I dream


Whitman's ghost is in the new air around me 
not the figure in the workman shirt 
not the settled legend 
but the electric and naked poet 


drunk with this thing oxygen 
dancing atom Whitman 
fresh from the oily steam of the wharf 
and the ca-lak a-lak of trolleys and typesetters 


the coal-dusted womb of Brooklyn 
all the way to now and here 


he climbs from ordure in the cart
his wheels move god's manure 
pushed with grunts and the sweet sweat of beautiful men 
I rise from the wheely chair 
my modern wheels that get me know-where 
on a plastic carpet protector round and round 


and his laugh starts in the roots of his holy head 
his laugh bends and flexes the unknown parts
and leaves his sweet lips to curl my own
we wheel in wheels into the cirrus of love


above the cumuli of recycling drench and parch
beyond the nimbus of rise against and wreak 
past the hail and forked spark of human correction
to forget anger's predictable climate


to the jetted stream of love 
the fish scales and sky hooks of love 
the pure d blue of love's truth and presence 
of which he still sings o atomic paper o sooty pigment


and his great hand holds mine 
in more than this and he waits until I am 
trembling with all his parts 
all rancid and cleaned parts of all things 


my body electric and he leans in
as we drift over rooftops and I listen:
know these are still the same o best beloved 
I sing still of all work and all work


even the sit and spin of now 
it was always so my song was a refutation then 
and now again I refute ignoble and disconnected 
we are not alone 


we are not the warning label or 
the ad in the corner of the screen we are more 
we are the holy effort of plain and ordinary 
we are sex on the forest floor and


the spurt and couple and cupped jaw 
and the friction as we move along 
and it has not changed 
awake! every new child awake!


all of all is still here nothing is diminished 
your love is still love in new clothes
in the cellar of unreason there is a particle'd light
among the cold stars there is vast blue oxygen 


waiting for all of me and all of you 
I am what is in you and you in me 
not before not after but now 
now now now


and sly Walt beaming Walt ecstatic Walt 
takes me home covered in blue 
stardust ice pollen hair ordure 
and settles me next to my sleeping wife


stay alive while you are alive
he whispers 
remember the broken and dying and wet their brow
he murmurs


I open my eyes and the air dances in thousands 
I lean in slowly slowly to listen to her 
every inch is the progress of history
and her breath is the work of the universe

        I say, I try to say: I didn't understand, I didn't grow up. I didn't know how much...

Wet are my hands, my arms, my cheeks and my chin, all kinds of wet: fresh ropey wet from my nose like a river from my skull; slow wet from the corner of my mouth, my lip; endless wet from my eyes, alongside my nose, my lashes; sticky, old wet on my sleeve, in my lap.

"Please." I say, and I say: "please please please."