We wear the mask that grins and li… It shades our cheeks and hides our… This debt we pay to human guile With torn and bleeding hearts… We smile and mouth the myriad subt…

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

The highway is full of big cars going nowhere fast And folks is smoking anything that… Some people wrap their lies around… And you sit wondering

Your smile, delicate rumor of peace. Deafening revolutions nestle in th… cleavage of your breasts

Pretty women wonder where my secre… I’m not cute or built to suit a fa… But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say,

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?

When I think about myself, I almost laugh myself to death, My life has been one great big jok… A dance that’s walked A song that’s spoke,

Beloved, In what other lives or lands Have I known your lips Your Hands Your Laughter brave

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

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

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since depart… Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried token… Of their sojourn here

One innocent spring your voice meant to me less than tires turning on a distant street. Your name, perhaps spoken,

Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city

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

Your hands easy weight, teasing the bees hived in my hair, your smile at th… slope of my cheek. On the occasion, you press