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Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. Epigraph
  6. WIND IN A BOX
  7. WOOFER (WHEN I CONSIDER THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN)
  8. TALK
  9. BLACK HISTORY
  10. ROOT
  11. I. MJ FAN LETTER
  12. II. A FEW RUMORS CONCERNING MR. POTATO HEAD
  13. III. OMNIPOP, 1982
  14. IV. RSVP
  15. THE BLUE BARAKA
  16. THE BLUE BORGES
  17. THE BLUE BOWIE
  18. THE BLUE ETHERIDGE
  19. HARRYETTE MULLEN LECTURE ON THE AMERICAN DREAM
  20. ORACLE
  21. MAUSOLEUM
  22. IT’S A SMALL WORLD
  23. I. New Orleans Piano Genius
  24. THE BLUE KOOL
  25. THE BLUE MELVIN
  26. THE BLUE SEUSS
  27. THE BLUE STROM
  28. PINE
  29. A GIRL IN THE WOODS
  30. THRESHOLD
  31. THE WHALE
  32. VARIATION ON A BLACK CINEMA TREASURE: BROKEN EARTH
  33. VARIATION ON A BLACK CINEMA TREASURE: BOOGIE WOOGIE BLUES
  34. TOUR DAUFUSKIE
  35. A POSTCARD FROM OKEMAH
  36. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  37. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  38. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  39. A SMALL NOVEL
  40. WIND IN A BOX - —after Lorca
  41. WIND IN A BOX
  42. WIND IN A BOX
  43. WIND IN A BOX
  44. IMAGINARY POEMS FOR THE OLD-FASHIONED FUTURE
  45. EVERYBODY GOES TO HEAVEN
  46. IT CAN’T BE GOOD SITTING AROUND IMAGINING YOUR DEATH
  47. THE HERITAGE CHANNEL
  48. WIND IN A BOX
  49. NOTES
  50. PENGUIN POETS

men who do not wound her, men she does not wound
herself for, and mother love. Unable to shed the old skin
and stand, I stand here in the hour of my hours alive.

These words want to answer your questions.
These words want to stave off your suffering,
but cannot. I leave them to you. Enough sky

and a trail. Wood and enough metal for machines.
Tell me, what am I going to do when I’m dead?
Let my shadow linger against the earth, protect my children.

IMAGINARY POEMS FOR THE OLD-FASHIONED FUTURE

IMAGINARY POEMS FOR THE OLD-FASHIONED FUTURE

1. Sooner or later I’m going to have to talk about the white house and how the men there don’t seem to like big butt women.

2. There will also be a praise poem for the smartest, strongest, and/or fastest human alive should he or she live in a region with no reporters, printing presses, indoor plumbing etc.

3. And further additional efforts to demonstrate the ways my mind transforms day to day happenings into stuff. (parts 1-30)

5. Written in seat 9A between Chicago and Traverse City. Little shacks with stoves on the big iced lake. (Fish cakes in the stoves.)

6. An “I love big” button somewhere. (“I love you, Portly, don’t let ’em take me . . .”)

7. Part I: “Viscous Circus,” Part II: “Victory Circle,” Part III: “Vicious Service,” and if there’s a Part IV: “Very Surly.”

8. “Dwell,” “Furl,” maybe. Girlish laughter in the pipes. (Keep talking, we know the same people.)

9. “The Short Age” followed by “The Us Age” followed by “The Bond Age” followed by “The Volt (or Re-volt) Age” followed by “Dose Ages,” “Mile Ages,” and “Out Ages.” (See journal appendix.)

10. Definitions of Divine Imaging, Speed Lightning, and Gerimantic Racial Demography. (Pronunciations of logistic as lowgetstick; stroll as scroll)

11. Half a dozen one hundred line attempts at resolving the poem: “I come from a long line of . . .”

12. A tercet rhyming bric-a-brac, brick a black, and poppa bag.

EVERYBODY GOES TO HEAVEN

EVERYBODY GOES TO HEAVEN