I return to jaundiced
art, to Ground Zero
where people
in plain view
jump from buildings
bits of us
everywhere, under
foot, in our dust
coated lungs
that no amount of
pulmonary Zen
will expel
a necessary tasting
of bitter, a vital
concoction we
consume daily
as we do the blood
shed nightly
in East New York
Flatbush, the South Bronx
more pavement stains
jiggered chalk talk
circumscribed death
within the horror
precinct recited
like an old tide
by the tabloids
fettered by a Jansenist
urge as sure
as that late
afternoon beer
synapses on hold
DNA boiling
tribes separated
again as after
Eden, rumbling
underground, buildings
shaking, subways
scattering Abraham's
seed everywhere
testing Whitman's gaze
from the Fulton Ferry
landing with his
Body Electric
Giant New World
Ego that imagines
a democratic list
of carpenter, sailor
and nation builder
making proud music
along the majestic
loops of the Brooklyn
Bridge linking commerce
and soul
in steep metaphor
passion over logos
the word incarnated
American histrionics
the boast of newness
singing of self
the radical I
inverting grammar
style and usage
Covering mountain
and plain
with untapped
readily mined
Anglo subjectivity
and Whitman elegance
dreaming vistas
out from himself
pioneers tattoed
on the American
psyche, still there
on the landing
tempting all of us
who look west
through a hole
in the sky
that pulls us back
and down
to the immigrant
run, border crossing
like Hermes
eschewing the vertical
working the margins
cooking images
in alchemical gas
slow like sulfur
on base metal
taking in salt
the wild sea
bloody fraternity
burying the dead
in archetypal tombs
finding endless skin
the anima within
sons and daughter safe
outside the circle
spleen, fantasies
intact, simmering
in what we hide
loving Whitman bombast
preserved inside
our regimented hearts
we share in peril
and delight
getting paternity right.
Posted by Chuck at November 11, 2003 05:27 PM | TrackBack