Free Chorus by Saul Williams Page A

single word they say is true, not a one
    They only speak bird, honey
    You and me are one and the same
    There is no shame, babe, no shame
    No, not Heaven, but on the way
    Through the darkness and into the caverns,
    that breath on your face
    Don’t listen to it, sweetheart
    We’re on the cusp, the frontier, nearly there
    There— the surface is there— feel with your toes,
    your fingers curled
    And speak with your auburn hair to love
    Answer the grayness with locust breath
    Ruined , rotten, blood on your forehead
    Dyes your fleshy silk hair red
    See no more I lost you in all these dark currents
    So what has become of you now?
    Where have you gone and how could I follow?

68
    We follow the whiskey trail
    to the garden of believers
    we ignore cries of foolish
    and tune in the receivers
    we build our towers higher
    than those that came before us
    and above angry voices
    we recite faithful chorus

69
    Fuck God
    where you
    find her
    and call it
    a day.
    The tragedy
    that begat
    the Sun
    made light
    of lesser things.
    It was an explosion.
    First in heart.
    Now at hand.
    This tree’s blood
    is painted on.
    The guilt
    that I feel
    is freedom.
    Jesus was
    the only magic
    we believed in.
    The cigarette
    that tricked us
    into breathing.
    An excuse to sing.
    Anthemic
    woodwind
    hollow
    as crown
    fall
    through
    the octaves
    glide
    over ground
    and come
    to me.
    SONG IN ME MINOR
    I feel
    so close
    to nothing
    when I pray.
    I cross
    my legs
    and crucify
    each day.
    I share
    this blood
    with everyone
    I meet
    and
    kick her
    when she tries
    to wash my feet.
    We drank
    red wine
    to cancel out
    our fears
    but sober kisses
    tend to always taste
    like tears.

70
    I know you breathe fire like a dragon
    posted like bullets into the hearts
    of small children
    and this rage never-ending is yours to keep
    entirely forever entirely forever entirely
    cannot be undone within the strangeness
    of my lifetime
    Breathe slow my parent
    One day the moss covering your face
    will be swept away
    You will sing poems
    washed in the basin
    of life
    You will clear out
    all frozen blood clots of hate
    surrounding that heart
    which is yours
    I imagine your face
    superimposed over Buddha’s
    ten-foot-tall stone thousand-year-old
    prayer
    Maybe Buddha was an angry father too
    previous incarnation
    I am superimposing your face, Dad
    over the face of Buddha
    to awaken your own child
    interior within self’s temple
    your own
    there
    Do you hear him
    still chanting father’s name
    still chanting machismo terror to cling toward something
    lest his personality self be destroyed
    or that prayer then
    on Buddha’s lips
    is compassion awakened
    this heart flowering now
    that child need chant no more
    let each lotus blossom wiggle
    inside his mind
    eventually we are one
    somewhere
    our ribs are touching
    Bless tenderness always
    Bless country music
    and ruthless ignorance
    where America gathers in a religion
    of pain and glory
    Bless cock worship and rodeo mind
    Bless Budweiser and dominos as pure expression of karma
    All embraced in infinite sound
    mind never-ending
    even racist high school football stars have Buddha nature
    And this much I saw once
    I believe
    in the back door
    of our home
    you standing naked as you often did
    eyes wondering
    splayed out to the ocean’s twinkling
    twenty miles away
    as if the ask the universe:
    Who am I?
    Maybe its answers may come to you now
    as they never did
    from gin tonics
    or gambling wheel obsessions
    mouth always ready for the next tit nipple
    all you were doing
    was chasing after yourself in the dark
    spinning on an endless wheel
    hoping luck would make your number hit
    like riding a bicycle with no chain
    only you kept believing it was there
    Gate Daddy Gate
    Para Gate Daddy
    Parasvam Gate Daddy
    Bodhi Svaha
    I imagine Buddha
    smoking a Kent cigarette
    and it is you

71
    Overwhelmed
    by the upheaval of souls
    I stretch
    further than land
    and sea
    to muddle
    my essence with these
    The mass
    of my