The genie says build a studio. I build

a studio from ash. I make it out of peril and slum

things. I alone when blood and bullet and all

Christ-fucking-‘Merican-dollar politicians talk

the pressure down to nothing, when the equator’s

confused and coke bubbles on tinfoil to cemented wreath.

I build it, a Congo drum, so hollowed through the future

pyramids up long before CDs spin away roots-men knocking

down by the seaside,

like captives wheeling by the Kebar River. The genie says build  

a studio, but don’t take any fowl in it, just electric.

So I make it, my echo chamber with shock rooms of rainbow

King Arthur’s sword keep in, and one for the Maccabees

alone, for covenant is bond between man and worm.

Next room is Stone Age, after that, Iron, and one I

named Freeze, for too much ice downtown in the brains

of all them crossing Duke Street, holy like parsons.  

And in the circuit breaker, the red switch is for death

and the black switch is for death, and the master switch

is black and red, so if US, Russia, China, Israel talk

missiles talk, I talk that switch I call Melchezidek.

I build a closet for the waterfalls. One for the rivers.

Another for oceans. Next for secrets. The genie says build

a studio. I build it without gopher wood. Now, consider

the nest of bees in the cranium of the Gong, consider

the nest of wasps in the heart of the Bush Doctor,

consider the nest of locusts in the gut of the Black Heart Man,

I put them there, and the others that vibrate at the Feast of the Passover

when the collie weed

is passed over the roast fish and cornbread. I Upsetter, I Django

on the black wax, the Super Ape, E.T., I cleared the wave.

Again, consider the burning bush in the ears of Kalonji

and the burning sword in the mouth of the Fireman and the burning pillar

in the eyes

of the Gargamel, I put them there, to outlast earth as I navigate on one

of Saturn’s rings, I mitre solid shadow setting fire to snow in my ark.

I credit not the genie but the coral rock: I man am stone.

I am perfect. Myself is a vanishing conch shell speeding round

a discothèque at the embassy of angels, skeletons ramble to checkout

my creation dub and sex is dub, stripped to the bone, and dub is the heart

breaking the torso to spring, olive-beaked, to be eaten up by sunlight.