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Fragments from a Collaboration Violence, declared H. Rap Brown, is American as apple pie It sure enough gets old the way we do things In the subtle and savage light
In the old days they would have sent you to America The one called Grasshopper raises wild things—sparrows, hares, you name it; they've got a muleskinner here can make one sit down and talk Then there's the wren nesting in the razor wire In the Red Hat building Old Sparky gathers webs; swallows multiply in the Red Hat building Pop named every single one of his roses, his company keepers; Sissy is Mr. Redwine's catahoula; the greenhouse dog is Fancy Mr. Redwine is the coffin builder; Grasshopper his apprentice Built a replica of Old Sparky for the prison museum International Harvester provided the generator for the original drove it around on a flatbed He bottle-fed the colt Lil Tête, and rehabilitated Ginger whose backend is sunken still That man, Nolan said, of Ginger's last keeper Didn't need no dog Smurf is photographed with Daisy, she's just a pup But she's a filia brazilia as draft horse to regular horse, the very core of horseness Tiger Lady, Storm, Kilo, Thunder, Josie, Duke, Bonnie, Blaze, Dolly, Grubby, Jack, Buster, Tracker If they can get outside the fence they still have to beat the dogs No one's beat the dogs yet, said Castlebury And Nolan is the Buddha Maybe Maybe not His mansuetude manifest No one here for walking on the grass The windows here whiten in vertical increments There is no emptiness Only a silence that does not go in reverse About the thickness of a pair of panties, Your Honor She was a slab of a woman The radio calls it predatory selection, as in white sharks' preference for seals Her husband, he was a wonderful, wonderful man That one, he should have never been born Some run to type Her inamorato, he was a wonderful, wonderful man That one, he was an inveterate pig I tell you what he knows, he knows le ciel est par-dessus le toit; he knows NOTHING AND NO ONE IS BAD FOREVER On furlough contemplate the grasses don't blink don't miss nothing He would Žnish his pie later, he said, in all sincerity over his last meal poboy fries drink Mitterrand last dined on ortolons in the tradition of French kings Some have crawfish with the warden; some dine on oxygen In some prisons the last cigarette is no longer permitted O exceptions Don't ask There will come a time that he will move; he will have to move, and it is his movement that will be his undoing, said Castlebury Difficult to look at the woman much less photograph and not ask about a scar that runs from one ear to the opposing breast whose babies died of smoke inhalation Or the gasoline-wrecked face of the green-eyed black man her grease-splotched back and shoulders Or the tattooed likeness of dead Elena on her sister's forearm The old dirty-word tattoos are blotted over by a blur of birds The wrist lashed with paint chips once everything else removed from her cell Or the one who ate the tv antenna Her tattooed ear; the totaled eyes of the woman who no longer knows a soul living on the other side Or the guileless face of the one whose boyfriend beat her everlastingly senseless After all, you are not Gramsci, she said Qui facit per alium facit per se Sounds dirty doesn't it I wanted to offer you the bread of charity, mercy, etc. When she said she would write the book he said, What direction Take this down, then burn it my faulty eschatology The lovebugs keep hitting the windshield like something electric Found: his nineteen-year-old nuts in a flour bag in the riverHow can that be shriven Found: fourth body of a woman in a barrel Bullets from a sawed-off gun fan out faster 170 tablets of Ecstasy than those from unmodified guns Found: an aerosol canister up her you know what How can that be shriven Water with a stomach wound is fatal Well what do you know The former governor has employed Von Bulow's lawyer En Louisiane people are bummed about the gag order The pretty one from Natchitoches, her son is three; she has not seen him for a year and a half Found: on a wall in solitary drawn by a young one The pretty one, that does hair, her son is two, she's a natural lifer He was pronounced dead at 8:06 pm; she was pronounced dead at 8:16 pm; one solitary day after their 14th wedding anniversary I say it gets old the way we do things The sword has broken over your head Defend me if you can unfeignedly love, pledge mercy, etc. After all, you are not Mandelstam For whatever it's worth 135,000 take guns to school every day Wonderful news Sissy had seven little catahoulas Mr. Redwine is in ecstasyPoster, women's prison: That's all he said, the warden told the camera An eye for an eye it says in Exodus Whose eye? An eye The fences lined with summer poinsettias Foot for foot it says; BE JUST—the inscription made by the harrow on the backfat and bone What they held in common, their poverty No condoms for the heart Over 6 trillion served; over 2 million behind bars Wherever you find knots of men —C.D. WRIGHT |