east wharf beach

From the shine of bodies stripped and sprawled bare to the sun
From one look (sun in your eyes) how would you know
a beach of American rich murmuring of law firms and cottage repairs
from the stunned stirring of Arabs burned black in a missile attack
and how the hell would you know (on second look)
that the two were of one world?

A noise in my room before dawn
scratching on glass itching in wood
noise in my room something looms
I live in a heaven gone insecure.
Crows are squalling that’s not it
the highway is howling that’s not it
beetles are wheezing that’s not it:
noise in my room, sleep is doomed.

Things are granularizing, sharding
I’m leaning toward litigation here,
lacerations there; the Fulton Fish Market’s
a tony little residence here, ball
bearings and ligaments there.

A swirling and whirling goes round and
round,
curdling, curling round the world!

We have a thousand square feet in the attic Tina Brown was her
friend Brooklyn Height’s the best big chunks o’ bacon on top three
car garage too the kids were ready to shoot each other the tunnels
are the worst see and be seen Fairfield. Baghdad’s horrifically

far, a distance ripe for haunting,
scratching on glass, a moaning
of beetles, a noise in my
room, swirling and whirling
through tunnels of time, worming of words
sleep is doomed.
Translate! I can’t. Translate!
Let me sleep.

Crows are cawing that’s not it
bombs are blowing that’s not it.
See this beach and only it I can’t
Swirling and whirling, shards of Iraq.