Free Verse

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral —
for you have it over a troop
of artists —
unless one should scour the world —
you have the ground sense necessary.

Clean the spittoons, boy.
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons:
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed —

I, too, am America.

Well, son, I’ ll tell you:
Life for me ain’ t been no crystal stair.
It’ s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’ se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’ s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’ t been no light.
So boy, don’ t you turn back.
Don’ t you set down on the steps
’ Cause you finds it’ s kinder hard.
Don’ t you fall now —
For I’ se still goin’, honey,

I’ ve known rivers:
I’ ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

II. Conversion

I like to be stationary.
— Bartleby

Who is not a wild Enthusiast

in a green meadow

furious and fell

Arriving on the stage of history
I saw madness of the world

Stripped of falsification
and corruption

anthems were singing in Authorem

Father and the Father
by my words will I be justified

Autobiography I saw

a stark
Quake

a numb
Calm

*

clutching my Crumbl
ejumble
among
Tombs and
in Caves
my
Dream
Vision

O Hymen king.

Hymen, O Hymen king,
what bitter thing is this?
what shaft, tearing my heart?
what scar, what light, what fire
searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame?
nameless, O spoken name,
king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.

Whirl up, sea —
whirl your pointed pines,
splash your great pines
on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.

Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,

treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:

your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.

Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?