obscure flights of bats, soaring eagles, small birds remind

  of zig-zagging dots zooming across perceptions of eyeballs

  transmitting back to brains, signals whether feathers

  lifting wings of eagles spread as if they were giant wings—

  arms—of airplanes slicing through ether up there

  in space, sharp as razor blades editing breath of rappers,

  blues singers, or words—metaphors—paint brushing

  strokes locking in sentences of modern day poets

  down here on earth, men, women lacing transfixing

  spells love infuses into their poetry when deep feeling is

  scatting there, electric in the moment, in memory,

  words cannot replace the beauty of soft lips cushioning

  a haunting kiss with a probing tongue charging bodies

  connected, as if wired with electricity around the globe,

  great poets speak too as if they were live-wire bodies

  and people know music of shaped expression deep

  in their bodies, rhythms inside language there recognized

  through tongues transporting folks back through time

  to when and where questions are rooted in the soil,

  where shared culture through a common verbal dialect

  is heard in local songs music stitches through memory,

  and echoed inside idioms, patois, licks trumpet riffs caress,

  saxophone wails, guitars translate through plucking strings

  that tremble, quiver over hammering ivory keys of pianos

  block chording scherzos heard through cascading voices

  people inside music know, hear language of tears

  murmuring in the air mimicking flags fluttering foreign

  dialects unmasking lewd secrets here beneath blues,

  singing of the deep hoodoo lyrics of John Lee Hooker

  underneath southern American skies filled with birds

  washed with all colors and heard all around the world

  casting spells of musical witch doctors and wired

  deep into the voices of great American poets, whose

  haunting metaphors slice through space and time

  like a honed razor blade editing, and will live forever

  in songs of troubadours singing around the globe,

  beauty of poets space traveling through their poems

  all over the interconnected globe of language love

  brings a voice of redemption whispering a song

  probing deep like a echoing sentence into our ears

  A POEM FOR DEREK WALCOTT

  like a bullet fired through space from the other side,

  between light & darkness you came with a poem

  sluicing from your lips, came with words constructing images

  sharp as dagger points penetrating our bodies, brains

  & ears like singing birds do in blushing green mid-morning

  light, you came into my world like Neruda’ s poem full gallop,

  riding a lopping horse with a satchel filled with metaphors,

  packed with original sly word plays & tricks,

  your accented St. Lucian patois, switching back & forth

  between proper—the Queen’s English—& colloquial—Creole—

  expressions, both ruminating in your poetic language,

  now eye hear your foaming sea wave lines flow in here

  hissing, in Juan Dolio, Santo Domingo, with accents

  clipping, chopping, speeding through African influenced Spanish

  full of salsa rooted in merengue, sluicing voodoo through French

  laced with Spanglish, the many Haitians here who come to work,

  speak, marinated in their grio, lambi based patois, laced

  inside a kind of African based French-Spanglish—

  it is remarkable how black folks everywhere shape, create language!

  so eye listen to find your voice, Derek, in the salty sea speech

  rolling in from the Caribbean, then roiling south, thundering,

  hissing, foaming towards St. Lucia, where your spirit now rests,

  facing your beloved sea, then eye hear your raspy voice

  calling out to me from where you sleep, “don’t fuck up this

  tribute poem, Quincy, because you know I’m a Nobel Prize-winning

  poet and you’re not, motherfucker, & don’t ever forget that!”

  then eye hear that sneaky voice of yours break into a gaggle

  of raspy giggles—almost a rush of chuckles, a lark—

  cracking your small little mound of a stomach, shaking it

  with side-splitting laughter, your sea green eyes laughing

  so very hard it causes rivers of tears to burst, run down

  splashing your ruddy, light brown face in rushing torrents

  ANOTHER VIEW FROM SINES, PORTUGAL

  for David Murray and Valerie

  in Sines, Portugal, in David Murray’s and Valerie’s lovely house,

  we rose each morning to a wondrous sweeping view,

  of the Atlantic stretching west, no borders, no limits,

  no boundaries holding it back, save wondrous expanses

  our cruising minds sought to carry inside a profound beauty holding

  this rich moment, a compulsive nature full of voices rising up

  day, or night, Muslim, Christian exaltations,

  intercourse with lovers in space mixed inside sounds of cars

  passing barking dogs, sea waves voyaging in frothing as they eat

  sandy shores like sharks chomping breakfast, lunch, dinner,

  a dialog with white seagulls slicing over it all,

  their bladed wings slicing through darkening skies

  reminded of cleavers dripping red blood in a butcher’s shop

  as the sun sets in the west, outside my window here

  looking northwest, eye see a grafitti covered wall swarming

  with hip-hop scrawl echoing imagistic language of Jean Michel Basquiat’s

  paintings of horned skulls leering out from canvases

  shocking the world,

  with an artistic handshake welcoming me to Sines,

  whoever drew these images held a philosophy close to Basquiat’s—

  even mine is an affirmation, recognition, a handshake

  shout out from Sines to New York city, that eye recognize here

  CHASING WORDS IN LINES

  for Toni Morrison; 1931–2019

  eye am dreaming, thinking of sluicing words

  structured into lines stretching across pages,

  they remind of newborn bloody babies

  pulled from wombs of fecund imaginations

  when poets chase metaphors as painters, birth,

  translate colors into rhythms of musicians, voices—

  plucked from grapes clustered in vines, find

  their places in fine wines on dinner tables—

  shaped into contours of the world, they are echoes,

  seeds popping from the ground as flowers, memories

  stitched through poems as words—lyrics,

  songs of bono—are leaps of faith, as in soul deep narratives

  sewn into our lives inside Toni Morrison’s books,

  her sentences are blues underlining broken shards,

  razor sharp as jazz they will cut you badly

  if you’re not ready to hear the sho nuff truth

  but there is sweetness here too, in Toni’s blues,

  her vision full of grace beyond happenstance,

  is a fertile place tracing america’s history

  shaped by bloodletting firing squads of race

  to lay one’s head down onto a pillow

  & listen to the truth defining falsehoods

  some historians serve up on forked tongues

  laced with cyanide in race baiting narratives

  but Toni cut through all duplicitous bullshit

  with a voice clear as a sword’s beheading fools

  in her works of fiction, essays & public speeches,

  she once said “art is dangerous” & left no doubt

  who she was listening to—Miles Davis, Angela Davis,

  John Coltrane, William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia

  Marquez, Lucile Clifton, Toni Cade Bambara, Ella

  Fitzgerald, Jimmy Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, the silver

  gloved wizard, Henry Dumas, Sonia Sanchez, street voices

  she grew up listening to in Lorain, Ohio, the down-home

  language of black women fixing hair in their kitchens,

  black beauty parlor saturdays, sunday mornin’ go to church

  hand clappin’ rituals shoutin’ out the gospel of layin’ on

  of hands in sacred river baptismal ceremonies

  serving as doorways for initiates to pass through

  to kiss & greet spiritual ancestors in white robes,

  it’s where your spirit Toni Morrison just flew to

  accompanied by hand clapping, singing black choirs

  belting out hallelujahs & praise be to your name,

  while cooing birds trilled lines of your prose,

  flapping wings, we heard the word “excelsior”

  PICKING A DANDELION

  for Joe and Jill Biden, Cheryl and Charles Ward, and for Margaret

  walking along together

  in the nation’s capitol

  Joe stopped, stooped, picked a flower—

  a dandelion to be exact—

  then he handed it to Jill—

  who smiled in her white summer,

  dress full of pretty flowers,

  and someone snapped a picture

  of this sweet, simple gesture,

  it revealed something deeper,

  profound, beautiful about

  their love for each other here,

  that taught all of us watching,

  how to reach across time, space,

  with a tender touch, a kiss

  for one another here, now

  in this moment of hatred

  before time on earth runs out

  INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES

  TITLES

  & Syllables Grow Wings There 226

  116th Street & Park Avenue 166

  2002 Manhattan Snapshot: The War on Terror 405

  21 Lines to Carnot, Guadeloupean Master Drummer 198

  9/11 Emergency Calls Coming into Manhattan 302

  The Absoluteness of Seconds 248

  After Hearing A Radio Announcement: A Comment on Some Conditions 67

  After Reading A Hiroshima Nuclear Bulletin on Yahoo 598

  After Seeing An Image in Ashland, Oregon 395

  All of My Good Old Friends 599

  The Allusion of Seduction 410

  Another View from Sines, Portugal 648

  The Architecture of Language 365

  The Arrival of Ghost Voices 478

  An Art of Lost Faith 383

  Ash Doors & Juju Guitars 58

  At the End 181

  Avalanche 228

  Avalanche Aftermath 193

  A Beautiful Woman Putting on Makeup on the Downtown Number 3 New York Subway Train 539

  Bells 286

  Beneath the Bluest Sea 55

  Birds Fly without Motion to the Summit 54

  Birth Form: Tercetina 262

  Blood 603

  Blood-Rivers 44

  Blue Mandala 571

  Boomerang: A Blatantly Political Poem 186

  Catching Shadows 514

  Change 195

  Chasing Words in Lines 649

  Chicago 32

  Chorus Song of Crossing the Big Salt Water 474

  Choruses 289

  Collage 104

  Come Sing a Song 26

  Conjuring Against Alien Spirits 246

  Connections #2 467

  Connections 343

  Coronavirus Redial 600

  Chorus: African Ghost Spirit Crabs Cross Karukera (Guadeloupe) 486

  Dark Clouds Blooming Up Ahead 601

  The Day Duke Raised: May 24th, 1984 93

  The Day Strides There on the Wind 159

  Death Always Comes 544

  A Dirge for Michael Brown, Tamir Rice & Trayvon Martin 527

  Diva 336

  A Double Rainbow Arch 574

  Dream Poem/Song 49

  Dream/Dance 53

  Duende 588

  Each of Us Here 583

  Earthquake: Haiti 439

  Eighth Avenue Poem 147

  Embryo 22

  The Enlightened Awakening 501

  Errançities 455

  Eye Am Forever Looking for Shadows 331

  Eye Am Thinking of Moments 354

  Eye Change Dreams 219

  Eye Throw My Rope Tongue into the Sky 172

  Eye Travel Back into Memory 460

  Eye Walk 196

  Eye Want to Go to Bucaramanga, Colombia 533

  Falling Down Roads of Sleep 203

  Fast Lane 315

  A Few Questions Posed 406

  Fireflies 91

  First Take 476

  The Flip Side of Time 260

  Flowers Blooming in Central Park 614

  Flying Kites 89

  Foggy Morning in Port Townsend 408

  Following the North Star Boogaloo 204

  For Hugh 641

  For Malcolm, Who Walks in the Eyes of Our Children 249

  For Richard Pryor: 1940–2005 341

  Forty-one Seconds on a Sunday in June, in Salt Lake City, Utah 272

  Four, and More 95

  Fragment 530

  From Richmond College, Postmarked—Manhattan 73

  Ghanaian Song-Image 79

  Ghost Voices Whispering from the Near Past 513

  Ghost Waves 518

  Gloster, Mississippi: Tankas and Haikus Suite 617

  Going Back to Goyave, Guadeloupe: What My Ears Needed to Hear 493

  Goyave Night Scene 433

  Gray Day in January in La Jolla 274

  A Haiku and A Tanka 616

  Haiku Scenes 325

  Haiku Song 447

  Haiti Haiku 438

  The Haitian Drum Hammerers of Juan Dolio, Santo Domingo 619

  Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, 1978 143

  A Hard Quick Rainstorm in Manhattan 401

  Harlem Late Night Lyric 158

  High Noon Shadow 524

  High Up in My Imagination 540

  Hints of Seduction 580

  Homage to Elijah Eugene Cummings 640

  Hoodoo Crab Spirits Find New Homes 497

  The Hours Fly Quick 329

  Hurricane Maria 604

  Hurricanes 441

  Igbobi, Nigerian Night 80

  Image 149

  Impressions 12 154

  Impressions 15 155

  Impressions 8 152

  In A Silence of Bells 86

  In Memoriam 191

  In Memory of Bunchy Carter 87

  In Sainte-Anne, Guadeloupe 346

  In Seventy-five Syllables 47

  In Texas Grass 41

  In the Manner of Rabearivello 48

  It All Boils Down 164

  It Is Not 84

  Jazz Improvisation as Blueprint for Living 531

  Jerez de la Franterea 278

  Just Cruisin & Writin 156

  Just Think About It 457

  A Kite above the Beach 349

  La Jolla 258

  Las Cruces, New Mexico 162

  Las Cruces, New Mexico Revisited 388

  Legon, Ghana, After Dark 77

  Leon Thomas at the Tin Palace 168

  Les Cayes, Haiti & 3 Religions on Parade: 1984 189

  Lessons in Seduction 566

  Let’s Say You Are Who 240

  Listening to Blackbirds 445

  Looking into the Future 458

  Lucille 338

  Lusting after Mangoes 442

  Lusting after Mangoes Number 3 564

  Lyric Still Life 585

  Male Springtime Ritual 253

  A Man Walks in Slow Motion 465

  Memory 81

  Memory, as A Circle: For the Love Eye Lost in Hurricane Audrey 334

  Memos & Buttons 161

  Mercy 519

  Michael Jackson & The Arc of Love 423

  Midtown Traffic 30

  Miles’s Last Tune Live, August 25th, 1991 418

  “Minnesota Nice” 239

  Mix-y-uppy Memory 399

  The Moon Is A Lemon Wedge 350

  Mother 276

  My Poems Have Holes Sewn into Them 105

  Nancy Pelosi 639

  The New Dream of Ghost Voices 484

  New York City Beggar 65

  New York City Stream Poem 179

  The New World: Moving North 489

  Ode to John Coltrane 134

  Old Black Ladies on Bus Stop Corners 127

  The Old Black Man Walking 353

  The Old People Speak of Death 243

  On A Sunday 396

  One for Charlie Mingus 227

  One Summer View; in Port Townsend, Washington 313

  The Other Night 88

  Out Here Where 82

  Passing by La Casa of “Gabo,” March 7th, 2014 568

  Passing on the Legacy 177

  Perennial Ritual 184

  Picking a Dandelion 651

  A Poem for An Old Man Walking an Equally Old Dog 591

  A Poem for Derek Walcott 646

  Poem for Friends 233

  Poem for Jack Whitten 552

  Poem for Lady Day & Dinah Washington 148

  Poem for Lola, Echoing Derek Walcott’s “Sixty Years After” 536

  A Poem for “Magic” 224

  Poem for My Brother Timmy 124

  Poem for My Father 251

  A Poem for Ojenke & K. Curtis Lyle 174

  Poem for Poets House 535

  Poem for Skunder Boghossian, Painter 103

  Poem for the Root Doctor of Rock n Roll 199

  A Poem of Return: Circa 2008 419

  The Point Loma Series of Haikus & Tankas 282

  Porter, at 18 Months 194

  Praise Song for Sekou 413

  Profilin, A Rap/Poem 27

  Pulse & Breathe 311

  Question 526

  Rain/Time 51

  Reconfigurations 309

  Reflections on Growing Older 201

  A Remembrance for Prince (1958–2016) 545

  A Response to All You “Angry White Males” 216

  Riff 150

  River Rhythm Town 130

  River Town Packin House Blues 120

  Romare Bearden’s Art between 1964 & 1985 547

  San Juan Island Image 257

  Searching 589

  Searching for Mangoes: Second Take 443

  Seduction 575

  Sentences 471

  Sestina for 39 Silent Angels 270