So Much to Prove

There’s no need to confess all—

no matter that a single confession

has been known

 to clear the sinus

Still,

I have always felt

that I have much

to prove

and here,

seeking the value of confession,

I confess

that I have proved

so very little

to my father

and to the heart

breaking in my chest

not my own,

but his,

Dad’s heart,

and he and I

are flooded with the blood

of the sons

of the sons

of the sons

of the sons

Yet

it is here

after the flood

I will rebuild

So the poets say, so the poets tell us

Dedicated to Marrianne and to Margrete who are in Cleveland, getting out the vote for Barack.

I have my own poems,
I have my heart, my moon, my breath and my secrets,
I have my love to babies,
And my faith that more will rise as my children rose,

But it is the poems of others,
The words that tear and soothe,
The words that rip and drip and feed and drink
That lift me up and grow me strong and race my heart

Further than I would have dared or dreamed to go.
It was Walt Whitman who waked me.
“Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you,” he wrote,
“That you be my poem.” And I believed I could be.

Poet Essex Hemphill, smart and black and gay,
He touched me, too, and called
Sure black men to build walls of protection around
The beleagured in Anacostia and Harlem and the wavering poor.

Martin King reminded us that the great men of war
Spoke about peace as though they could deliver such a thing
By bombing us and killing us. Those who feel that war brings
Solutions to our problems “are sleeping through the revolution,”

Martin said. For every Viet Cong soldier we kill, we spend $500,000 to do so,
He said. And asked us how much we spend to educate a child or lift a sister
Out of poverty. And Audre Lorde, who reminded us constantly of the dead
We left behind and the dead we had yet to encounter, told us also about

The woman she loved who drew for her a bath of old roses.
And as Audre counted women caught in traps, one by one until
She reached the fifteenth one, the one with the courage to change
The question, Marge Piercy counted still others, living and dying

On street corners and discovered she was one of those with
The heart to endure and to love, “… the love we cupped so clumsily,”
the love raging and driving, “… an engine of light,” she wrote.
Just so did Langston Hughes remind us of the mourners, who

“Got up smiling, happy they were here.” And Dylan Thomas
Urged us to resist, “to not go gentle into that good night.”
How much did he charge us with, to waste nothing,
Least of all, ourselves? And having decided to live on,

How should we live? Anne Sexton tells us there is always more,
A for instance: the boy who finds a nickel and looks for a wallet,
Finds a string and looks for a harp, finds a golden key and
Unlocks a book of mysteries and fables and princesses and ogres.

This is something and there is more: the sunny days and open wounds
Of childhood, from where we came, troubled but standing,
And with Paticia Smith, “determined not to write a poem
Glorifying loss”

The uncontrasted gray of some days and other
Days of blood and tears and bursts of laughter.
Or as Ginsberg had it, “Candor ends paranoia…
Notice what you notice…catch yourself thinking.”

Of course, he adds, “others can measure their vision by what we see,”
Another way of saying that in our shared experiences and love lies
Liberation. Giovanni said that, too. “She’s our own star
shining from afar her life a beacon of who we are”

I am not a leader, but I know that there’s always another battle
And I hope to be there, following Martin, looking for ways that
Peaceful means can bring peaceful ends. In the meantime, as Giles said,
“There’s another Hellmouth under Cleveland,” and maybe we should go there.

All the Best Parties

  

I think we should

all

celebrate

ourselves

for every moment

we had

when we were

extraordinary

and also for every memory

of that moment

we retain.

Celebrate

ourselves

because all the best parties

get better

when we arrive.

Song of Myself Ironic

There are

all sorts of things

I could say

about myself

all sorts of things

I want to say

and things

I think I ought to say

But sometimes

I say stay silent or

sing a song

of a different sort

The Way of Compost

I am the twenty-first century man

stopping to gaze at the copter

drifting and heeling overhead

Now the human-powered mower

across the wheat field

the front lawn becomes

by the time it occurs

to me

the grass needs cutting

And on the back forty

handfuls of dog shit

gloved and carted to compost

on the pile

before I can even begin

threshing

Contemplating the odious nature

of farmer guy’s day

I consider the compost

Time to spread some

on this here raised bed

or that one there

And that takes another hour

and that makes two of them

I’ve worked since breakfast

I’m about all done in

ready for a nap

when a plane passes overhead

Dog tracks plane

I track dog

and consider, flying machines

or no, how close

dog and I are

to compost.

(Which, by the way,

is the truly secret language of plants,

the place where they reveal all,

swap DNA and

delight in the dawn)

Erectile Dysfunction, The Poem

Who am I kidding?

I’ve had it all my life

It’s a prostate problem now

But it was once

When to take it out

When to put it back

Where to aim it and

Who to share it with

Even, how to wash it

And earlier still

What the hell is that

But it is all

As they say

Good

An incomplete poem...

perhaps to be titled...

If We Try

This is about you
who can do this
stand here
singing out

the pain
from you
to me
and batting it about

until
coming back
in new form
related

but not
what it was
at the start

This is about you
doing this
singing out
the vision

of where you ought to be
good days or bad
living a frontline
sort of life

This is about you
hungering for justice
and true loving
and the occasional ecstatic moment

This is about you
who can do this,
this thing coming next
though you have never

been one to trust
We have batted that about
too
and we know

now
this is about you
who has learned
to trust your deep desire