If you meet the Buddha be merciful, kill him

I am a bicycle, I am

a pair of black

low top

canvas converse.  I am two scoops

of raisins I am a long line of poetry with no punctuation or

stops.  I am a thousand

years old, I am

newly born wrapped in red wine jazz.  I am

a quarter note held

over, I am a hang

over.

I am a tobacco yellowed & underlined

copy of Twilight of the Idols barely

hanging together at the spine & well loved.  I am a chain

gang, I am a boulder cracked & 

crumbling into pebbles, I am the first rimshot on

I Wanna

Be Sedated.  I am the left overs

of an oil slick stuck in a sickly duck’s feathers, I am

a fat CEO sucking back a Cuban

cigar, I am the ashes of the past

waiting for the strong winds of history.  I am a blind man

cursing cinders & poverty, I am money rolled

in a wad that only looks like

a man.  I am The Man, I am

a Dr. Suess line, a

Dr. Dre rhyme, I am a yam

cooked on a bed of plantain, I am a plantation that remembers

all their names.  I am a V8 engine, I am the starting

gun at the ’37 Olympics, I am a rock show & Arc

of the Covenant.  I am Mt. Fucking Vesuvius just

about ready to reek of old books, I am risen from the dead.

I am the Bidhi tree that no one will let die.

I am a tooth, mistaken.

I am a shroud longing to be bits of thread.

I am water, escaping your clutch.  I am

steam from the tea cup.  I am

everything, formless.