unknown

In my featherless, sagging, saffron wings,
I dance

My phoenician, waterlogged, orchestrated and forty foot wings
Wave in the air
I am drunk laying against the striped table
Pushing these banners into the airless beach
Waving these flags as i murmur the recipes of prayers to the vendors
And the pharisees in bikinis pumping iron against the sun

The recipes of semitic vendors, egyptian vendors
Shaking their backs against the sun
Laughing with the sounds of sheets of metal
Splashing the naked pharisees
With wild bikinis and the soft fragrance
Of dreams
And morning

I walk on the beach looking for a place to sleep
My arms are hidden beneath my sailing skin
I am broke and fucked up and i fall in the sand
And sleeping in the warm cradle of a billion rocks

I dreamed of cher
She came to us in babylon
And she was rattling fluently
Her true language
And she was dressed in high syrian rags
Her face had white powder on it and there were
Little brown moons beneath her eyes
And i saw into her
An arabic women parading around naked
Powerful, irreverent but still after all
Doing it the old egyptian way
With sparkling clothes and force

Now i awake in the afternoon
The arcade is filled with children
Families are walking by staring at me
Pre-pubescent faces are coming a little too close
I don't even remember if i have on any underwear

I get up and walk away
I never even knew this stuff was here
The twirling music, the games, the money
This commune living sucks
These black panthers suck
These harmonica players
Should all go back to the north
Canada, new jersey, where ever they do that
Blowing

Ii.

I abandon the old way when i first got to san diego. i fucked anybody i wanted to. i was, however, gang raped by a blues band in an old school bus. that was pretty
Horrible. there were only three of them. i can't remember if i got the third on e off me. i think i did. i was so ashamed.

Perhaps people think if you don't scream you're not being raped. perhaps they think if you say to yourself, just let him do it and he won't hurt you. or even more
Provocative, just let him do it and maybe he'll like you. and of course you've been saying no, no, don't . or pushing but not pushing too much. because you're just a little
Girl really, and you're afraid, and you're so tired, and you just want someplace to sleep.

That's what it's like when you run away from home.
Lots of people will rape you. and you'll let them. just to have a place to sleep.
The thing was, after they fucked me, and all this juice all over my thighs, they didn't even let me sleep there.
You think this only happens to me? you're crazy. you think this only happens to girls who are rough? you're wrong. you think this only happens in stories?
Look behind you.

Still i liked the idea of being assertive. i liked the idea of free love in san diego. i liked the idea of saying i want you instead of waiting around so some guy can get his rocks
Off thinking you didn't really want him that he won something from you that you didn't want to give him. this strategy, this tradition, is a kind of rape.

This idea that men are suppose to win you, that you are suppose to be aloof, is a small but significant dramatization of rape. i do not like it. not one bit. that sam i am that
Sam i am. i do not like that sam i am.

Now i could no more say get down here and eat this sweet me than i could
Swallow a bull fighter
Or write names on the walls in blood
Or wear the victims horns on my head
Or row a boat across the atlantic ocean again

And though sometimes i am sitting at the desk, or
At a table eating dinner
And there is some one, some slave, or some anything
Underneath
Eating mine alone
And no one knows
Or eating every ones
And everyone is coming
I could never bring anything to reality now
Reality is cracked by the blows of terrible
Men and nights with pointed teeth
Snapping poison at the air
I breath
And all good things now
Take place inside my many layered
Silence
My eyes
My lips
Are sealed

Where did you go
When things went bad, anyway?
I sat beside you in that bathroom all night.
You were crying
You were talking to me like a baby
You were gone, man, gone
You just kept getting in the bath
And getting out and letting the water run out
And then getting in again
And all that food i made
It was all over the walls in the kitchen
And there was a heat wave
And the waves were very, very high
And the dogs were turning into carrots
And the valentines were melting beneath
Burrito and neon
Where shattered places pave the road
The winding road through echo park
That echoes still
Your naked body
The bed you brought
Those stupid lamps
Your body echoes
The last shadows
Of me against you
You loved me.
You loved me madly

Where did you go?i knew you like that scene of girls chasing you down the street. that's why you always liked to have a very hip car, because it was important that they
Chase you in the right car, and i was not about to chase you.

I knew that story of that italian girl in philadelphia chasing you down the night street you were in a taxi cab, that's a nice image. then the japanese girl. but then my feet
Were starting toward you and you were turning the corner onto sunset and you left me there in a second day cold turkey. and all i can think of i philadelphia cheese steak
Sandwich philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich.

Philadelphia cheese steak and every time i think cheese steak i see all this wet cheese and steak.
Here comes the parade! look! here it comes!
I let you go.
I let you go. you like to rip girls. i had to let you go.

Now the birds speak in secret rhythms
And the trees bark in secret sounds
And the people speak in secret thought
And they push the thoughts into the shape of words
And sometimes someone among us
Sticks her head into the
Shiny phosphorus blue vat
Of language
And listens, like a skeleton
To the pulsing of life within,
And she tells us
Of secret rattling angles
To watch for and to reach into
With strange oceans
And deafening skies
That can be mapped and measured
Only by sounds
And never by meanings
And once we can tell where we are
Using the nearest star
As it relates to the ragged water
Then we can plant our feet into the good ground
And go to the rodeo
And answer the plum-colored hawk
And sing to the river
In good faith
God presses his mouth
Around our head
He breathes out
He breathes in
And we are resuscitated in the goofy
Atmosphere of god
Where there are highways and bowling
And tattooed by the sun
A circus
Made by the prayer of breathing
And living hope
And barbed eyes
Where coyotes hang
And cowboys hammer
Posts and branches
To keep us inside
As much as keep someone out

And the prayer that is
And it is answered with a breath
Gods lips against our own
We breathe in
We breathe out
He breathes out
And sigh
Alive again

The unexpected
Discovery
Of a b-side
Of life

A map of voices
A warning to others who would come this way
An animal who has seen things
A horn twisted into shapes
Understood by strangers
Recognized by demons
An invitation in
The secret language of trees
Sung in wild shapes
By a child

Now the birds speak in secret rhythms
And the trees bark in secret sounds
And the people rush in secret thought
And they push the thoughts into the shape of words
And sometimes someone among us
Sticks her head into the
Shiny phosphorus blue vat
Of language
And listens, like a skeleton
To the pulsing of life within,
And she tells us
Of secret rattling angles
To watch for and to reach into
With strange oceans
And deafening skies
That can be mapped and measured
Only by sounds
And never by meanings
And once we can tell where we are
Using the nearest star
As it relates to the ragged water (a map of voices)
Then we can plant our feet into the good ground
And go to the rodeo
And answer the plum colored hawk
And sing to the river
In good faith
God presses his mouth around our head
He breaths out
He breathes in
And we are resuscitated in the goofy atmosphere of god
Where there are highways and bowling
And tattooed by the sun
A circus
Made by the prayer of breathing and living hope
And barbed eyes
Where coyotes hang

Page 2

And cowboys hammer
Posts and branches
To keep us inside
As much as keep someone out

And the prayer that is
And it is answered with a breathe
Gods lips against our own
We breath in
We breath out
He breaths out
And sigh
Alive again

The unexpected
Discovery
Of a b-side
Of life

(a map of voices)

A warning to others who would come this way
An animal who has seen things
A horn twisted into shapes
Understood by strangers
Recognized by demons
An invitation in the secret language of trees
Sung in wild shapes
By a child

I know that lizards like jelly, because i have fed wild geckos on the roof of my hut in the seychelles islands. she was called the morning lizard, and i would drop clear ponds
From the tips of my fingers for her to drink, and drop gobs of silly flavored jelly on the counter for her to lick.

I know that it is possible to become intimate with a stranger, from a distance, across time and continents, because i have knelt before a young master in a very private tea
Ceremony. i watched him move, whisk, wipe, fold, touch, offer, drink, enter, exit,

Well this one wasn't so good.
I have debuted at carnegie hall.
I have been homeless, panhandled on the streets.
I have witnessed death, and birth, and graduation.
I have been told to leave, and invited to stay.
I went to a big new years eve party in new york city, with many famous people, the mayor, baryshnikov, jessica lange,
I was at the opening of the film which one best film that year.
I was kicked out of high school
I was given the key to the city of baltimore.
What a kick. i'd like more of those. i was arrested
I am the highest point of my family tree. i call them to fruition, i sing them themes about the beautiful sky, but they cannot see it. there is a canopy above them, being
Woven out of determination to grow. out of the legacy of pain. i call them but they do not come, they cannot come, no sun hits them.
I have swum with turtles in the open sea.
I found ancient, rusty nails on the shore.
And written about the boat, the sailors, and their homes , from one piece of survival.
I grew up in a hospital, watching my brother die.
I grew up in a hotel room , watching my mother bring home left over food.for our dinner.
I have cried my self to sleep by the cold sea, with no coat or blanket or dime for the phone,
And awakened in the warm sun, in his arms, hearing his grunts and the rustling of his leaves, his great purring
And measured love by these things,
And so love became a fearful calm,
And i have always run
Back to the storm
The lion completed, weakened by love,
Send me back to the hunt
My lord
I have turned my back to the sunrise from hotel rooms
And called out the name of the setting sun from the desert floor
I've been where it was happening
I have made it happen
I have walked down tiny lanes alone, for miles
I have planned revolutions
I have carved myself into moderation
I abandon my own shadow
I have been attacked by droves of red ants.
By crazy horses
By crazy people
I have been carried all the way, by someone, now and then
But he is always too tired to stay then
And i hate him for loving my weakness
I have been in a helicopter, flying over the alaskan glaciers, and i have been in the concord, faster than sound.
As much as i have learned camouflage, i have left my broken body on the plains at dusk
I been in a jet when the oxygen masks dropped
I came out to the car and my daughter was gone from her car seat.
She had followed me in.
All of it is written over and over again.
I have skiied, water skiied, raced in the water, i have played baseball and cards.
I learned chess at 8, when i learned my funny valentine.
I met bob dylan. he called me a poet.
I rode with maximilian shell, and leonard cohen in the same elevator.on different occasio