run Then pain stalks in to plunder. Tears Tears The crystal rags Viscous tatters of a worn-through soul Moans Deep swan song Blue farewell of a dying dream. The Detached We die, Welcoming Bluebeards to our darkening closets, Stranglers to our outstretched necks.   Stranglers, who neither care nor   care to know that   DEATH IS INTERNAL . We pray, Savoring sweet the teethed lies, Bellying the grounds before alien gods   Gods, who neither know nor   wish to know that   HELL IS INTERNAL . We love, Rubbing the nakednesses with gloved hands Inverting our mouths in tongued kisses,   Kisses that neither touch nor   care to touch if   LOVE IS INTERNAL . To a Husband Your voice at times a fist   Tight in your throat Jabs ceaselessly at phantoms   In the room, Your hand a carved and   skimming boat Goes down the Nile   To point out Pharoahâs tomb. Youâre Africa to me   At brightest dawn. The Congoâs green and   Copperâs brackish hue, A continent to build   With Black Manâs brawn. I sit at home and see it all   Through you. Accident tonight   when you spread your pallet of magic,   I escaped. sitting apart,   I saw you grim and unkempt. Your vulgar-ness   not of living your demands   not from need. tonight   as you sprinkled your brain-dust of rainbows,   I had no eyes. Seeing all I saw the colors fade and change.   The blood, red dulled through the dyes, and the naked Black-White truth. Letâs Majeste I sit a throne upon the times when Kings are rare and Consorts slide into the grease of scullery maids. So gaily wave a crown of light (astride the royal chair) that blinds the commoners who genuflect and cross their fingers. The years will lie beside me on the queenly bed. And coupled weâll await the agesâ dust to cake my lids again. And when the rousing kiss is given, why must it always be a fairy, and only just a Prince? After No sound falls from the moaning sky No scowl wrinkles the evening pool   The stars lean down   A stony brilliance   While birds fly The market leers its empty shelves Streets bare bosoms to scanty cars   This bed yawns   beneath the weight   of our absent selves. The Mothering Blackness She came home running   back to the mothering blackness   deep in the smothering blackness white tears icicle gold plains of her face   She came home running She came down creeping   here to the black arms waiting   now to the warm heart waiting rime of alien dreams befrost her rich brown face   She came down creeping She came home blameless   black yet as Hagarâs daughter   tall as was Shebaâs daughter threats of northern winds die on the desertâs face   She came home blameless On Diverse Deviations When love is a shimmering curtain Before a door of chance That leads to a world in question Wherein the macabrous dance Of bones that rattle in silence Of blinded eyes and rolls Of thick lips thin, denying A thousand powdered moles, Where touch to touch is feel And life a weary whore   I would be carried off, not gently   To a shore,   Where love is the scream of anguish   And no curtain drapes the door. Mourning Grace If today, I follow death go down its trackless wastes, salt my tongue on hardened tears for my precious dear times waste race along that promised cave in a headlong deadlong haste, Will you have the grace to mourn for me? How I Can Lie to You now thread my voice with lies of lightness force within my mirror eyes the cold disguise of sad and wise decisions. Sounds Like Pearls Sounds   Like pearls Roll off your tongue   To grace this eager ebon