Liberian Literary Magazine
February Issue 0215
assaulted by pellets of raindrops, prisons of
w ords entrapping us
betw een parentheses — tw o bat w ings
curv ing cynical smiles
Feeling Fucked Up
Etheridge Knight
Lord she's gone done left me done packed
still, there is something here, that, perhaps,
needs explaining
beyond the hopelessness of miles, the light
at the end of a midnight tunnel —
w here some say a speeding train is bulleting
right at us ——
so w here do the tumbling w ords spend
themselv es after they hav e spent
all meaning residing in the w arehouse of
language, after they hav e slipped
from our lips, like skiers on ice slopes, strung
together w ords linking
themselv es through smoke, w here do the
symbols they carry
stop ev erything, put dow n roots, cleanse
themselv es of ev erything
but clarity —— though here eye might be
/ up and split
and I w ith no w ay to make her
come back and ev eryw here the w orld is
bare
bright bone w hite crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiv ing drov e
her aw ay made her take her laughter and
her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs-Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting
in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
asking a little too much of any
and alligators and all the animals that roam
poet's head, full as it w ere w ith doubleentendres
the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah
and
On Being Brought from Africa to America
democracy and communism fuck s mack
and pot
Phillis Wheatley
'Tw as mercy brought me from my Pagan
land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Sav iour
too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some v iew our sable race w ith scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negro's, black as
Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck
mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon
nixon
and malcom fuck the rev olution fuck
freedom fuck
the w hole muthafucking thing
all i w ant now is my w oman back
so my soul can sing
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