Fred Sanford's on at 12 & I'm standing in the express lane (cash only) about to buy Head & Shoulders the white people shampoo, no one knows what I am. My name could be Lamont. George Clinton wears colors like Toucan Sam, the Froot Loop pelican. Follow your nose, he says. But I have no nose, no mouth, so you tell me what's good, what's god, what's funky. When I stop by McDonalds for a cheeseburger, no one suspects what I am. I smile at Ronald's poster, perpetual grin behind the pissed-off, fly-girl cashier I love. Where are my goddamn fries? Ain't I American? I never say, Niggaz in my poems. My ancestors didn't emigrate. Why would anyone leave their native land? I'm thinking about shooting some hoop later on. I'll dunk on everyone of those niggaz. They have no idea what I am. I might be the next Jordan god. They don't know if Toni Morrison is a woman or a man. Michael Jackson is the biggest name in showbiz. Mamma se Mamma sa mamma ku sa, sang the Bushmen in Africa. I'll buy a dimebag after the game, me & Jody. He says, Fuck them white people at work, Man. He was an All-American in high school. He's cool, but he don't know what I am, & so what. Fred Sanford's on in a few & I got the dandruff-free head & shoulders of white people & a cheeseburger belly & a Thriller CD & Nike high tops & slavery's dead & the TV's my daddy-- You big Dummy! Fred tells Lamont.
From Muscular Music by Terrance Hayes, published by Tia Chucha Press. Copyright © 1999 by Terrance Hayes. Reprinted by permission of Terrance Hayes. All rights reserved.
Someone was saying something about shadows covering the field, about how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning and the morning goes. Someone was saying how the wind dies down but comes back, how shells are the coffins of wind but the weather continues. It was a long night and someone said something about the moon shedding its white on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead but more of the same. Someone mentioned a city she had been in before the war, a room with two candles against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching. We began to believe the night would not end. Someone was saying the music was over and no one had noticed. Then someone said something about the planets, about the stars, how small they were, how far away.
From The Late Hour by Mark Strand, published by Atheneum. Copyright © 1973 by Mark Strand. Used with permission.
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
From Collected Poems by Mark Strand. Copyright © 2014 by Mark Strand. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.