What I thought was love
in me, I find a thousand instances
as fear. (Of the tree’s shadow
winding around the chair, a distant music
of frozen birds rattling
in the cold.
Where ever I go to claim
my flesh, there are entrances
of spirit. And even its comforts
are hideous uses I strain
to understand.
Though I am a man
who is loud
on the birth
of his ways. Publicly redefining
each change in my soul, as if I had predicted
them,
and profited, biblically, even tho
their chanting weight,
erased familiarity
from my face.
A question I think,
an answer; whatever sits
counting the minutes
till you die.
When they say, “It is Roi
who is dead?” I wonder
who will they mean?
-LeRoi Jones / Amiri Baraka
[sorry for the non-existent line indents... blogger doesn't like poetry]
