Mr. Scarecrow

Mr. Scarecrow
_______________________

“Oh, Mr. Scarecrow—
Stop waving your arms about
Like a foreigner!”
—Richard Wright, Haiku #12
This Other World

Exiled to Paris—
Diaspora faraway France
Many black writers

Alex Baldwin and—
Chester Himes, Richard Wright
Getting the fuck out

Expatriate blacks—
Intelligentsia gone
Like Arthur Rimbaud

Did Richard Wright ditch—
His protest Scarecrow novel
For haiku instead?
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“A bloody knife blade—
Is being licked by a cat
At hog-killing time”
—Richard Wright, Haiku #30
This Other World

Bigger has Gus down—
On the floor in “Native Son”
With his sharp knife out

“T-turn m-m-m-me l-loose”—
Gus gurgles, struggling with him
“Make me,” Bigger says.

“Please, Bigger,” Gus says—
Bigger holds the open blade
An inch from Gus’ lips
_____________________

“Lick it,” Bigger says—
“Lick it, you cocksuckin queer!
C’mon, I’ll kill you!”

Gus looks round the room—
Rolling his eyes for some help
But nobody’s there

Gus’s lips quiver—
Tears gushing outta his eyes
His lips kiss the knife
_____________________

Bigger slices it—
Gus screams bloody murder
His new forked-tongue bleeds

Bigger’s white hatred—
Projected on another
Man’s cocksucking tongue

Unclean faggy lips—
Kiss Bigger’s sharp switchblade knife
The screaming begins
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Everybody’s str8t—
Protest Novel just the same
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

Young gay blacks enslaved—
By their own Negro people
Down South and Up North

Toni Robinson—
And Eldridge Cleaver wanna
Put Gay Souls On Ice
________________________

Baldwin maneuvers—
Toward “erotic confusion”
Replacing Wright’s hate

Like Nugent, he moves—
Toward prescient rendering
Gay complexities

“Giovanni’s Room”—
Enacting brotherly love
Far beyond Wright’s dreams