There's no comfort wanting the night
                to be an oracle split open like a sigh

                suggesting this quaking should stop.
                I've cursed everything from the slip

                of the moon to Ganesh's broken tusk
                and wondered if the present is confused

                is Emmanuel.
                He saves me.

                My lover breaks
                bread for my heart.
                He makes wine
                soaking loaves full
                of my blood.

                After years of putting it off, someone dies,
                leaves you some money…thinking
                of the wife, the kids you’ve acquired
                after years of putting it off
                you make an appointment
                and one night a couple of agents
                show up and sit you down
                and begin to ask questions

        In 1967, at the beginning of the Nigerian Civil War, the distinguished African writer Wole Soyinka was arrested. The Nigerian Government never officially charged him with any crime, nor did they bring him to trial. Instead, he was held in the notorious Kirikiri Prison for over two years, the majority of that time, in solitary confinement in a 4 x 8 foot cell. During this time, he was frequently interrogated and tortured regarding his "treasonous" and "anti-patriotic" efforts to stop the war. With inside help from sympathetic guards who smuggled him books and writing materials, Soyinka managed to write during that time, and to record his horrific experience in detail.

                Our brothers and our sisters in Iraq
                Our children, are gone
                and will never return.

                Their bodies will come back
                With their hearts blown out
                Or they will come back

            The beginning of the beginning the end of the end an infinite and
            solitary kiss. A single petal made for words. I breathe in a book of
            love upon my mouth a benediction and a kiss the sound of water
            says what I am thinking.

                When the world has been reduced to a dark wood I will find you
                a taste of ashes floats on the air. The musk is in the deer. The fire
                in the wood. What new constellations of torment rise for me now?

                Catfish stoner underground radio,
                antenna feelers trust the bottom-
                crawlers eat the dirt eat the sludge
                catfish-run away! I want to be you,
                want to watch your mud-ugly grin
                peel back to tiny sharp teeth

                The riven body waters words,
                widens, tears, its coasts recede,
                speech splits. Unilaterally you ruled
                the carnal unlawful, but the law you named
                has no currency in my country. Forget
                your faithless words, their knives and kisses fall short,

                Now is what happens when
                the spinning blue buzz saw
                grinds the week down to powder
                pummeled by the hardening rain
                into soft paste that clogs gutters
                and drainage ditches. Rain shuts
                one thing from another by making tangible