way down over our eyes, to keep us blind

  A FEW QUESTIONS POSED

  every sunday morning for many years now white people

  from all around the globe have flocked in droves

  to the first corinthian baptist church, across from where eye live

  on 116th street & adam clayton powell jr. boulevard, in harlem

  where they stand in long snaking lines sweating bullets in hot

  humid, summer sundays, dressed in un-hip clothing—a few even show

  up in shorts—shivering in ice-cube winters, dressed like eskimos—

  camera-strapped tourists carrying maps of the neighborhood

  they flock up here to hear & see black people decked to the nines,

  listen to glory-bird eating preachers deliver holy scriptures,

  choirs belting out bring-the-house-down-rhythmic-glory-be-to-god

  rocking gospels, sung in voices so alive you can hear & see angels

  strutting the black experience of joy & suffering with wings—

  flapping head-nodding blues—though you can’t hear real blues up in here

  in first corinthian, that would get in the way of the lawd’s holy gospel

  the black & white-washed christian message of a blood-drenched legacy

  so foreign, it must be made acceptable to these white listeners

  with their beaming earnest unquestioning leave-it-to-beaver apple-pie faces,

  who keep coming up here full of unreachable complexes,

  mysterious maladies, impulses, perhaps thinking their convoluted conundrums

  will somehow be fixed, healed absorbing these holy ghost miracles

  sung by aretha franklin clones, like many thought when they voted

  for barack husseim obama to be president he would fix everything bush

  fucked up, simply because he was a brilliant black man—though none of this

  glory has ever seemed to have helped even the most regular

  black devotee-clones listening here at first Corinthian—even though

  many old-timers have been drinking this same holy ghost kool-

  aid for decades now, fanning away their heartbreak every sunday

  which begs the question why do these white people really come

  up to harlem to listen to something so far outside their own tradition,

  what would happen if the tables were turned

  & blacks flocked in droves into their neighborhoods on sundays,

  would they suffer us, give us directions as we have them

  with the same grace, would they welcome droves of christian

  others flocking to churches in their neighborhoods,

  as native-americans welcomed them way back in the day

  when they first arrived on these shores from whatever country they fled from,

  would they remember all these years they came up to harlem

  by subway, taxis, on foot, in cars in large rented buses

  taking up all our parking spaces every sunday morning

  would they remember the sermons, the gospel music

  they said changed their hearts, their spirits would they/can they change

  their dna of privilege, of never ever embracing the other

  FOGGY MORNING IN PORT TOWNSEND

  heavy fog blooms in the straits of juan de fuca

  like tear gas did in boot camp back in fort

  leonard wood, missouri, when we practiced fighting wars

  & O how the years have run away quick as cats darting through

  the dark, to enter this boggy morning of almost silver

  rinsed shadows, of trees standing still as silhouette cutouts

  outside my windows, on my next to last daybreak here

  in port townsend, in another fort

  called worden, so still, so quiet here, where

  eye am listening to the music of mozart bloom

  from speakers of my lap top computer’s cd player

  & O where has all the time run to, wolfgang amadeus,

  from your time to here, when we can write & play music simultaneously

  without missing a beat though a technological wizard like this laptop,

  what would you think of this invention, old maestro,

  you who died so young, like so many musical geniuses,

  at thirty-four, crazy as charlie yardbird parker, who went bloated

  & drunk to the other side, full of “smack” around the same age as you,

  amadeus, have you met him there yet, O great maestro,

  have you talked together about how all great music is the same,

  have you introduced yourself to miles davis, duke ellington, louis

  armstrong, john coltrane, all of whom loved your music,

  have you seen them clean in their white bone suits,

  polished clean as yours, mozart?

  O where have all the years run quick as cats darting through the dark,

  to find your music rising here, on a foggy morning rinsed silver?

  did you know we would be listening still to your music,

  that it would be as familiar as this billowing fog, now lifting,

  would be as familiar as memories of tear gas & war on boggy mornings,

  trees still standing as silhouette cutouts, shadows of ghost trees

  greening up, as the fog lifts to reveal wonders of a new day,

  did you know, great maestro, we would still be listening,

  as the future will be listening to duke, bird, miles, louis & coltrane,

  did you know, old great maestro, did you know?

  that after the fog lifts the day will shine golden green here,

  three deer will have already come down out of the woods,

  come up to my window, with their luminous eyes wide open,

  their wet, soft noses pressed against my window

  listening to your music right now, frozen, seemingly in wonder

  did you know, old great maestro, did you know?

  THE ALLUSION OF SEDUCTION

  even when you sat in the glowing embers

  during that day as any other, the sun

  sinking quickly as the breath of a dying man,

  who felt the light dimming in his sunken eyes, lingered,

  just for a moment, you remembered the soft touch

  of a woman’s sweet lips you loved

  like a cool breeze on your flesh & you lingered

  after she left, her perfume hanging in the air there

  like seduction, you remembered her incredible tongue

  licking so softly, so feathery-light across your keening body,

  it was so electric then, is so electric now in your memory,

  as this moment is electric when you feel

  the beauty of language growing inside a poem,

  inside the incredible music of its reference

  on the other hand it is a different moment now

  under this black sky filled with stars silent as people

  walking around down here imitating zombies,

  where you sit, sifting through the wreckage of memory

  you hear voices swelling from somewhere deep within

  hidden crevices of an invisible stillness, perhaps inside

  history, now a plunging hush when once there was a clamoring,

  a nervous cacophony filled with agitation, was marching

  people around the globe speaking in one voice,

  waving banners, thrusting fists—of all colors—

  into the glowing air like pistons, then the light suddenly dropped

  over the edge of the world during a sunset you remember, when

  the police surged forward wearing gas masks,

  looking like darth vaders swinging steel batons,

  cracking human skulls as if they were piñatas

  & hidden behind their sparta shields made people dance

  when they shot them with voluble water hoses

  in the glowing light dropping over the edge of the world

  at sunset, in this moment here, this eerie silence,

  the presence comes rushing at you with garrulous urgency,

  drowning out all nostalgia

  & you think of guantanamo, guatanamo, O the shame,

  of guantanamo, abu ghraib, the silence,

  the creeping national silence of voices ignoring the known,

  the cold-blooded depravity of it all, the insulation of ignorance, the silence

  we freeze into so we won’t recognize the horror

  in front of us now, the silent drones hovering,

  slaughtering over afghanistan, pakistan, it’s all so familiar now

  as apple pie, the graphic scenes of a tarantino movie,

  the impoverishment of spirit we find located

  inside ourselves, we have no language that speaks of it

  & yet you remember still the sweetness of her lips

  brushing over your flesh like feathers of a bird’s wing,

  her incredible licking tongue lathering

  your body with its honey, its seduction of your keening memory

  made so electric by her touch, her wondrous perfume

  hanging in the air like beautiful language inside a poem

  & you linger over the remembrance of all of this,

  feel hope is still there, as long as there is love

  III.

  PRAISE SONG FOR SEKOU

  for Sekou Sundiata, August 22, 1948–July 18, 2007

  it stormed thunder & lightning the day you passed, sekou,

  a sky carrying deep sadness hung down over new york city—

  it reminded me of drooping bags under mourners’ eyes

  after hours of deep, sleepless despair & weeping,

  huge eggplant tears dropped from gloomy clouds for you, sekou

  drenched the daytime boppers, flooded the hot, screaming thoroughfares

  right before a steam pipe exploded on 41st street near lexington avenue,

  blowing a boiling gray cloud of debris through a gaping, sweltering hole

  &swallowing whole a screaming black man alive,

  roasting him inside his truck

  after burning his clothes off his cooked body,

  sending him pleading for help & mercy from horrified, cringing onlookers,

  who turned their backs, except for one white man,

  who wrapped him in his expensive suit jacket, took him to the hospital,

  saved his life on the day you went raging to the other side, sekou,

  you threw thunderbolts of lightning into this sky as you went, so angry you were,

  we watched them unzip the mood of the day

  the place where you were born, lived & died,

  watched them zigzag through an onyx sky deep black

  as the shining coal of your skin, my luminous friend

  & you had so very much to live for, so much still to do—

  but look at what you did do, my brotha, all that beautiful, living

  stuff you laid on us full of all those memorable voices on vinyl—

  hoodoo priest of sacred magic, singing into this place

  a great dance you were, my friend, a black blues fusing rhapsodic

  doobop & jazz, so cool inside your prince of light persona

  you turned poetry into your own new bop, attitude you had in spades

  a dip in your stride, a knowing look blooming like mystery

  inside your been-there-done-that, ever-alert sparkling brown eyes

  you were a walking, breathing barometer of hip, out of miles’s tribe

  always at ease inside your sin, your glorious musical language sly & knowing,

  a little wink here, a subtle, humorous put-down there, so wise you were, so fly

  always magical, running easy, gliding through who said what to who

  & did who do what they said they would do, did they believe in magic, mystery

  when who said they believed in voodoo, then flew, but you knew why

  they flew, did what they always do when they are turned around

  by directives & go the other way, sekou, you knew why they did it

  knew why they went in the wrong direction to get to where

  they said they wanted to go, knew why they went in the wrong direction