toward africa toward the house
he might have lived in might have
owned or saved had he not turned
away
move
the helicopter rose at the command
higher at first then hesitating
then turning toward the center
of its own town only a neighborhood
away
move
she cried as the child stood
hesitant in the last clear sky
he would ever see the last
before the whirling blades the whirling smoke
and sharp debris carried all clarity
away
move
if you live in a mind
that would destroy itself
to comfort itself
if you would stand fire
rather than difference
do not hesitate
move
away
samson predicts from gaza the philadelphia fire
for ramona africa, survivor
it will be your hair
ramona africa
they will come for you
they will bring fire
they will empty your eyes
of everything you love
your hair will writhe
and hiss on your shoulder
they will order you
to give it up if you do
you will bring the temple down
if you do not they will
january 1991
they have sent our boy
to muffle himself
in the sand. our son
who has worshipped skin,
pale and visible as heaven,
all his life,
who has practiced the actual
name of God,
who knows himself to be
the very photograph of Adam.
yes, our best boy is there
with his bright-eyed sister,
both of them waiting in dunes
distant as Mars
to shutter the dark veiled lids
of not our kind.
they, who are not us, they have
no life we recognize,
no heaven we can care about,
no word for God we can pronounce.
we do not know them,
do not want to know them,
do not want this lying at night
all over the bare stone county
dreaming of desert for the first time
and of death and our boy and his sister
and them and us.
dear jesse helms,
something is happening.
something obscene.
in the night sky
the stars are bursting
into flame. thousands
and thousands of lights
are pouring down onto
the children of allah,
and jesse,
the smart bombs do not recognize
the babies. something
is happening obscene.
they are shrouding words so that
families cannot find them.
civilian deaths have become
collateral damage, bullets
are anti-personnel. jesse,
the fear is anti-personnel.
jesse, the hate is anti-personnel.
jesse, the war is anti-personnel,
and something awful is happening.
something obscene.
if i should
to clark kent
enter the darkest room
in my house and speak
with my own voice, at last,
about its awful furniture,
pulling apart the covering
over the dusty bodies; the randy
father, the husband holding ice
in his hand like a blessing,
the mother bleeding into herself
and the small imploding girl,
i say if i should walk into
that web, who will come flying
after me, leaping tall buildings?
you?
further note to clark
do you know how hard this is for me?
do you know what you’re asking?
what i can promise to be is water,
water plain and direct as Niagara.
unsparing of myself, unsparing of
the cliff i batter, but also unsparing
of you, tourist. the question for me is
how long can i cling to this edge?
the question for you is
what have you ever traveled toward
more than your own safety?
begin here
in the dark
where the girl is
sleeping
begin with a shadow
rising on the wall
no
begin with a spear
of salt like a tongue
no
begin with a swollen
horn or finger
no
no begin here
something in the girl
is wakening some
thing in the girl
is falling
deeper and deeper
asleep
night vision
the girl fits her body in
to the space between the bed
and the wall. she is a stalk,
exhausted. she will do some
thing with this. she will
surround these bones with flesh.
she will cultivate night vision.
she will train her tongue
to lie still in her mouth and listen.
the girl slips into sleep.
her dream is red and raging.
she will remember
to build something human with it.
fury
for mama
remember this.
she is standing by
the furnace.
the coals
glisten like rubies.
her hand is crying.
her hand is clutching
a sheaf of papers.
poems.
she gives them up.
they burn
jewels into jewels.
her eyes are animals.
each hank of her hair
is a serpent’s obedient
wife.
she will never recover.
remember. there is nothing
you will not bear
for this woman’s sake.
cigarettes
my father burned us all. ash
fell from his hand onto our beds,
onto our tables and chairs.
ours was the roof the sirens
rushed to at night
mistaking the glow of his pain
for flame. nothing is burning here,
my father would laugh, ignoring
my charred pillow, ignoring his own
smoldering halls.
final note to clark
they had it wrong,
the old comics.
you are only clark kent
after all. oh,
mild mannered mister,
why did i think you could fix it?
how you must have wondered
to see me taking chances,
dancing on the edge of words,
pointing out the bad guys,
dreaming your x-ray vision
could see the beauty in me.
what did i expect? what
did i hope for? we are who we are,
two faithful readers,
not wonder woman and not superman.
note, passed to superman
sweet jesus, superman,
if i had seen you
dressed in your blue suit
i would have known you.
maybe that choirboy clark
can stand around
listening to stories
&nbs
p; but not you, not with
metropolis to save
and every crook in town
filthy with kryptonite.
lord, man of steel,
i understand the cape,
the leggings, the whole
ball of wax.
you can trust me,
there is no planet stranger
than the one i’m from.
love the human
—Gary Snyder
the rough weight of it
scarring its own back
the dirt under the fingernails
the bloody cock love
the thin line secting the belly
the small gatherings
gathered in sorrow or joy
love the silences
love the terrible noise
love the stink of it
love it all love
even the improbable foot even
the surprised and ungrateful eye
splendor
seeker of visions
what does this mean
to see walking men
wrapped in the color of death,
to hear from their tongue
such difficult syllables?
are they the spirits
of our hope
or the pale ghosts of our future?
who will believe the red road
will not run on forever?
who will believe
a tribe of ice might live
and we might not?
columbus day ’91
Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld.
—Albert Camus
nothing about the moment
just after the ball fits itself
into the bottom of the hill
and the world is suspended
and i become king of this country
all imps and imposters watching
me,
waiting me, and i decide, i decide
whether or not i will allow
this myth to live. i slide
myself down. demons restoke the
fire.
i push my shoulder into the round
world and taste in my mouth
how sweet power is, the story
gods never tell.
atlas
i am used to the heft of it
sitting against my rib,
used to the ridges of forest,
used to the way my thumb
slips into the sea as i pull
it tight. something is sweet
in the thick odor of flesh
burning and sweating and bearing young.
i have learned to carry it
the way a poor man learns
to carry everything.
sarah’s promise
who understands better than i
the hunger in old bones
for a son? so here we are,
abraham with his faith
and i my fury. jehovah,
i march into the thicket
of your need and promise you
the children of young women,
yours for a thousand years.
their faith will send them to you,
docile as abraham. now,
speak to my husband.
spare me my one good boy.
naomi watches as ruth sleeps
she clings to me
like a shadow
when all that i wish
is to sit alone
longing for my husband,
my sons.
she has promised
to follow me,
to become me
if i allow it.
i am leading her
to boaz country.
he will find her beautiful
and place her among
his concubines.
jehovah willing
i can grieve in peace.
cain
so this is what it means
to be an old man;
every member of my body
limp and unsatisfied,
father to sons who never knew
my father, husband to the
sister of the east,
and all night, in the rocky
land of nod,
listening to the thunderous
roll of voices,
unable to tell them where
my brother is.
leda 1
there is nothing luminous
about this.
they took my children.
i live alone in the backside
of the village.
my mother moved
to another town. my father
follows me around the well,
his thick lips slavering,
and at night my dreams are full
of the cursing of me
fucking god fucking me.
leda 2
a note on visitations
sometimes another star chooses.
the ones coming in from the east
are dagger-fingered men,
princes of no known kingdom.
the animals are raised up in their stalls
battering the stable door.
sometimes it all goes badly;
the inn is strewn with feathers,
the old husband suspicious,
and the fur between her thighs
is the only shining thing.
leda 3
a personal note (re: visitations)
always pyrotechnics;
stars spinning into phalluses
of light, serpents promising
sweetness, their forked tongues
thick and erect, patriarchs of bird
exposing themselves in the air.
this skin is sick with loneliness.
You want what a man wants,
next time come as a man
or don’t come.
far memory
a poem in seven parts
1
convent
my knees recall the pockets
worn into the stone floor,
my hands, tracing against the wall
their original name, remember
the cold brush of brick, and the smell
of the brick powdery and wet
and the light finding its way in
through the high bars.
and also the sisters singing
at matins, their sweet music
the voice of the universe at peace
and the candles their light the light
at the beginning of creation
and the wonderful simplicity of prayer
smooth along the wooden beads
and certainly attended.
2
someone inside me remembers
that my knees must be hidden away
that my hair must be shorn
so that vanity will not test me
that my fingers are places of prayer
and are holy that my body is promised
to something more certain
than myself
3
again
born in the year of war
on the day of perpetual help.
come from the house
of stillness
through the soft gate
of a silent mother.
come to a betraying father.
come to a husband who would one day
rise and enter a holy house.
come to wrestle with you again,
passion, old disobedient friend,
through the secular days and nights
of another life.
4
trying to understand this life
who did i fail, who
did i cease to protect
that i should wake each morning
facing the cold north?
perhaps there is a cart
somewhere in history
of children crying “sister
&nbs
p; save us” as she walks away.
the woman walks into my dreams
dragging her old habit.
i turn from her, shivering,
to begin another afternoon
of rescue, rescue.
5
sinnerman
horizontal one evening
on the cold stone,
my cross burning into
my breast, did i dream
through my veil
of his fingers digging
and is this the dream
again, him, collarless
over me, calling me back
to the stones of this world
and my own whispered
hosanna?
6
karma
the habit is heavy.
you feel its weight
pulling around your ankles
for a hundred years.
the broken vows
hang against your breasts,
each bead a word
that beats you.
even now
to hear the words
defend
protect
goodbye
lost or
alone
is to be washed in sorrow.
and in this life
there is no retreat
no sanctuary
no whole abiding
sister.
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 Page 15
