Creole Confession II

Creole Confession II

I got pressured tho—
by my parents to go back
and get a fucking degree.

kingfish university—
it wasn’t no harvard but
I wasn’t quentin either.

poor quentin compson—
fucked up like bon’s boyfriend
henry sutpen the fag.

I didn’t hate the south—
I wasn’t some delta bourbon
closet case, dontchanow.
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I’d got beyond that—
that’s to my creole lover
back down in the big easy.

the things i did for love—
it wasn’t going to make things
any better or worse for wear.

I knew what negro love—
be like and from that desire
I was unlike i was before.

I’d gone voodooish down—
the startling supremecy of
creole cum had defeated me.
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I had no desire for whitey—
I was freed from that desire
by my dinge-love demeanor.

tiresome prejudice and—
the one-drop rule didn’t mean
much after a pint or two.

andre shrugged, laughed—
he joined his parents in paris
submerging himself there.

his creole family was old—
they’d been around since
before toussaint l'ouverture.
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the history of haiti and
the dominican republic made
baton rouge seem small.

but on the other hand—
the civil war and faulkner
made things bigger somehow.

I got caught in-between—
turning into a bookworm to
get outta viet nam although…

I ended up checking the box—
anyway and living down there
in tiger town going to school.
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hanging around allen hall—
doing yoknapatawpha and
dinge romance doing me in.

I was mystically stained—
tainted mysteriously with
absalom, absalom darkness.

don’t get me wrong tho—
being an english major was
still basically str8t, honey.

even after all those years—
the emancipation proclamation
still wasn’t a piece of cake.
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angel food ruled academe—
devil’s food was controversial
even despite faulkner’s nobel.

after my creole romance—
I didn’t make explanations
I tried to stick to séance.

it may sound arbitrary—
but for me as faulkner said:
“the past is never the past…”

not for quentin & shreve—
communing with henry and
his lover bon the beautiful.
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i wasn’t imitating them—
i was identifying more with
faulkner’s method of writing.

when he gave up writing—
for his publishers and critics
and just wrote for himself.

the sound and the fury—
speaking thru benjy, then
quentin & all the others.

it became his style—
described in southern review
swapping any sales pitch.
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no pretentious lying—
but just writing for himself
imagining himself as negro.

using his own words—
not for concealment nor
for reassuring banalities.

no more preening, pride—
self-glorifying, high-flown
self-justifying baloney.

no highfalutin talk—
about shame in the eyes
of nobody else by his own.
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caddy up in the tree—
her shorts dirty with mud
fucking in the creek.

death in the parlor—
coffins in bed, and dixie
deep south gone, gone.

then quentin up there—
shivering in bed with his
butchy harvard roommate.

shreve his heurtebise—
curious about the south
back thru time they go.
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negrophobia traced back—
thru sutpen dynastic history
mississippi time machine.

back thru the civil war—
back to the gates of the
sutpen plantation…

henry shooting bon—
clytie hiding him up there
in the rotting mansion attic.

delta magic realism—
long before miss borges
translated the wild palms.
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long before the boom—
campy sarduy and arenas
baroque havana, paris.

when lsu was integrated—
the huey p. long swimming
pool was closed for years.

after my creole drusilla—
I lived in tiger town with a
sleek young panther lover.

handsome infirmary waiter—
his mother the head cook
then his kid brother too.
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I was in no hurry—
dark meat cannibal boyz
blindfolded by dinge love.

and I stayed stunned—
how little I understood
outside reading faulkner.

how easily things turn out—
one thing rather than another
how accidental destiny is.

I didn’t understand anything—
knowing I could understand
nothing, nothing at all.
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but always the illusion—
as if love was understandable
surely I’d be my own man.

a useless thought tho—
how accidentally I fell for
the creole kid back then.

he wasn’t college material—
neither was I but then still
I hung around campus.

a man of no talent like me—
things seemed inescapable
but also so very accidental.
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