You are the problem I propose, My dear, the text my musings glose: I call you for convenience love. By definition you’re a cause Inferred by necessary laws— You are so to the saints above. But in this shadowy lower life I sleep with a terrestrial wife And...
Sweet Mary, the first time she ever was there, Came into the Ball room among the Fair; The young Men & Maidens around her throng, And these are the words upon every tongue:
“An Angel is here from the heavenly Climes, Or again does return...
When Ma Rainey Comes to town, Folks from anyplace Miles aroun’, From Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Flocks in to hear Ma do her stuff; Comes flivverin’ in, Or ridin’ mules, Or packed in trains, Picknickin’ fools. . . . That’s what it’s like, Fo’ miles on down, To New Orleans delta An’ Mobile town, When Ma...
Dear Writers, I’m compiling the first in what I hope is a series of publications I’m calling artists among artists. The theme for issue 1 is “Faggot Dinosaur.” I hope to hear from you! Thank you and best wishes.
The end of the affair is always death. She’s my workshop. Slippery eye, out of the tribe of myself my breath finds you gone. I horrify those who stand by. I am fed. At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed with love. At first hunger is...
I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been...
Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature’s error. Already the bars are filled and John is there. Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air.
I think of him when he first got out of college, Serious, thin, unlikely...
Gone, I say and walk from church, refusing the stiff procession to the grave, letting the dead ride alone in the hearse. It is June. I am tired of being brave.
We drive to the Cape. I cultivate myself where the sun gutters from the...
Father, this year’s jinx rides us apart where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; a second shock boiling its stone to your heart, leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber you from the residence you could not afford: a gold key, your half...