Poems from Blood Ties & Brown Liquor
Elegy for an Older Brother 1922
Benny’s handsome, red brown like rust on a hoe. Empty
headed cows loll in the pasture ignoring the mule’s bray.
Light shines as easily through a cicada’s husk clinging to a tree
as through a bottle of liniment or a glass of tea
on the dinner table. The hems of his overalls fray
and tickle Benny’s skin as he plows. Empty
promises from a brother, emptied simply,
without volition, friable as leaves underfoot on a fall day,
translucent as a cicada’s husk clinging to a tree.
Benny went to war across the water, over the sea.
He left himself here, on this side, on the quay.
Benny’s thin and red brown like rust on a hoe. Empty
handed, back from France, he speaks of Paree
often, though he’s been home three years come late May.
The day is empty like a cicada’s husk clinging to a tree,
empty like sound after the mule’s kick when Benny falls, free
of this place then the hum of a bee and cry of a jay.
Benny’s skin red brown like rust on a hoe is empty
as a cicada’s husk clinging to a tree.
First appeared in Ploughshares.
Nigger Street 1937
McIntosh Street the sign reads
like the apple red but not
red delicious red but red
like redeye gravy on grits
at Gus’s or red like stoplights
but they’re also green and yellow
like apples in Allen’s Market
on the corner and red like
those powders and syrups kept
behind the counter at Doc’s
pharmacy and red like
stoked coals or embers red
in Sol’s forge red and red like
the stripe on Richard’s barberpole
and the stitching around buttonholes
of overalls of those coming
to town on Saturdays and red
like the three ball solid red
in the side pocket at the Blue Moon
and red like the eyes of those
late-staying patrons early
in country churches on Sunday
mornings and in church the red
of the edge of white pages
in a black bound bible
coming together closing red
as the congregation rises.
First appeared in Pleiades.
Words Like Rivers
————1.
At bars we banter over brown liquor,
Irish Scotch Canadian—
none of these my people.
Whiskeys, brown with undertones—
reds and yellows—
arranged behind bars.
————All I want is a swallow,
————but I just broke this bottle.
————Lord all I need’s a swallow,
————but I done broke my bottle.
————Broken bottle blues—wallowing
————in them broken bottle blues.
————2.
Black men bibulous—
bilious like me belching
the morning after whiskey—
stream words like rivers
and families riven over
centuries.
————My old lady’s yellow
————and round like the moon.
————I say my lady’s full
————and yellow like the moon.
————And Lord I can’t afford her
————and that baby due in June.
————3.
Black men come and go
like clouds, lucky numbers,
and dizzy spells—
my father has always stayed.
He met his old man when he
was becoming a man at sixteen.
————I say blood ties is
————like liquor and water.
————I say blood tides rise
————with liquor and water,
————And Lord knows I want
————to shoot my father.
————4.
I have an older brother I think
of about as much as my bones—
long ago broken and mended.
Might feel them
come the pain of age
and rainy days.
————The field’s dry as a bone,
————I been missing the rain.
————Bone dry, the sun be done
————burned the corn and cane.
————Lord, if not rain then let
————me see my brother again.
Silas Wright at Age Seven 1914
Silas Wright follows a fish’s wriggle
In the shallows between reeds. He scribes the
Line in his tablet—as much pride in that line
As a man in his son. He almost giggles—
Still he goes on. The next letters come easy.
With this he’ll have more than a mark to bind.
Rambling across the page again and again
In messy rows on it flows until he
Goes a little off the page’s edge. He smiles.
He’s surprised to hear when his mouth opens—
That’s mine.
First appeared in WarpLand: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas.
Poems Online
Milledgeville Aubade 1831 and Candlefly Redux
Copyright 2007-2008 © Sean Hill. All rights reserved.