Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones

Author:Ashley M. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938235276
Publisher: Hub City Press
Published: 2016-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

ELEGY

for Amiri Baraka

Is it better to die

a LeRoi

or the full Baraka,

screaming bloody verse

with your last black breath?

How many more beats

were in you

on that surgery table,

and will your heaven

be powerful

and Black?

Yours is a graph

we’ll trace in stanzas.

The upward trend—

power, metaphor,

America arranged

in shades of brown.

The scattered points

left out of the line—

flame, discomfort,

a potluck of politics.

You were not our flower,

Baraka,

but our fertilizer—

our fish guts,

cow manure,

fierce-smelling

medicine

made for proper growth.

I take you under my tongue

and you are bitter,

an aspirin chewed without water,

a pot of beige rutabagas

without that dash of sugar.

But I will take you again

and again,

even if, sometimes,

I chase you with something sweeter—

a raisin from Langston,

Zora’s afternoon teacake.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.