The man that poetry made stands luminous

on the broken corners of history’s suicidal cravings,

he watches splashing in the street

birds cleaning their feathers inside

the crystal flow of words he gave them,

he is a vintage wine now

traveling with ease over the tongues

of other people’s intentions,

he is a quilt

made of one billion black hands

spread like guarantees from a single living God

over the heads of the misbegotten.

The man that poetry made wonders

on which day will he finally recite his soul.

Ask him who his mother is

and he will sing for you memories

of bosom-heavy haikus

filling his mouth with the milk and nectar

of joy neverdying.

Ask about his father

and he will boast about a ballad

that thundered all the way

from Spain to Zaire

bouncing him like a sack full of sonnets

upon his broad whistling shoulders.

This man that poetry made stumbles barefoot

through the city, a huge blue ribbon wrapped

around one big toe, a small pink one tied

to the other, ragged jeans loose

upon free-verse hips, fluorescent eyes blinking

surrealistic kisses of negritude revisited–

To the woman confused

by his lust for peace

he begs “forgive me lovely genius

I was not born as you were born,

my blood was written

by a different kind of coupling.”

To the man frustrated

by his lack of animalia

he sang, “Beauty is a thing finer

than exalted fears of actual love.”

The man that poetry made sometimes

blows himself to pieces with bombs

made from metaphors, he enjoys watching

the words that shape his life

scatter like golden ashes of imagination

then one by one float back down to earth

covering him with forms and meanings

he never knew existed.

People passing the corner

where he stands luminous and throbbing

rarely see a man at all.

They look at the man that poetry made

and see a public toilet

or a burning bush flaming in the most unlikely place.

Sometimes they see him as a rare jewel

and snatch him up before anyone else

can look. He is always curious riding along

inside the pockets of strangers

wondering how they shall react

when they see him for what he is,

and he reveals, with

love lighting up his every cell

exactly who they are.

1997 and 2011