Carl Van Vechten Scrapbook Photo (Yale)
JABEZ: A PORTRAIT
for Coleman Dowell
__________________
There were lots—Of stories about Jabez But I ignored them After I grew up—Went to Old Miss for college I forgot about it But I couldn’t quite—Leave them alone for some strange Reason or other I was 20 years old—When my parents died making Me heir to the estate
Real estate agents—Wanted to subdivide it Into apartment tracks It was then that I—Was confronted once again With the Jabez story There was a certain—Brutality about it I’d always ignored it A perversity—That made a direct gazing Unendurable
Daily existence—Without thinking about him Jabez my kid brother And so I preferred—The racial vagaries of Whitey obliqueness This obliqueness was—Like having a Third Eye Opening up things An eyepiece showing—Peripheral narration of Negro mysteries
Town gossip tidbits—Dark encounters with my past Upbringing secrets Words of self-loathing—Ignorant Southern stories Miscegenal hate I wasn’t perfect—I’d been corrupted by the South’s vice viscerally I didn’t believe—It was demoralizing Distasteful of me Jabez’s presence—How denigrating was it A young dinge brother?
There were plenty of—Skeletons in my closet I know that for sure I’d discovered at—Ole Miss that I was indeed Homosexual I had my own thoughts—And fears about being gay Returning back home Sewing dragon teeth—An army of worries sprung From the land of Thebes
Jabez was waiting—In the old mansion for me Naked in the bedroom How could he have known—Sixteen years old half-brother I was a size queen? He was so handsome—Abnormally, obscenely Endowed like a horse More like a pony—Standing nervously nude His skin all twitchy
Like a thoroughbred—At the starting gate of some Kentucky Blue Grass racetrack How could he have known—How much Jabez was too much Flesh for me back then? He was asserting—His well-hung birthright to me His dinge virility The house and the land—Has spawned us both as brothers Now what should we do?
I wrenched a muscle—I painfully sprained my neck Going down on him Jabez had coffee-skin—Smooth mulatto manhood legs Wrapped around my neck His palms were pinkish—His black water-moccasin Uncut head pink too He had licorice loins—Sticky and cheesy penis Fondue of the godz
I was his fag brother—Down there on my nelly knees He was my Master My time to be Slave—No more unrequited love Jabez my new lover All my past affairs—At Ole Miss, the Big Easy Long gone, forgotten Thanks to the good Lord—Salvation had come my way Jabez my jizzy joy!!!
His merciless eyes—His sleek, svelte black silhouette My streamlined Mandingo I no longer felt—Stunted and useless but Instead born-again, baby Jabez was intense—Androgynous Black Angel Endowed by Africa “Jeez, are you alright?”—I’d whisper to him as he Sank six feet under
Sinking his thick root—Our gnarly Family Tree Deep down in the Earth Black and blue veiny—Wiggling down my throat His genealogy groaning Contemptuously—He said, “Of course, I’m Okay, take it sucker.” He was the real man—Not me his older brother The inheritance was his
The deed and the will—I switched it all over to him My mulatto kid brother His teenage young face—Hardly hermaphroditic Creaming his brains out He was Mandingo man—Twice the man I’d ever be Three times what I’d ever get “S’what you came for?”—Jabez said, looking away Was he sick of me?
Jabez was hopelessly—Hetero and Str8t with his Cute girlfriend, Yolanda I realized then that—Too much flesh & Jabez Had come my way home “Too much flesh,” I said—Looking at Jabez in bed I couldn’t help thinking “Throw out the lifeline!”—Surely that’s all I could hear Jabez just smiled at me
I heard the Church bells—Ringing in my ears & bats Up there in my belfry I felt so downright dirty—So faggoty and shamefully Knowing what I knew Coming back home again—Was my wedding night with My dinge bridegroom brother But he was already married— Yolanda was already pregnant
I was already an Exile
The men folk in town—Nodded knowingly at me “Miss High and Mighty” Knowing that Jabez—Was just too much flesh for me Me and my college boy ways Mississippi had its own way—For Tallahatchie boyz like Jabez It was time for me to go
for Coleman Dowell
__________________
There were lots—Of stories about Jabez But I ignored them After I grew up—Went to Old Miss for college I forgot about it But I couldn’t quite—Leave them alone for some strange Reason or other I was 20 years old—When my parents died making Me heir to the estate
Real estate agents—Wanted to subdivide it Into apartment tracks It was then that I—Was confronted once again With the Jabez story There was a certain—Brutality about it I’d always ignored it A perversity—That made a direct gazing Unendurable
Daily existence—Without thinking about him Jabez my kid brother And so I preferred—The racial vagaries of Whitey obliqueness This obliqueness was—Like having a Third Eye Opening up things An eyepiece showing—Peripheral narration of Negro mysteries
Town gossip tidbits—Dark encounters with my past Upbringing secrets Words of self-loathing—Ignorant Southern stories Miscegenal hate I wasn’t perfect—I’d been corrupted by the South’s vice viscerally I didn’t believe—It was demoralizing Distasteful of me Jabez’s presence—How denigrating was it A young dinge brother?
There were plenty of—Skeletons in my closet I know that for sure I’d discovered at—Ole Miss that I was indeed Homosexual I had my own thoughts—And fears about being gay Returning back home Sewing dragon teeth—An army of worries sprung From the land of Thebes
Jabez was waiting—In the old mansion for me Naked in the bedroom How could he have known—Sixteen years old half-brother I was a size queen? He was so handsome—Abnormally, obscenely Endowed like a horse More like a pony—Standing nervously nude His skin all twitchy
Like a thoroughbred—At the starting gate of some Kentucky Blue Grass racetrack How could he have known—How much Jabez was too much Flesh for me back then? He was asserting—His well-hung birthright to me His dinge virility The house and the land—Has spawned us both as brothers Now what should we do?
I wrenched a muscle—I painfully sprained my neck Going down on him Jabez had coffee-skin—Smooth mulatto manhood legs Wrapped around my neck His palms were pinkish—His black water-moccasin Uncut head pink too He had licorice loins—Sticky and cheesy penis Fondue of the godz
I was his fag brother—Down there on my nelly knees He was my Master My time to be Slave—No more unrequited love Jabez my new lover All my past affairs—At Ole Miss, the Big Easy Long gone, forgotten Thanks to the good Lord—Salvation had come my way Jabez my jizzy joy!!!
His merciless eyes—His sleek, svelte black silhouette My streamlined Mandingo I no longer felt—Stunted and useless but Instead born-again, baby Jabez was intense—Androgynous Black Angel Endowed by Africa “Jeez, are you alright?”—I’d whisper to him as he Sank six feet under
Sinking his thick root—Our gnarly Family Tree Deep down in the Earth Black and blue veiny—Wiggling down my throat His genealogy groaning Contemptuously—He said, “Of course, I’m Okay, take it sucker.” He was the real man—Not me his older brother The inheritance was his
The deed and the will—I switched it all over to him My mulatto kid brother His teenage young face—Hardly hermaphroditic Creaming his brains out He was Mandingo man—Twice the man I’d ever be Three times what I’d ever get “S’what you came for?”—Jabez said, looking away Was he sick of me?
Jabez was hopelessly—Hetero and Str8t with his Cute girlfriend, Yolanda I realized then that—Too much flesh & Jabez Had come my way home “Too much flesh,” I said—Looking at Jabez in bed I couldn’t help thinking “Throw out the lifeline!”—Surely that’s all I could hear Jabez just smiled at me
I heard the Church bells—Ringing in my ears & bats Up there in my belfry I felt so downright dirty—So faggoty and shamefully Knowing what I knew Coming back home again—Was my wedding night with My dinge bridegroom brother But he was already married— Yolanda was already pregnant
I was already an Exile
The men folk in town—Nodded knowingly at me “Miss High and Mighty” Knowing that Jabez—Was just too much flesh for me Me and my college boy ways Mississippi had its own way—For Tallahatchie boyz like Jabez It was time for me to go
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