Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleev… to peer into my eyes while I within deny their threats and answer them with lies. Mushlike memories perform

There is no warning rattle at the… nor heavy feet to stomp the foyer… Safe in the dark prison, I know t… light slides over the fingered work of a toothless

We were entwined in red rings Of blood and loneliness before The first snows fell Before muddy rivers seeded clouds Above a virgin forest, and

The sun has come. The mist has gone. We see in the distance... our long way home. I was always yours to have.

We, this people, on a small and lo… Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way o… To a destination where all signs t… It is possible and imperative that…

Some clichty folks don’t know the facts, posin’ and preenin’ and puttin’ on acts, stretchin’ their backs.

I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing

Funky blues Keen toed shoes High water pants Saddy night dance Red soda water

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you?

I keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs,

FOR DAVID P—B The eye follows, the land Slips upward, creases down, forms The gentle buttocks of a young Giant. In the nestle,

My man is Black Golden Amber Cha… Warm mouths of Brandy Fine Cautious sunlight on a patterned r… Coughing laughter, rocked on a whi… Graceful turns on woolen stilts S…

You drink a bitter draught. I sip the tears your eyes fight to… A cup of lees, of henbane steeped… Your breast is hot, Your anger black and cold,