identity papers
you're so far away when the smogged moon crests the ochre haze a jaundiced leaf
I'm supine on the sidewalk thinking of you as more idiot questioners lean over me
"Do you have I.D?"
"Name?"
"What day is it?"
"Did he hit you in the head?"
streetlight vapors climb the brick walls
escaping these narrows for the high abyss
where tranquil darkness flows....
I'm at the bottom of an ocean of black air
where atomized trash rivers over me
smudging my body like newsprint....
—out of nowhere a woman's head hangs over me— she's frantic and sorry:
"I-saw-the-whole-thing-I-saw-the-whole-thing-I'm-praying-for-you-I'm praying for you...
Do you believe in Jesus?"
—just to ease her anguish I rasp "yes"
but this witness leaves with no trace.
—just a few days ago by coincidence I bought a 4 oz. hammer
to fix a broken bed slat
but only for me— it was no tree like the bed at the end of The Odyssey
with branches to cradle our bodies together like leaves between heaven and earth...
An officer booms his questions again
but as I answer again, voices say:
"D'jou see anything?"
"Yeah... Guy had a hammer— hit the guy who's down..."
"Were they really fighting?"
"Yeah, for a while."
"Was it any good?"
"Nah, it was mostly wrestling..."
"Who won?"
"Uh— the guy on the ground..."
But my ear a siren stinging inside
is my evidence
a 16 oz. hammer struck:
each bruise is a fossil in the flesh,
each blood gout sharpens the blurred image of the acts
—it was a fistful of night exploding in my brain
but there was no pain
—it was black lightning blinding as it flashed but with no sudden last image
the second time
—it was like a gun going off by my ear but without sound it blew my spirit dark
the third time—still
—but it wasn't painless
the last—was it lost—time-erased?
Even here I dimly sense
this must not be mere trauma—
it must tell me something.
An eyeless head demands: "WHAT HAPPENED?"
I say what I can again, again (hating them):
"We were the last two off the train;
he had a hammer in his right,
a plastic-wrapped rose in his left..."
Do they—don't they—believe me?
"—a young guy's pumped up drug-crazed eyes—
then behind me I heard the crash of shattering glass,
a window on the departing train was a cobweb—
my god, I thought of those passengers—shocked—
and he glared straight at me, struck again,
eyes hardening—he missed the last window..."
I see each thing again, saying the history as whole as I can...
inside the moment again, again—
and an invisible violence cleaves to every moment,
an ax always in our souls
not just now, not just here—
the rage is futile, empty as a public school's
bars and chain fences singing in cold rain—
and sometimes in our racing blood
the hate for any people who have anything is random—
He wasn't after money—he just wanted to get even.
Suddenly I must see him, "Where is he?"
—a blind head barks, "WHAT HAPPENED?"
I see it in flashes
fragment-flows
in which only his face is always clear
—our eyes' contact so sharp it aches:
"I let him pass and exit up the left stairs first,
not wanting him near me in the dark..."
I see the token-sellers in their booth—
cold aquarium light washes their faces blue,
I wait some seconds,
scan the empty left stairway
and whisper, "Hey d'jou see that?"
"We didn't see nuthin"
(he buzzes like a drowning radio,
amplified but muffled)
"That guy just broke a window on the R train."
"Can't do nuthin. Didn't see nuthin..."
"...so, then, I took the right stairs
but he'd circled back for me
and hid at the turning of the stairs...
‘Where you goin'?' he grunted
‘You ain't goin'—You ain't goin—'
But I pushed past—he shoved from behind,
I took my heavy book-bag off,
reached the sidewalk first and turned.
He whipped his hammer past me like a claw,
then smashed my arms backing away
all the way past
the other stairs—
then he saw a couple he knew down there..."
"WAIT. What couple? Where? Down the stairs?"
"Yeah, he went halfway down to them—
they tried to—help—"
"WHO?"
—he's screaming "that muthafukka" at me,
spurting spanish,
rising so enraged he wants to kill—
though the guy tries to cool him
and I could kick him down these stairs but
damn— he's still hu—
"AND?"
"...and, and he came back up swinging,
I swung the bag at his head but missed
and left it by that woman there...
and then we fought..."
—blindness lurches over: "WAIT. What woman? From that couple?"
"Don't know. Wait—maybe..."
I try so hard to see:
that woman (the witness?)
whose eyes well up in fear (for who?)
I fight stunned more than in rage
but he strikes my head—fierce,
his face a frigid happy sneer
—but what if I have to kill
or die? — he's trying to
while I'm missing punching air...
—only one kick shoves his shoulder
slightly back—
He jeers with glee: "Ho—karate, huh?"
—and I know just how he is,
how thrilled— how stupid.
I'm backed against the corrugated steel
of another abandoned store,
I swerve toward the street and roar:
"BACK OFF!"
He pauses— his eyes flicker just like he's scared
but when they ice over
he lunges...
—and his eyes flash in my endlessly waking nightmare-daymare scenes
cut all out of order for days, yet each segment yearns for its sequels
until I have to go back just to walk it through
till it finally flows like a film:
he lunged...
The pounding cut just over my ear—
It was a pitchless siren— all volume without shape or color,
pure sound without traits like a haze of rage—
my glasses flew to the ground
but I didn't go down—
he hammered my ribs in back so hard
my knees buckled—I stumbled—
he tackled— then for a long time
we wrestled— his right still
clutching the hammer
while concrete cut us
and asphalt scraped us
struggling close to cars—
he swung again
but his right thigh was so thin
I lifted him
off balance— he flailed
hammering my arm inside, outside,
at my head—
then tore my shirt all down—
I ripped his neck too
infuriating him—we both rose—
he gasped "AW!" swung wild,
his rage a funnel cloud uncoiling
its last blow—
and I never see the memory of my violence;
I won't even realize till days later
when I must have counterpunched
because my ring and middle knuckles were broken open
and one of his short curly hairs
was lodged deep in my gashed skin for days
—I only see my left darkly in re-enacting rages
three months later, striking his head
to finally kill
that youth with hammer arm recoiling,
floating on extended wings into darkness, an armed crucifix
...I remember only a sudden daze—
he was grappling my arms
his hands defending
—he was feebler— I didn't know why
or when the hammer fell—
but I kicked it away
still grappling him,
scuffling the ground— kicked it further,
dimly knew I wanted that hammer
and could get it—
spotted him retreating and thought:
now it will be different.
In a flash as long as a falling star
the hammer flowered in my hand,
its head as light as a thorn
to kill, disfigure,
cripple, maim—
I wanted murder so much
I became a bleeding machine.
But just at the instant
he slid into a blur,
the police pulled up
glaring obscene light,
commanding like god out of a machine:
"DROP THAT HAMMER!"
—they'd saved him!
and they closed around me
while I heard—then saw—him smash
each lens in my glasses.
Having known this before, long ago
saves me from the deepest disillusion—
he's one blade-edge in the wilding streets
where glasphalt glisters like random junkie jewels
and every concrete slab is stained
by the killed, wretched, despairing, and the maimed
crumpled in rancid steaming clothes—
it's not personal—
this world is weapons just waiting to wound,
fists to smash, broken bottles to slash,
boots to crush, bats to fracture,
belts to whip, pins to stick,
and sticks and bricks and names can injure,
and every thing that loves can rape,
every thing that's cool can kill—
Potato-head blooms: "Do you have I.D? What's your name?"
My fingers burrow in my pocket
—pain pours up my arm and overflows my torso—
a silhouette takes my wallet, then stands back in halogen light.
Then that guy says I was to blame,
crouches right over me— in fist-range—
and prods hard: "Eh— you alright? You!"
worried for my attacker if I die: "Eh, you! You gonna be alright?"
"Get the fuck away from me!"
His paper voice skitters away:
"I didn' do nuthin! Hey it wasn't me— he's crazy!"
paper doll shallow:
"I didn' do nuthin! nuthin! He's crazy—"
streetlight vapor blues into steel-gray—
Blind-eyed dogman broods, "Name... Do you have I.D?"
Potato nudges Goddam: "I already took it from him," and softer: "What happened?"
Goddamned broadcasts: "What happened?"
I say it all slowly over
then carefully beg, "Where is he?"
eyes pleading— Where is he?
Potato eyes darken, disappear.
They can't tell who the victim is.
Deeper and deeper fears dawn— you're so far away
but this knowledge will hurt you more than me
under the weltering sky where my pain is born at last
—a storm has crushed my clown body to the concrete—
it rains crude oil in my head spills a negative rainbow in my skull
far away you must be worried now I feel it I'm afraid the damage is spreading
god it hurts— I'm scared this could be it and what rage will you feel
how will you stand it when I tell you this?
...the sidewalk feels soft as death clean as ether strangely warm I'm numb my hands my arms
the wide field of fire roaring before me like a blacktop meadow
the ambulance opens like a time-lapse-photo flower
Thanks to Ghost Road Press for publishing the dramatic poetry book, identity papers (2006), of which this is the title part. http://identitypapers.org. Thanks to Colors Magazine (1997) for publishing the early version of this part of identity papers, and to Polyphony: a magazine of narrative and dramatic poetry (http://www.geocities.com/polyphonymag/ December 2003) for the 2003 version of the title part of identity papers. Thanks also to Drimala Records for producing the CD version of identity papers with actress Lori-Nan Engler and percussionist Toshi Makihara. Free audio from the book can be found here. Free video of a live performance of this poem can be found at http://www.poetscoop.org/pctvvids.htm