August 2024

minutiae dilates
i consumed by place
unelegiac 

open up the room like prybar to drywall like
Nicetown taking hammer to pith hats

red bursts on wet concrete,
frankford pinkglow trees heavyripe
with plastic bags & trainwind, i misremember
seasons
cherry blossom and ghetto palm
cdrom in oilslick outside 22nd & broad
it don't take that long, it don't smell that wrong
brainburn in the wet heat
sliding off the lysol gum

tossing bags at the dump
whispering Hubba Ishka Fav,
this rowhome is a fairy tree
Tuath Dé and Abasom

sawing Fenian from bones
eager Kapos for the lotto bleach
Gorta Mór to Maafa,
Philly to Warsaw
and Derry to Gaza

Black & Tans & Buffalo Soldiers
Cobra Verde strikebreakers & slavecatchers
24th district to city hall

the city's real skyline a thousand needles
steeple & smokestack
antenna & the sun's smogdive
doubt scabs didactics
bait hands at the hatcheries
a worm, mucus and dirt, falls from itself
and digs — 
redbrick and radio buzz
angels in cherry tree shadow on yellow wall
all unassuming, of course.
tapespin and crackle and the world smiles
Serengetti and Amazon, i will love 
the snakes and spiders and wolves
Franciscan glow, the priest blessed my serpent
and i was glad for them
Jonah devoured, leviathan cellgut rendered 
in bright pages, soft curls, if there is a hell
you can only send yourself there, Otto said.
possums playing in the front yard
neighbor's arms, Yiddish lullaby,
waiting for teal scrubs, for safety, for mom:
i tell her stories, that dad put a bowl of cereal
on his head in the shower and danced around
making funny faces

i could have been anyone else
i can follow this back, i follow this back
and still rifles in the backwoods
still bent in prayer over prey
still terrorsweat on the couch
still i break my little brother’s head with a rock
at Pennypack Creek on Fox Chase Road
(my toddlergrin, his bloodcrunch, our screams)
still streetwalkers and still crack psychotics
still shoutspasm sobs on the couch
still war tracked into the house
still cops on the lawn, at the door, in the house

Who now can sing of themself?
i want recoil without regret.
i measure every Grief i meet 
the Horror, the horror

i want to hear liberty ring 
like a snubnose tucked under McNesby's third chin

Renoir with a DSLR
in the ghetto, Fanon plotting on Temple

a mummer's parade of Thermidoreans:
bleached overalls and undercuts,
soft hands finger pity
and something like a twitch, like a tell
mosquito smile
whose streets, our streets 
flip the shrines, bulldoze the fairy trees
spin and giggle like look at me, look at me

look at me shore road tavern, like frankford avenue
look at me i twist and stumble. stutter wissinoming 
blush somerton smile rhawnhurst
bow rittenhouse bow wyoming
but boulevard, street to rising sun.
but who now can sing of themself.

susquehanna avenues & arrowheads
watershed and turnpike, BVM, altar
isaac. south angled, on tile on laundry
oxygendrag
steepstair 
honeybite 
woodstove
we passed the house driving fast
the sun was shining on the grass
i loved and was loved

i left honest but harmattan.
always backing up palms cupped

every bridge crosses the Neva
tacony, whitman
trenton makes to betsy ross

Friends hospital looms 
like tangled tripwire like shoelace
like lasso like moon
over the tombstones craters
all carved I lived I lived
I lived!

here is the rain.

the day stretched snaps chirico hums twombly
bleeds basquiat the paint is running
the sugar house sags, crumbles 1-800
beyond reasonable doubt, god is real
flickers out

might not be real rules but they really bite
like where the fuck is wallace
like koba why i gotta die

everybody been had the plot anymore
you just never met her
different school, different city

helicopter, and sirens
rising tides lift all boats.
& on shore getting ready to swim
we're the sirens, earplugs thrown
like jamaica change from cruises
better dive and get it dive and get it
you don't want to hear yourself scream
yourself sing, helicopters
and sirens, and

half moon over philly
half moon over philly 
half moon over philly

far be it from me flipping rocks for crayfish
under Olmsted ruins over
sandwashed shopping carts and nettle glades

every screen a hungover sun
is it any coincidence, pull the blinds
measure skullshape with birthday and
sale, with likeness like these who needs
mystery in constellation and laugh, mad,
there's a department for that. you don't speak past your circle but you do draw mine.
song is presumption and you only know

i carry water and soap telling jokes that go
south texas soil. i miss the way poison oak rash boils under a texas sun and the sweat that catches it. call and nod

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

inheritance meek—  
there is nothing to nostalgia it only eats and relieves
every word spoke in whimpers, those delusions of 
grandeur like to be among to be expected.
there is love, daffodil fog dawn & sailors delight

how do you tell the truth
without speech or silence?
i remember the rain on the banana leaves
and the moon on Bosumtwe 
and i dance Abrodwum,
i dance akpeteshie

i like how things change
i dont like how things change
i like how things change

i could have been anyone else
but still rifles in the backwoods
still G asks about gorillas in pennypack
still i laugh and am loved
still terrorsweat on the couch
still war tracked into the house
still hotwheels like gifts of magi
still i misremember seasons,
blue pink red orange
still a color for each number
still i give names to love & rage
and still i feel larger in the shadows
of dates, of buildings, of mountain ranges
still i grow fond of the dust
still i hear the talkers talk of start and finish
still i sing of myself

Corey L. Scott rides his last with every ride
through the morels & poplar outside Decatur 

what was is and more

i can carry the friends all living and gone!
living but gone, laugh and sneer
familiar contempt, crime and sob
they rot, they do rot, ferment and feed and rise
i loved and was loved! i live, i live, i live!