Old men have seen a memory blown by sleeping,
wails of grief kisses sucked up excavated noses
soul stirring psalms to the very top of the lung
energy boasts of a golden but feared recall, I
have seen the fingering of Miles Davis’ trumpet
wail of sex instincts on Stella by Starlight sung
Jesus looking for guileless disciples in the gilded
night I have seen a memory, driven by alleys of
Georgetown fences, noted gentries out-of-the-way
welcome entries, walked to mama’s down at the
very end of towns, P Street’s dead turn onto the
Avenue of murderer’s row in a town’s strip of
social clubs, I have walked sidewalk storm drains
from stoops of filth down to Main & Baltimore
streets, I have seen memory collect in the smaller
towns of Shelbyville, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio,
Tennessee, and Springfield, Illinois, cellophane
swathes the memory, what’s known of selected
service towns, soldiers never coming home,
where divine earth gardens of herbs, salts, and
sugary loves are grown, I have seen a memory
stripped off every language, a cappella chanting
of soliloquists, ritual Griot and orphaned rappers
of cellophane spirit; porno on sheets of exhibited
joy, I have seen a memory cruising the boulevards
to The Louver and the mall to The Smithsonian, got
down with nightfall song on Martin Luther King Jr.
Avenues with whores pimps of priest and mothers,



LEE MACK
(Cellophane Spirit, Page 2)
memory eyes that burn high with desire set afire
the fricative nature of her cellophane spirit,
I have seen a memory of towns of orphaned sons
bound for locomotive dreams there in old houses on
Rose Street, Spanish laborers now rent overcrowded
dream Tudor houses, mansions of memories now city
neighbors with funeral homes where strange crowds
gather in games of wake, I have seen a memory
for the dead a picnic and a park of spirits set aside
in stone, strange crowds in games of joy a girl’s legs
too young consent to cellophane; raps disown me,
I have seen the daydream, a mother’s body rise lit up,
I have seen a memory from depth’s perception of her
soul, my own spirit form inside the womb like a real
thing, I have seen a memory never like my own
strange crowds in games of joy, I have seen a memory
stele of brother’s names of patriot acts that poets write
of mummy rites of black bag remains, the soul return
from Seoul, drapes hung from Saigon and dried
peat field covered tarp from Iraq, I have seen a memory
of the Euphrates and black Hudson River shadow’s fade,
I have seen a memory, seen two lovers love to sleep
together try each other on, eleven fingers of the Nile
nourish the gene of memories I have seen, The Spirit
speak of memory as spirit penlight on the Word...
with and without, I have seen a memory was not
anything made that was made, I have seen in a memory
near light seen as near death, The Spirit has not a lot
to do but split the cellophane and the memory through
to split the days, spread the blankets for the night,
the sky and clouds wide open to gather in the rains,
spirited little fellows wrapped in the cellophane
that I have seen in a memory never in a dream.