The thing that most people think is the difference

wincing at the shrewd dilapidated elegance of   subtropical  California


and those   puzzles  which  join  our  sins   as love    what are our      sins    as love ?     the difference  between   a duty  and  need,   narrows       childlike     and  ancient    the one and   only    tremendous  muse,     the difference


The time I didn't tell him

The time I did

the time I was  my  own hero   and   could  have filled   an effigy  of tones  with sheer     neglect of myself      and called   the flames,   father,  again, searchlight hymns,   so   redundant   the    hot   trope    of melody    plunges  into the  green   implications   famous unknowns/  and    I name  the  forgetfulness :   freedom         the clean biography  of surfaces  coming    to    mean    oneness      


or the way    everybody but  otis   could become  a symbol     of the frozen periphery     as he has become    the difference       between me   and    me —  learning to be casual again    and even when   that gets  as boring and perfect   as  blowfish, the laughing shoulders  of niggas  and dignitaries,       eaters of flesh who condemn    killing      

all we fear is envy                        lately  

my sister  on the tarmac   weeping    while the hot   lights of the camera   melt   her  dilemma   into   skill,    how the subtlest  events      send  you into the family  and back  like an errand  boy

we're not, probably, put on earth to prepare

there are certain things  

that only by living through them       do you learn to live through them    

settlement into colony    and back again   and   tribe   bending   into    bright  nonviolence —

where resistance  trails   off  like  a stolen     line    leaning  on the   familiar  

in a  steady   swarm   of the   inconnu

and       wanna be charlies,  charlatans     afraid  to pretend  

Wouldn't it be nice if your teeth were beautiful

I'm interested in surprise

I'm interested in hope

The angel is not born and does not die

I cannot run away from memory

I refuse to be blinded by any   ideology at all

I'm learning to play  the harp  and the excommunicated terrors

I must plow the land

Acrid is a sacred word

Bitterness becomes compassion    an intimate  command —

Dope and Glory

How to recover from addiction to white supremacy (1)

We walked around that desert, and held our screams in check
and the objective stance from which I we   attempt  to love them      the tender wintering of the W Hotel   bar / seminary   / that picture of James Baldwin,  eyes rising like Gershwin  scams,   not scams,     mercies   , above  the   God is Love sign, the camera, the muggy autograph of spectators       the chimera  the crime  my husband  commits to become my hero     living in Hollywood    obsessed with adultery   as the one true  thing  bringing us  closer  to Africa   and persian rugs,   did we want to come closer     the billboard  on Sunset tallies   ebola  deaths     in Africa  snug empire  of regretlessness     did we need to know  more about the   west       and not just as   middle class negroes  who go    to one of their colleges   and come back crazy / enlightened    wondering  what to do with this immense  wealth, this education     still acting like a slave    —  But love builds up   anyways   even passion       until we master  the art  of oppressing ourselves  with them    with love and passion       and even  subtlety   matted in      the alien language  of another   tribe    no longer  satisfies        have we exploited our  own suffering  for long enough   to transcend   it   yet        are there any brown  children playing   in the   snow  on purpose      that imperceptible grecian approval is  so gratifying   I   almost   realign   with its domesticity    just  to   grieve



our blind leader  crossing over   from preacher  to pimp    is one way    

while the strippers become praise dancers  in  a prank     pink knees and   needs   and

Amiri Baraka weeping and reading Ulysses until he gets kicked out of the Airforce   on purpose  

oppression the shape  of fame    

And therefore an angel has no history

And the most profound seduction is no longer indifference   but that bashful  anxiety  we call innocence     , use to invent one another   to be first again    having become involved   having learned to mediate these opposites   with tenderness  the   one concept we are for and against  together   we just have to pretend we don't know one another   and are so familiar with that unknown   we fall and rise again every dawn    an amorous  sense of reason  that heals us of history with its approach  always threatened by the memory of difference      we want the commons    that cures all illiteracy  of spirit   without disrupting the anxiety  that is spirit itself    the inside  outsider  correspondent   shadow light redundant isolation   break dancing  among asians  is just as dissociative   as angels in a reunion of eternal  forgetting    we could choose  that     have affairs    keep the parachute  near  the ladder   do you hear  that  noise    time  hallucinating   again   acting relevant  flying   ahead of morals   to practice 1964  for the barricades  have become portals   camouflaged by resemblance   and how we  strip the myth of details  makes us angels  and therefore   the slave has no history    and therefore   patience  is as embarrassing as revolution    or the fear that the bridge between experience and condition  is  no longer  blackness but some other code that it represents    saturates   with every maybe    and I plan to stay a believer    and therefore the mercy calls me to deliver to  each angel a history     and therefore history  has no angels     F r e e d o m    will come to itself  again   grimacing   how petty    the saviors  had been