trying to create a form

  history can walk through as pure poetry

  rooted in language of place

  UNTITLED 5

  poetry is form, draws from nothingness, song seeking language to create

  metaphor, meaning, a vehicle through which words shape themselves into sound,

  local elocutions mapping birdcalls, grunts, slippage of puns, wordplays, jokes,

  the march of history’s impact on tongues, words, the chance mixing of races

  splices mestizo voices, tongues simmered down in pots of creole culture,

  food we eat today is language won or lost

  UNTITLED 6

  throw the bones again to see

  where the dice stop rolling through life’s chief moments of chance, do they roll stopping

  with snake-eyes, seven/eleven turning up inside luck, ability

  raised up from cultural fusion, risk, fresh modes, language echoing the new

  UNTITLED 7

  poetic language rolls off tongues like dice throws, words tumble through poems risking

  they might fall off cliffs of sheer rock-face meters, rhythms suddenly breaking

  backs of sentences, veering in another direction, alongside chance,

  risk the only way to dance with creation, expression, art, politics

  in the hands of poets become high-wire acts balancing cool survival,

  creative voices walk through space, joyously

  UNTITLED 8

  snake eyes in eyes of hustlers,

  pimps, who throw their lives into moments of death, snake eyes in stares of lizards,

  who slither belly-down through sawgrass, people, snake eyes fixed in eyes of men

  shooting bullets with their gazes, guns firing, snake eyes empty of beauty

  UNTITLED 9

  on the first throw of words tumbling off tongues, risk, chance takes over, becomes birds,

  spreads wings, lifts off into space, is a solo, music as air beneath wings,

  breath of notes is a chance to where wind takes poems in the moment art lives, thrives,

  takes off as tongue when rhythm rolls as thrown dice

  huck-a-bucking across floors, carrying the sound of possibility artists creating in air

  carved out by miles davis, monk, jimi hendrix

  UNTITLED 10

  where is the courage to sing

  songs no one plays over airways, radios, television, internets,

  where are great poets celebrated as news

  anywhere in this country,

  their poems & faces splashed all over tv

  like that of sarah palin

  UNTITLED 11

  it is late in the game when new dice are thrown again, where did the risk go

  with the early throw of the bones, time always moves in the moment of now,

  choices thrown across gambling tables become the present voices, the new

  throw of language as dice roll toward edges, chance, risk, art lived in the margins

  where great poetry creates in peril, loss the name of the modern game,

  is fame, the throw of cold dice, no matter what

  * I grew up in the inner city of St. Louis, Missouri, and I watched older and younger people—mostly men—gambling when they played the game of dice. Some were killed because one of their adversaries perhaps thought they were cheating, though sometimes it was for winning a great deal of money, which made their opponents mad. So in my mind playing the game of dice contains within its mandate an essential element of risk and chance. Seven/Elevens is my attempt to create a new form based on the roll of the dice and the elements of chance and risk embedded in that game. To put it simply the form goes like this: in the “seven,” the poem is seven lines, with alternating seven- and eleven-syllabic lines, beginning with a line of seven syllables. With the “elevens,” the poem is eleven lines of alternating eleven- and seven-syllabic lines, beginning with an opening line of eleven syllables.

  In my view of the form the series of poems opens with the seven form, with the next form being an eleven, though I don’t see the form necessarily conforming to this strict configuration. For me the idea is to write poems that address risk, chance, as the throw of the dice does when someone is gambling, because in my view life and living is always about taking risk. Even if one approaches life conservatively, there is no way to predict what will confront you while passing through the daily activity of breathing and living.

  VII.

  ERRANÇITIES

  for Edouard Glissant

  1.

  the mind wanders as a line of poetry taking flight meanders

  in the way birds spreading wings lift into space knowing

  skies are full of surprises like errançities encountering restless

  journeys as in the edgy solos of miles davis or jimi hendrix

  listen to night-song of sea waves crashing in foaming with voices

  carrying liquid histories splashing there on rock or sandy shores

  after traveling across time space & distance it resembles a keening

  language of music heard at the tip of a sharp blade of steel

  cutting through air singing as it slices a head clean from its neck

  & you watch it drop heavy as a rock landing on earth & rolling

  like a bowling ball the head leaving a snaking trail of blood reminding

  our brains of errançities wandering through our lives every day

  as metaphors for restless movement bring sudden change

  surprise in the way you hear errançities of double meaning

  layered in music springing from secret memories as echoes

  resounding through sea & blue space is what our ears know

  & remember hearing voices speaking in tongues carrying history

  blooming as iridescent colors of flowers multifarious as rainbows

  arching across skies multilingual as joy or sorrow evoked inside

  our own lives when poetic errançities know their own forms

  2.

  what is history but constant recitations of flawed people pushed

  over edges of boundaries of morality pursuing wars pillage

  enslavement of spirits is what most nations do posing as governing

  throughout cycles of world imagination plunder means profit

  everywhere religion is practiced on topography as weapons used

  as tools written in typography to conquer minds to slaughter for gold

  where entire civilizations become flotsam floating across memory seas

  heirloom trees cut down as men loot the planet without remorse

  their minds absent of empathy they remember/know only greed

  these nomadic avatars of gizzard-hearted darth vaders who celebrate

  “shock-doctrines” everywhere ballooning earnings-sheet bottom lines

  their only creed for being on earth until death cuts them down

  3.

  but poetry still lives somewhere in airstreams evoking creative breath

  lives in the restless sea speaking a miscegenation of musical tongues

  lives within the holy miracle of birds elevating flight into dreams & song

  as errançities of spirits create holy inside accumulation of daybreaks

  raise everyday miraculous voices collaborating underneath star-nailed

  clear black skies & the milky eye of a full moon over guadeloupe

  listen to the mélange of tongues compelling in nature’s lungs in new york

  city tongues flung out as invitations for sharing wondrous songs

  with nature is a summons to recognize improvisation as a surprising path

  to divergence through the sound of scolopendra rooted somewhere here

  in wonder when humans explode rhythms inside thickets of words/puns

  celebrating the human spirit of imagination is what poets seek

  listen for cries of birds lifting off for somewhere above the magical

  pulse of sea waves swirling language immense with the winds sound

  serenading us through leaves full of ripe fruit sweet as fresh water

  knowing love might be deeper than greed & is itself a memory

  a miracle always there might bring us closer to reconciliation inside

  restless métisse commingling voices of errançities wandering within

  magic the mystery of creation pulling us forward to wonder to know

  human possibility is always a miraculous gift is always a conundrum

  JUST THINK ABOUT IT

  just think about it sometimes all you need do is open

  a door, walk through it perhaps out into open space,

  walk into the world, whether it’s cold, or warm, then go

  whatever direction your mind of errançities takes you,

  go quickly, or slowly, but move resolutely through this moment

  with your eyes wide open, your wandering brain, but move forward

  toward something perhaps you haven’t thought to do before,

  whatever it is let there be beauty in it spreading light, meaning,

  open yourself up to new music, people, vistas, spontaneous

  improvisations of the day, rhythms carrying possibilities to unlock

  secrets of this moment, perhaps will lead you to look into things,

  people you never focused on before you walked through the door,

  perhaps the opening will reveal yourself to yourself—revelation—

  perhaps now you might feel different for the rest of your life

  LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE

  eye have spent much time looking into the future

  elusive as it is sometimes hidden

  inside a word a poetic line a sliver

  fracturing a fragment breaking away from a flowing

  conversation bursting from what someone just said

  within a bright moment of elucidation

  then perhaps eye might come upon it outside

  a lyrical color-field of phrases becoming metaphor

  as in a poem creating itself in an empty space

  a white page or a secret place inside

  the brain a painting forming on a blank canvas

  after all is said & done maybe it will spring from

  some woman’s face luminous with spiritual beauty

  carrying a deep elegant élan beyond

  what can be captured in any photo is only close

  to human feeling the heart knows but cannot explain

  on an empty page during the rapture of composing

  poetry is as elusive as the future

  when all you see is perhaps a trembling outline

  suggesting a shape a direction you are searching for

  a presence pulsating with what you hope

  is luminous with a pure beauty your heart will embrace

  in side a clear moment of elucidation

  you might hear it in music swelling within a voice

  filled with a magical spiritual beckoning

  perhaps it just passed when you were distracted

  inside a moment of confusion now it’s gone

  forever inside a fog of dissolving mist

  where time exists in a state of forming questions

  inside a dimension giving shape to nods flurries

  winks blinking within intervals of expectations

  moments on the verge of arrival music a kiss

  something you have been yearning for all your life

  EYE TRAVEL BACK INTO MEMORY

  eye travel back into memory searching for voices,

  faces enshrouded in fog, silence-filled roads

  blooming with shadows waving their limbs

  as tree leaves do dancing on concrete when winds come,

  sweep through them with musical tongues speaking a language so

  naturally some bodies understand as they move rhythmically

  out on dance floors, somewhere someone is walking

  secure in their space, they might be an artist, pure

  essence inside a dancer’s comfort zone, pace

  controlling movement of a body, the way music responds

  creatively to tempo, improvisational movement, measure—

  as when tree leaves when whipped by wind tongues prance,

  dance, in tempo, as now my journey back into memory

  is a dance, my eyes searching ruins,

  wreckage piled high (as bleached bones dug up from graveyards

  remind of living people who always take in, never give back,

  their hands constantly open to receive whatever is given,

  their hearts always closed, though they are beating)

  finally eye come upon high-pitched sounds of male crickets

  rubbing their legs against each other somewhere out there

  in blooming fog, the rushing sound of water clear as wind chimes

  tinkling up ahead, in the distance, perhaps, mystery

  waits in a man dressed all in black, a flat, wide-brimmed hat, also black,

  pulled low, cuts across his forehead like zorro’s

  he rides a black horse—eyes milky moons in a black sky—

  & looks through me as eye imagine death would—

  then eye focus my mind upon the wind chimes’ soothing music

  up ahead, in the distance—movement will always take me there—

  in a heartbeat eye hear water rushing through reeds,

  licking over rocks & grass, see the road winding up to enter

  mountains densely canopied with trees like in belle basse terre

  on the western tip of guadeloupe, near the silent

  volcano of soufrière, long dormant as voodoo is here,

  silent on this butterfly island (though you hear drums

  beating lately now when darkness falls, during carnival season

  when eye hear synchronized hearts pounding inside transplanted

  haitian voodoo worshippers, their rara rhythms zigzagging snakes

  through streets of pointe-à-pitre during mi-careme,

  their breaths blown through conch shells, dancing

  inside movement of shango, papa legba, ogun, obatala, erzulie—

  loas long underground here until now—the old african

  gods rising up through voices of people—young & old—

  thumping in time with their hearts, moving as one, inside

  comfort zones of their bodies, here on this island)

  out there somewhere someone is walking toward me now

  through this blooming fog, they are coming secure

  inside their own flesh, within their own space, their comfort zone,

  their eyes bright as beacons probe through the fog-like lasers,

  whoever they are eye sense their spiritual presence,

  know myself in them, looking back, moving forward into mystery,

  magic, see them as mirrors of myself, even now, searching

  back through this dense, blooming fog—when will it ever clear—

  gloomy with wavering shadows slinking across the road forward,

  they speak—the wavering shadows do—a language

  like wind tongues, like singing birds, like my tongue sings sometimes

  in poetry when responding to improvisation of any kind—music,

  voices, the sound of car tires screeching, machine guns chattering

  back & forth at one another during wartime—whenever

  odd clues drop cunning bombshells into equations of speech—

  words strung out into sentences written by juries, judges, reporters,

  poets—revelation, surprise suddenly, as in a quirky chord

  change, shocking in its placement, coming out of the blue

  as when a new tempo is inserted into a composition, a performance,

  comes with the need to improvise, then control has to take over

  as in this split second after this blooming fog opened up,

  suddenly a doorway there, eye step through into a clearing where

  time stops, inside my memory, knowing somewhere out there

  someone is walking toward me & eye will know them

  when their spirit mirrors mine, the music of their tongue speaking to

  me in a language eye know inside my comfort zone,

  inside a language of our two hearts, beating as one

  UNTITLED DREAMSCAPE

  eye relive that moment after first laying eyes on you,

  once again in my mind—in that dreamscape

  long ago—in the dream you were still stunning as eye remember,

  the spiritual beauty shining in your face was as radiant

  as when the light first caught you in my sideways glance

  then surrounded you with a blue-ray aura—

  now—as then—you are deeply inscrutable,

  mysterious as daybreak, or sunset—the interval between

  those two called twilight, when our minds play tricks,

  fool us all the time, when what we think we see

  could be a mirage, an illusion,

  a magician’s dazzling sleight-of-hand trick

  a moment infused with sweet seduction

  as when you first undressed & eye saw you naked there,

  your body supple as any eye could imagine,

  so perfectly sensuous, your swollen, plum lips

  so ravishing—as they are now, in this present rapture,

  your tongue lathering my imagination down,

  licking over the glistening honey of your pursed kiss,

  an invitation, your mouth open, your curling tongue

  beckoning my lips & tongue to suck your peeled mango breast

  our pubic hair a mound of sweet dark moss,

  my lascivious thoughts focusing like a laser on

  the ravishing sweetness eye imagined was there,

  it was was what eye remembered as eye reached

  out to embrace you—when the lights came on

  & the dreamscape vanished, poof, just like that,

  wiping out your lovely, seductive likeness,

  though the memory is still there—a longing,

  a miraculous dream, mysterious

  as ever, as now, your inscrutable loveliness

  always beckoning, like a drug, an invitation,

  so rapturous it calls out to me always, as now,

  when eye am dreaming, you always beckon,

  seducing me, as now, as long as eye dream