PENGUIN BOOKS

HIP LOGIC

TERRANCE HAYES was the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for Muscular Music, his debut collection of poems. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina and holds degrees from Coker College, where he studied painting and English, and the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied poetry. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies of emerging writers, including American poetry: The Next Generation and Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers. He teaches in the Creative Writing Department at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife and daughter.

THE NATIONAL POETRY SERIES

The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of five poetry books annually through participating publishers. Publication is funded by the late James A. Michener, the Copernicus Society of America, Edward J. Piszek, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Tiny Tiger Foundation.

2001 COMPETITION WINNERS

BETSY BROWN of Minnesota, Year of Morphines Chosen by George Garrett, to be published by Louisiana State University Press

DAVID GROFF of New York, Theory of Devolution Chosen by Mark Doty, to be published by University of Illinois Press

TERRANCE HAYES of Pennsylvania, Hip Logic Chosen by Cornelius Eady, to be published by Viking Penguin

ELIZABETH ROBINSON of California, Pure Descent Chosen by Fanny Howe, to be published by Sun & Moon Press

RUTH L. SCHWARTZ of California, Edgewater Chosen by Jane Hirshfield, to be published by HarperCollins Publishers

Title Page

Copyright Page

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in Penguin Books 2002

Page 93 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Hayes, Terrance.
Hip logic / Terrance Hayes.
p. cm.—(National poetry series)

eISBN : 978-1-101-17729-7

I. Title. II. Series.
PS3558.A8378 H57 2002
811’.54—dc21
2002020871

Paul

Dedication

For Yona and Ua, my points of Light

“Please,” he said.

LORDE

Walking our boundaries
We arrived at my mother’s island

We entered silence

We have no passions left to love
We were born in a poor time

What am I ready to lose
What anger in my hard-won bones

What hues lie in the slit
When a mask breaks
When love leaps from my mouth

Who are you
Without expectation

I. At the First Clear Word

I. At the First Clear Word

emcee

emcee

You get to wear triple X
Jeans for easy access to the lair of first breaths

You get to reveal your shank
Handmade with the tooth of a bed spring and gauze

You get to rhyme about death—

Explicit lyrics, you are the pied piper
Sending children into jerk patterns and grunts
Into tunnels of smoke—

I had to get high to write this—

Your mind twists,
Gleams like lights on the bends of a night-coaster
The riders throw their hands in the air—

You get Grandmaster mantras—
And wave ’em like they just don’t care

Under your spell I can do anything

Fly girls and Hoochie Mommas, La Femme Fantabulous
Writing your phone number on their tongues

Sucka emcees can call me Sire

Indelible tattoos
The night cut on an open sentence—
You are the Alpha and the Omegaphone

The night cut and you won’t ever be alone—
Your grin of gold-plated windows

You want the exit code from the tenement, the penitentiary—
You want [beatbox beatbox beatbox]

Breathlessness

TOUCH

TOUCH

We made our own laws.
I want to be a Hawk,
A Dolphin, a Lion, we’d say

In stores where team logos hung
Like animal skins.

By moonlight,
We chased each other
Around the big field

Beneath branches sagging
As if their leaves were full of blood.

We didn’t notice when policemen
Came lighting tree bark
& our skin with flashlights.

They saw our game
For what it was:

Fingers clutching torso,
Shoulder, wrist—a brawl.
Some of the boys escaped,

Their brown legs cut by thorns
As they ran through the brush.

It’s true, we could have been mistaken
For animals in the dark,
But of all our possible crimes,

Blackness was the first.
So they tackled me,

And read me my rights without saying:
You Down or Dead Ball.
We had a language

They did not use, a name
For collision. We called it Touch.

THETHINGS- N O - ONE- KNOWSBLUES

THETHINGS- N O - ONE- KNOWSBLUES

—after Wanda Coleman

I filed for bankruptcy in the borough of luxury.
I suspect it’s time to eat my poetry.
My favorite turtleneck sweater, the green,
50% rayon, 5% cotton (rest unknown) one,

shrank in a tub of hot
bath water. A prisoner bit
a chunk out of my step-daddy’s smile.
My mamma filled

her cancer with silicone
& pity. My wife dwells in
a house of critics. I’m younger than
sugar, but older than

NutraSweet because I had a birthday in
New Orleans.
I suffer various degrees
of wistfulness.

Honey,
I guess it’s time I eat my poetry.
Cranked to ten my Walkman screams
static. I believe B.B. fingered

Lucille like the back of a pretty woman’s knee,
but no one seems to agree.
Need pecks at the latch
of my Wal-Mart wristwatch.

The lines on my palms slope like portable ex
& why graphs. Baby, I suffer various degrees of wistfulness.
I suspect my penis will
be fed to a swimming Gila

monster. Occasionally Death
calls me collect.

ARSPOETICA# 789

ARSPOETICA# 789

My daddies have voices
like bachelors, like castigators & crooners.
They have busted kneecaps.
They stand behind my mother
in the kitchen pretending to count the hairs
on her neck. One of my daddies
was a carpenter. One lost his tooth
in a fistfight with Jesus. One went to prison.
No, two went to prison. One daddy sits beside me
telling jokes dull as mouthwash.
One can guess how many catfish swim
in every pond. Here is my scar
from a summer working in the glass factory
across from another daddy’s home.
My daddy with the pretty gold-tooth smile taps
my shoulder & says, “Look at the booty
on that gal.” My daddy, Mr. Blacker-than-most,
wears shades in the house. He says
“Nobody’s blacker than me, Boy.”
Each of my daddies asks, “Are you writing
another poem about me?” They covet secrets.
No, my daddies covet work above secrets.
We are watching an action movie now,
my daddies & me. There are guns & damsels
& camouflage. There are car wrecks
& cusswords & blood. But my daddies are tired.
Some of them sprawl on the carpet.
Some of them go upstairs to the bedrooms,
or through the front door to the porch.
My daddies fall asleep in all the rooms
inside & outside the house. I want to sleep too,
but their snores make the wind chimes tremble.

HIP LOGIC

HIP LOGIC

Some shoot the soft bloodless
heads of basketballs. Shoes filled
with darkness. Skulls & dragons
stitched into biceps.
No standing still.
Some cruise with detachable faces
on their radios. The grief latent
in speed limits & zip codes.
The evening between evenings.
Stalls with locked doors.
Some leave their car windows
cracked & a boomboomboom
rustles the neighborhood.
No standing still. The law says
no stone will go uncrushed.
It won’t make the news.
Some will be set free for lack
of evidence or imprisoned
despite it. Trying to catch
the soul here? Like trying
to slow light down to a trot.
Some dress in women’s arms.
Perpetually groomed & grooming.
Hips are the cradle of logic.
Sperm hop in the trenches
blessed with an ageless memory.

SONNET

SONNET

We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.
We sliced the watermelon into smiles.

M R . T—

M R . T—

A man made of scrap muscle & the steam
engine’s imagination, white feathers
flapping in each lobe for the skull’s migration,
should the need arise. Sometimes drugged
& duffled (by white men) in a cockpit
bound for the next adventure. And liable
to crush a fool’s face like newsprint; headlines
of Hollywood blood and wincing. Half Step ’N Fetchit,
half John Henry. What were we, the skinny B-boys,
to learn from him? How to hulk through Chicago
in a hedgerow afro, an ox-grunt kicking dust
behind the teeth; those eighteen glammering
gold chains around the throat of pity,
that fat hollow medallion like the sun on a leash—

SHAFT & THE ENCHANTED SHOE FACTORY or ARSPOETICA: THE EPIC QUEST FOR LANGUAGE

SHAFT & THE ENCHANTED SHOE FACTORY or ARSPOETICA: THE EPIC QUEST FOR LANGUAGE

Shoeboxes line the walls like books.
Shaft sits alone untying his boots.

He’s Jesse-Owened across Harlem in these shoes,
He’s tossed them like a pair of guns
By the beds of countless women,
He’s kicked down the doors of villains.

But now they are scarred as a pair of old boxing gloves
The leather too thin to protect his strut through Broadway slush.

Suddenly, a long man in a blue satin robe appears,
His fingers thin as calligraphy pens.
He’s the factory wizard,
Distant cousin some mythic shoemaker god,
Provider of footwear
For every hero in the land:
Blue suede for Elvis,
Snakeskin spur-spinning boots for John Wayne,
Red boots for Superman.

Shaft says, Man I’m about to walk from Chicago to Mississippi
Kicking the ass of every redneck & Republican that moves,

I’m about to slow drag with a woman finer than Nefertiti,
And soon as she starts to love me, I’m gonna leave her with the blues…

The rest of the shit I’m planning is none of your business,
I’m here looking for new shoes.

The wizard grins a cascade of teeth,
& pulls a pair of tap-dance shoes out of his cuff.
But how can you sneak into a bad guy’s hideout
In loud-ass Sammy-Davis-Jr. kicks?
Is what Shaft’s thinking. The wizard reads his mind.

He unveils a pair of steel-toe boots.
Shaft’s father was a construction worker.
At the end of his life, he had ten exquisite toes,
But the work curled his spine.
Shaft says nothing but the wizard can read his mind.

He pulls out Bo Jacksons, then Air Jordans,
Then clogs, moccasins, house slippers, ballerina shoes.
Shaft says, Ahh Man, fuck this shit, I’m about to go.

The wizard raises his arms to cast a spell
Called Hocus Pocus Jim Crow.
Shaft frowns & says Man you go to Hell.
& Jim-Kellys him through a wall of wing tips with his five big toes.

Shaft returns his feet to his old boots
And his soles and ankles thank him.
The dazed wizard groans beneath a yellow halo of canaries.
Theme music blasts as Shaft walks out into a ticker tape of snow.

SQUAWK

SQUAWK

Under the spell
Of the doctor’s blue polka-dot sweater,
Big Bird revealed the horrors of his life.
His love had always been easy,
He’d left lush clouds & Florida vacations
To teach us goodness & the alphabet,
He’d spent nights dreaming of swans
& feathering a lonely erection.

“I only wanted to be a bird like any other bird, I used to wander flock to flock but found the chirpish love any star receives from fans. When I showed up at dinner parties, the guests whispered: Who invited the bird? They giggled at my yellow afro, my Jewish beak.

Look at me! King of the Muppet rejects: Oscar & his can of rust & sour trash, The Cookie Monster & his greedy Negro mumble, Bert & Ernie the secret lovers, Kermit, the Unenchanted frog! We’ve spent our lives making you laugh, and I’m tired of it, tired of this prison of make-believe!”

He began tearing at himself.
Feathers flew.

The doctor sneezed & his sweater dazzled.
Big Bird yanked til his skin was uncovered,
Twisted til his big head popped off,
And when the yellow cloud settled,

Only a tiny black man remained.
Tears fluttered from his eyes & he sang,
Freeeee! I’m free at last.

Meanwhile, the doctor tugged
A magic button on his magic sweater,
And a giant rushed in carrying a straightjacket
—a big yellow-feathered straightjacket.

Somewhere Tweety was being eaten by a cat;
The Road Runner was running out of road.
The black man ruffled & squawked with rage.

BUTTER

BUTTER

The same old dream: women of the globe on a love strike. They want equal
rights. Power. At first the men don’t believe the threat. They’re content to only
hug their dates. Walk on the beach, even. Content to drive home unsexed.
Maybe tomorrow. All the men think, Maybe tomorrow she’ll invite me in. A little
talk. A little skin, tomorrow.

Then, one by one, they figure it out. No more sex. They realize it squinting over
Penthouse Pets, Playboy Bunnies and old porno of fine retired starlets. They
know it fisting themselves in wee hours while wives sleep, tight-lipped, beside
them.

But power is better than sex, say congressmen and athletes and movie idols.
And power is better than tiny infants whining like sirens. This is what they
decide.

Years later, after the women have moved North to little towns in breast-shaped
hills, the men are so desperate they have slumber parties and hug each other.
Mushy, I know—but true. The women live an arm’s length from the lowest star,
and way down in the valley below, the men ration love like bits of metal in
wartime. Mope around with sunken heads, chests flat as tin. It’s true. They have
eyes dark and vacant as closets without dresses.

Meanwhile the ladies live in big houses made of chocolate. Mirrors in every
room. Music all the time. But it’s also true, the women are lonely. Nights they
wander in front of mirrors, room to chocolate room sulking in hot, unhandled
skin. Very, very sad indeed. Soon there are no children in the land. Everyone
lives alone and dreams of what could fill it: the space between absence.

You’re waiting for the part that saves them. Aphrodite entering the land one day.
A woman old as fire, but creaseless. Eleven fertile organs. Yes, I want to tell you
she came when the world was at the end of its rope. Laid down like a shiny fish
for the stupid ravenous men.

But she didn’t. Instead the men grew bitter. Decided to ride their Jeeps to the
hills and murder the righteous women—but wait, men could never be so brutal.
I’m sure. So maybe it was butter. The men grew butter at the center of each
sorrowed, milky heart, and sent it up the mountain to the women.

The women were perplexed (Butter?), but accepted the gift. Next morning a
truckload of them rode down to the town where men lay tugging their cocks like
umbilical roots; hoping sperm would tadpole to babies in their loins.

The women rode into town with the pounds of butter. In the streets they rubbed
it on themselves. Ecstatic men ran out and embraced them. Then they all ate
until each belly was pregnant with gratitude. Until butter sang like light on their
lips. Yes this is true. But what does it mean? Did the women finally get their
demands? Use butter as a reminder of each man’s golden promise to equality?
Or was it a trap? Did the men eat all the women and later die with cholesterol
jammed like scorn in their hearts? Who knows?

In the morning I’ll slide butter on my lover’s toast.

ORIGIN OF THE DAYS

ORIGIN OF THE DAYS

SUNDAY: day of sun, a word old as religion.
the fishermen lean their rods
among broomsticks & boat oars,
slap rough hands together & pray
nonfishermen will die.
Also: the iridescent furious & something filial.

MONDAY: from the prefix, mono. Alone. Single. One.
Also mononucleosis, after kissing a fish with one mouth.
Also: day of the moon when the O is shuffled or eclipsed.
Also: moan day as the week begins to unpeel again:
the bed moans, the bones moan.

TUESDAY: for pairs. Shoes. Feet. Legs.
For courtship: Two eyes that see differently:
Left eye says, The moon is like a skull.
Right eye says, The moon is like an egg.
Also, of course, for the number 2 day.
Also for immediacy as in, I love you 2day & 2morrow we wed.

WEDNESDAY: Behold! the wedding of the weekdays.
Tuesday stitched to Thursday.
Also derived from wedge.
As in something that serves to split, part, divide.

THURSDAY: as in thors day or thornsday
meaning the hammer god will save us from the roses,
the crude love left over from Wednesday.
Also: Thirstday. Meaning I cannot afford a drink until payday.

FRIDAY: Fishfry day. Some fish on your plate.
Breaded skin & fish heads gawking from the trash.
“Fish!” your father says, “Men fish!”
Meaning you are not a man,
if you don’t work & writing is not work.
Your tongue is a fish out of water.
You nearly die of thirst.

SATURDAY: for the god of farms & a haloed planet.
Also for evenings on the town: a lady’s satin
evening gown, the nightclub sashay.
But mostly for satellite t.v. As in a satchel full of time.
As in stars. As in saturnine. Meaning, I just sat
on the dock of the bed all day.

GOSPEL OF THE TWO SISTERS

GOSPEL OF THE TWO SISTERS

—after Tony Hoagland

Long ago two sisters lived in a small brick house beside a super highway. The
tall chatty one knew the first & last name of every animal in the galaxy. The
small quiet one could make her hair grow longer or shorter with no more than a
thought.

The pecan-colored sister said, “I wish I had the shiny exoskeleton of the
Monomorium Minimum,” & when the penny-colored sister squinted her eyes,
hair spilled across the floors & they had carpet.

But the girls had no other relatives or friends & eventually they grew sick of
each other. One day the sister with the gold hoop earrings said, the mastiff, a
large, powerful, short-haired dog is ancestor of the pit bull, the boxer, & the
Saint Bernard, but it is the ugliest breed of them all & then, after a few unusual
moments of silence, said: “Sister, do you ever wished we had a mother to braid
our hair?”

The sister with the banana-colored Bruce Lee-press on nails rolled her eyes &
though she was stone-faced, her hair began to weep & she looked suddenly
like someone who’d been walking in the rain.

I can remember how I came to believe in God. I was sitting one Sunday in the
front row listening to three dirt-old deacons sing an acappella “Amazing Grace”
when a trembling like fingers through a tub of water passed through me. I
opened my mouth & remembered the time my cousin Junebug held me in the
Sleeper Hold until I blacked out.

For many years afterward the sister that could sprint eighty miles without
stopping paced up & down the hallway waiting for the right sentence to worm
into her ear or push out of her mouth & the sister that could sleep underwater
sat in a rocking chair awaiting the same thing.

Then the sisters discovered they were pregnant & each gave birth to a boy on
the same dry September day. The sister with the tattoo of Joe Frazier bought
every bit of baby blue in the city & countryside for her son & dressed him in a
new outfit twice an hour. The sister with eyes like two bowls of black bean soup
bought every children’s book ever written, & began reading them nonstop as
soon as her son grew ears.

The sons said they just wanted music.

How often do you hear the tenderness you need to hear? I mean exactly when
you need to hear it? Is it ever before that little yolk of hurt wraps itself in layers
hard enough to break teeth?

The sister with the overbite asked the sister with bullet in her hip, “Do we even
remember how to sing? ”They had not spoken to each other in several years so
they’d forgotten the sound words made fluttering between them. Then the son
with the bucket head smiled at the son with elephant ears & the sisters’
scratchy, awkward gospel began to unravel & crawl across the room.

II. A Gram of &s

II. A Gram of &s

abductor

abductor

Because I cannot correct my name. Because the boat
docks each night in the bay & the board-

walk creaks beneath women eager to tour
their dreams. Because I cannot court
the maiden. I am the actor

without a face. In a few seconds I will doubt
your love. I will spill vodka on the birthday card,
the wedding gloves. Because I cannot cart

the goodness from door to door, nor wait on the curb
of bad intentions. Because I cannot coat

my tongue in whispers, I take to the road.

although

although

In spite of & otherwise. The way you halt.

The notwithstanding. The hula-
hoop of albeits. The way you haul
doubt around, your smile on auto-
pilot, the Halo-
maker’s laugh
thundering above you. The way you ought
to go but fail to. The oath
you were told to take. The can’ts & thou
shan’ts declared by your Lord-In-A-Toga.

The way more & more, He begins to gloat.

ambulance

ambulance

Some fool ignores the manual Accompanying his sparkling ACME

Chainsaw. Or maybe someone orders spoiled cube Steak from a diner menu.

Or can’t refuse his twelfth shot of Jim Beam. Whatever the case, those who balance

Mercy on a gurney of red & blue Light will come to the rescue. One medic able

To juggle bags of blood while his partner zigzags the fast lane. The ghosts of your grandparents will lean

Above you asking your name, but you won’t have a clue.

apothecary

apothecary

Where we’re told they
House the Panacea Theory.
Where they get inside the mystery ache
& prescribe a therapy
That needs no pray-
Er. You’d like to be indestructible like the roach
So you follow the path
To the one some say will be able to hector
Your despair. Or at least take care
Of the dry patch
Of skin around your heart.

beckoned

beckoned

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