I Can't Say Who I Am

I Can’t Say Who I Am


I can’t say who I am (A. Baraka)
but go for it
& speak
as if I knew it.
Time is half the story
so is death.
I run from shadows
to avoid old people
maddened by God.
I follow animals
whose eyes at night
mirror my face.
Seeing myself asleep
I touch my arm.
I celebrate
new forms of sex.
I am frantic
knowing that nobody
has a way out
or a face
more marked than
mine.
I was not
born live. (J. Holzer)
The case for memory
grows weaker
day by day.
The more I know myself
the less I am.
I hold on to a name
because it suits me
but the voice behind it
never was my own.


Jerome Rothenberg

Posted over on Rothenberg's Homepage