Not In Detroit

Not In Detroit

Black girls are not safe. Not in Detroit.

Never go to other people's houses

And ask for help. Because the Bible says

That Jesus only love the white and rich

With families. And pharmaceuticals

That heal the nation's sick. (That was a joke.)

11-16-13

89

She died at 89. I'm 67.

The horror is I'm not a famous poet.

The truth is like a pale and tiny worm,

Crawling out, and starved from lack of sunlight.

Fame! And yet I never liked the people

Whose love I need to be a famous poet.

Maybe just the people that I know,

And never mind the dark amorphous rest.

I can write. I haven't lost my gift,

Which (and not a craft) is what it is,

More articulate, and yet without

The mushy feel that made it poesy.

I shall die, and all the world be gone

(As Housman said), and so its many horrors.

And I shall never know how they conclude,

Or whether earth will end. Or art come back.

And I have not the talent to be great.

11-16-13

Crazy Poems

Every day I feel I'm going to faint

Like I did a couple times before,

On the mental ward and in the kitchen.

Underneath it all, I think I'm crazy.

Keep it down. Too much depends on me.

Do shrinks and other people think I'm crazy?

Rimbaud legitimized insanity

In poetry. But Keats was empty charm.

And what am I? A hybrid. Something sweet,

Or sweetly said. What is there left to write?

The world? The country? In a fit of rage!

Art and the humanities! I know

Nothing of them. But nonetheless complain -

Corruption in both poetry and music.

And know no form of verse but what I write -

And forms are craft. Or possibly inborn.

This is the kind of verse that I despise.

The optimist says, “Things will be alright.”

People in the drive-thru sit forever.

Behind an old jalopy – never smogged.

It's quiet now. Tomorrow's going to come.

A threat. Sometimes I even hate the night.

11-16-13