god's
gone

graven
buddha"s

broken
sleep
chipped

chopped
god

heads
here

intact
in hell

we wear

scarf
across scar

sight
becomes
sight

becomes

effigy
fierce

mute
break

silence
clear

dedicated body

endures
remembrance

shadow
a life

very little
time

time
unknown

time
dry

bell
not

refuge

feathered

his legs
eplumée

leaning light
in the horizon

tell time
melody

heart
ash

remembrance

generations
ground

soil

dust

breath
bile

time
approach

back

ground
blood coming
lips

wounded
watch animals

body
curved

forget flesh

culture behind

pulse
pulse

cave
collapses

area
or dominion

run

seek the sun

rain

fallen tree

in the garden

nebuchadnezzar know
night knows

asked here in an interview about my relation with poetry of the english language. i replied very quickly, none

not now, or of my time or even of the last century. dylan thomas & hart crane, ed dorn but very little else & these three are very singular poets other than that william blake but he is beyond language, any language, dead or living. milton i love for his fanaticism

the real influences were always elsewhere, from the first, mayakovsky, hikmet, vallejo, ungareyy, quasimodo, elytis, ritsos, darwhich, dalton, pizarnik , rozewicz - from the arab & latin american worlds, so many, from the ancients to the present
tony harrison, i respect enormously but feel little affinity but posses so much respect for his implacability, like his countryman edward bond. their sublime work tells the lie that political work cannot be important work. both of them surpass almost all others in their language.

i cannot understand, really cannot understand why irish poets for example never wrote one thing, not one line that alluded to the dirty blanket or hunger strikers or the hundreds of the gross miscarriages of justice - not one word. a crude mind might say, there publishers were english publishers but i know it goes deeper than that - though none of them had any difficulty in identifying with eastern european comrades - they learnt from nabakov, naipaul, & milosz - that western elites love silence in their poets & so they followed that, to the letter

in any case, for a young poet, mayakovsky, hikmet & vallejo were what walter benjamin demanded writers to be - teachers. these poets taught how a poetry could possibly speak, how it could talk to people & talk to souls, living & dead. pasolini & adonis also taught that, but perhaps in a more deflective way.

i reminded the interviewer that the poetry of the oppressed had been my real teacher & why, even sick i remain committed to working in those communities. it is those who are close to the margins who really teach the function of language, in all its forms & in all its spheres, from the brutal to the abstract - how polyphony & discontinuity connected runs like like the tigris & euphrates, through it. it is this community who took me back to childhood, not in any psychoanalytic way but in a fundamental way to the imagery of my troubled, troubled childhood,

prelanguage, what images remained & so it was little surprise to see these images reappear when i did a close reading of the preislamic poets before beginning to write the 'improvisation for the memorial to the abolition to slavery'.

these images, always there, give life when i am so close to death or reminded of its caress, of its contours each & every day

clearly, the interviewer, who was asking imagined i would praise the great depth of the english language. i did not. i could not. that is not my truth. my work from 14 years of age to this moment has been to tear that language apart with all the art i possess, with all the force i am am able,to encircle my art - so that even if it comes from a dead language, it attempts to answer the wrongs of my culture & under the influence of my latin american brothers & sisters, suggest that another world is possible

mouth mufled
in glass
grinding

again
& again

when
whispering

red rivulets
run

from lips
& tongue
touching man
hood until
it spills
as a fountain
at my feet

light
below
light

skin
endless sheet
see through

what we were
in those places
of refuge

blood
running
rivulets
from lips
beautiful lips

smearing
belovede's visage

magnificent

mask

viper's
vengeance
still speaks
to characters
in clay

who crod
here

who

who

who crowd
here

serpents cannot sleep

sacred seconds
defiled in detail
man ô man

what were we

night
upon night

lamentation's
labor

fealty
to
fear
beloved

&
grey
horse
galloping
in veins

come
crunch shars
in mouth
& murmur

murmur
life's

blood
burning

bath & bed

viper's
virtue

ordained
in fervor

to be

to be

ferocious
constantly

carry
out

trial of trials

beloved
stay
as other

flesh flees

ambushed
by angels

disguised
as raptors

reviving
space

within what

breath left
in gain
in grain

in your gestures
beloved

as you
embraced beast

compulsive
caresses'

carefully
calculate

monster's
measure

here
there

this
that

bloody pool
i enter

delicately

death
has human voice

that
so

clear
milarepa

sang
so

he
sang
so

100
000

songs
still

staining sight

of rav seira

languishing
גולם

dust diminishes

penalty
promised

feed
fanaticism
beloved

taste
our tongue tell
all

obscure

gift
grieve grief

upon granite

clay
comes one

steps
to
tomb

weaves desire
for wraiths
& wretches

tell tree
what you yearn
to comprehend

clots covering
bridal cloth

grind glass
beloved

our lips
commence
to couple

create
fluid's
flood

throughout
copse creatures
crawl

towards
thirst

that
thirst

first
thirst

contemplate
calmness of cadavers

though
they
twitch

song serpent sings

serpents sings
harrowingly of horizon

innocence
illusory
scorpion said

grief

extinction
emancipates

continuous
cloud

mist
empire

ended
in fecal fog

embarked

encountered

expelled

flowing

impassable
passage

fields fertile
with Fallen
falling

in falling
turning

turning back
to tribulations

algorithms
of atrocity

from family tree

extermination
eloquent

claustrophobic
in crater

serpent suspects
ecstasy in elimination

history
hole

depth
defined

night
into night

hole
hell

see solution
vital
fluid

blood
bile
black
urine
sweat
phlegm
fluid

flees ferment

in abattoir
shape becomes shadow

shadow
within shadow

valley
to valley

so little distance
as you fall
against ropes

consider
climbing corpses

tremble

tremble

come
close to chasm

horseman
hurling
from heart

other
organs

cover
face in faeces

follow
Fallen
in forgetting

tracing
each other's
tumors

topography
of terror

tremor

trembling becomes
tremor

go
to ghost
in garden

gather
garments

void
vital fluids

predator

scavenger

prey

species of silhouettes
savage

serpent sang
in sacred song

bring
bag
of
bones

viper
volunteers
vision

history
heinous
hideous hallucination

echo living
souls