Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Also by Phillip B. Williams
- Epigraph
- Final First Poem
- Of the Question of Self and How It Never Quite Gets Answered
- Final Poem for the White Students Next Door Who Say “Nigga” When Singing Along to Rap Songs Loud Enough for Me to Hear
- Final Poem as Request for Maskot for White-Ran Journal, or “They Sure Do Love Them Some Black Pain.”
- Order of Events
- Final Poem for a King
- And Now Upon My Head the Crown
- Tabula Rasa
- Final Poem for War During War
- Interlude: Sasa and Zamani
- Final Poem for Amiri Baraka
- The Flying African
- Mushmouf’s Maybe-Crown
- Final Poem for the Crow
- Final Poem for the “Black Body”
- January 1, 2018
- Final Poem as Tidalectic Elegy
- Herald
- The Field
- Hunter
- Final Poem for the Deer
- Final Poem as Nocturne into Aubade, or Sonrise
- Final Poem for the Biography of a Black Man as Animal and His Enforced Embrace of a Human Praxis
- Black Joy
- Judgment
- Final Poem for the Famous Poet
- January 28, 1918
- Final Poem for the Bullet
- “Ne Me Quitte Pas”: I Put a Spell on You: Nina Simone: 1965
- Final Poem for the Moon
- The Void
- Final Poem for My Father Misnamed in My Mouth
- Final Poem for the “Field of Poetry”
- The Asphodel
- Shame
- Final Poem for Grandma Elizabeth’s Cancer
- Final Poem of Persona
- Mastery
- In the Beginning
- NOTES
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
MUSHMOUF’S MAYBE-CROWN
1.
Manacled Man mangled, moreover made
menace-masked, maybe molded moribund,
mostly manipulated. Magnanimously marred,
mired mush-mouthed. Moor moored more.
Manacled Man meanly measured,
man-monkey mixed midst murky mirrors.
’Merica’s Man-Man, minstrel-married
mophead, magnum man, mama’s mine.
Mite-munched, Manacled Man mimics
martyr movements, moshes
minus music, muses: “Murder
made manifestations:
my madness my master.”
2.
My madness my master.
Many mistake my mood manhandling my mode.
Maybe me making minimalist mumblings
means my matriculation—man made monster—
moves merrily, mystifying monogamy.
Mainly me mime monsters, malicing
municipalities. Me make maintainable
moans. Me menu. Me metaphor.
Me madmen’s monitored mission.
Merchants masturbate
midst my mouth. Me might munch,
make men mate ’mongst my molars.
My mausoleum multiplies.
3.
My mausoleum multiplies
immemorial. Me misery, impossible
emperor, am maybe-me mid moonlight’s
improvisations. Me immediate. Might’s
emissary. Mayhem maims my museum.
Me improvise minutes.
Masticate memory. Mortuary
mammal. Mythic, melisma-minded,
memory makes me meet myself
minus mink, mirth, magic.
Myself’s mess makes me
’member muzzle mincing mouth.
Maybe murder make my mouth mine.
4.
Maybe murder make my mouth mine.
Me embellish mercy, mercy midmorning.
Mourning masquerades mercy, impostor. Mercy mouths
impaled miracles. Miracles midwife my mind.
My mind implies miracles, emancipating me.
Impressive! Me embroider impeccable embellishments.
Maybe murder make my mouth mine?
Me impress embroidered emblems ’mongst my muscles.
Me emaciated emergency, am embargoed myth.
My embargoed myth emaciated imagined emergencies.
Implicated empty embraces. Emotions imitate monsters.
Emotions must make music. Me my monster, am mine,
mine, mine. Implosive, me emperor, am imprecise empire.
Maybe murder make my mouths mines.
Final Poem for the Crow
FINAL POEM FOR THE CROW
1.
Dear Crow,
You owed an apology from the state
of poetry. We done did you a dirty disservice.
Poor thing, you must be exhausted notating
power lines with your negressive wings.
You been jigaboo and Negress, coon-
crooning ace boon koon in a slave woman’s
womb. Li’l you can do, do, do. You po’ Jim’s
last name for the last time. Punctuating coffles,
prescribing collards while coughing up 4D hair
from church pews. Shea butter make you shine
like so? We done made you a coward in the corn, Raven n’em
cousin, a lyncher’s hunched witness. Your shadow
a gate to hell and I’m ’bout to hop on through,
just to get my pen far on ’way from you!