coo

Life is a lark
in Willow Grove park
old woman on the bus
black woman is the spark
she found joy in the babe
her eyes and her smile
small grasping hands
the coo of a child
pale skin and blushed cheek
old and young and
I in between
when we cross to the end
we'll wind up at the start
because life is a lark
in Willow Grove park

eclypse

I am window
with bars and lace
and pink secret
black petroleum
bucket of bay mussels
rotting in August sun

I am foreign
banana plant
from seed
Auntie slips me
an envelope
inside is a
hundred dollar bill
for helping her
file weekly

I accept with
both hands
thinking
it's too much
Today the
sun'll be eclipsed
but I cannot see
so I sit in the
small yard
smoking just to keep
everything off of me

Nothing of sixteen
was sweet
crack thru black
metal guardian
crack top heineken
with my thumb
indentation,
always a man yells
somewhere over
the wall

the walls are
plentiful
like amendments
between people
and their words,
strawberry stamp
a thank you
note for little
coordination
younger you and I

push a cart
onto a corner
to drink tea
and
  build up
strangers by the
sidewalk --
a pavilion erected
on vine holds
no chess games
just mates

I know
what has
happened to
my vision --
when I speak
to you I am
left dazzled
can only hear
a single white
beater reflecting
sun on a line

vast elephant
weed becomes
a tree through
neglect --
and so father
must climb and
cut and chop
while white
neighbors through
branches peek

now it's over
the roof
so now it's
too late
to unroot!
while I
sweat the
grasshopper eats
sunflower
leaves.

dreamt song 14.17.17.8

The world is sick. We must not say so.
After all, a muzzle flashes, the world web burns,
we the people flash and burn,
and moreover my father told me as a boy,
in Cantonese, in good weather
do we find wood for the rain.

Now violet evening I feel it pouring
out of our eyes and mouth.
The twin Comcast tower is a drag,
and somewhere underground, a man
has an entire rotisserie chicken
to himself.

At 18th and Fed I run a five buck tab,
this tiny sardine my escapism,
chopped lettuce mayo anna pickle
I step outside to feel no trickle
but the tailwind of the double 17
think, "call 215 GET-A-CAB".