THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES
SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE
SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE
SOUTH
FOREVER,
GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE
FROM RED PLANET MARS
CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR
THEM
TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO
THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER
AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT
IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS
OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA
OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP
BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL,
I was a man
and I was trying to save a woman in danger.
I picked her up in my arms
and flew.
Flying like a frog swimming in air
I ditched our nameless pursuer
and landed. There was a guy
waiting for us
who looked
like a king.
Caught.
Now I have to accept the punishment
for saving the woman.
First,
we have to take a shower.
The effect is to loosen
the skin from the muscle
until it peels off.
The woman
picks up the pieces of my skin and
Too many are leaving
usually they greet in sleep before dashing
as in today with this gentleman
(awkward not to type his name)
when yesterday in the shower
I remembered his face in Aardvark
something about NWA but not about them
just a played reference
There were newspaper clips
all police brutality, all framed with snow
& I vaguely recalled something
about Uma Thurman & the Menils
when the guard ushered me out
for touching the African sculptures
I waited in the lobby for hours
Master of PuppetsKung-Fu Theater
Womanhood, wanton, ye want:
Your meddling, mistress, is mannerless;
Plenty of ill, of goodness scant,
Ye rail at riot, reckless:
To praise your port it is needless;
For all your draff yet and your dregs,
As well borne as ye full oft time begs.
What can it avail
To drive forth a snail,
Or to make a sail
Of an herring’ s tail;
To rhyme or to rail,
To write or to indict,
Either for delight
Or else for despight;
Or books to compile
Of divers manner of style,
Vice to revile
And sin to exile;
To teach or to preach,
As reason will reach?
Say this, and say that,
His head is so fat,
He wotteth never what
Nor whereof he speaketh;
He crieth and he creaketh,
He prieth and he peeketh,
He chides and he chatters,
Merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as a falcon
Or hawk of the tower:
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness;
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly
Her demeaning
In every thing,
Not even the males and the men of the males
make use of their pinched tongues
to sing, not even the females
and the women of the females, corollas stemmed to spray on end
sing their ruddy stones
The males and the men of the males
feel the sea
the ranch and the wheat, rice ears
polyglottal weddings
unseasonable lips
one body to the next
to be reminded
of the failing
mainspring
not sudden silence
after the extreme figure
but the relative
a grimace told
him to push the
articulation farther
the yet green used
marks a tongues
-width to tally
a different sound
preceded every word
then took to term
to feel hips
as if new tangents
were bolting
I was too shy to say anything but Your poems are so beautiful.
What kinds of things, feelings, or ideas inspire you,
I mean, outside the raw experiences of your life?
He turned a strange crosshatched color
as if he stood in a clouded painting, and said, Thanks,
but no other phenomena intrude upon my starlit mind.
