Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - The Glory Gets

the glory gets WESLEYAN POETRY the glory gets HONORE FANONNE JEFFERS Wesleyan University Press | Middletown, Connecticut Wesleyan University Press Middletown CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress 2015 Honore Fanonne Jeffers All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill Typeset in Calluna Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [Poetry. Selections] The glory gets / Honore Fanonne Jeffers. pages cm. (Wesleyan Poetry series) Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8195-7542-5 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8195-7543-2 (ebook) I. Title. PS3560.E365A6 2015 811'54dc23 2014043920 This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. 5 4 3 2 1 Cover illustrations: Woman: If I stand in my window, by upfromsumdirt. Swirled fabric pattern Ka2shka | Dreamstime.com.

FOR MISS LUCILLE Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,she raises her voice in the public square PROVERBS 1:20 CONTENTS fear SINGING COUNTER after Hayes and Mary Turner, Valdosta, Georgia, May 1918 The rope, the tree, the tired comparison to Jesus on the Cross. Avoid the tropes. The metaphors. This stands for that, but if no one black ever says that, how would someone white learn this? How would any of us? I desire the surprise of intellectual, fractured lyrics. Yet here I am, refusing refusal. Calling the mob out by name.

Not even safely as with an anonymous Southbut uncomfortably. As with white man by white man. (Im scared just saying it.) And locating each in case you have trouble. (My People are exceedingly patient.) There: the expected poor, drunk one, neck darkened in the field. Hes a nice clich. But not the next: a churchgoer and father.

A man who believes in Christ and the love of a virtuous woman who fries chicken for picnics and stirs up lemon cakes. After the lynching he will continue to believe and live his life in a good fashion. Beside him, his little boy, smiling, his teeth only beginning to loosen as he moves from baby to heir. He will grow, remember his fathers beauty, the godly meat in that chest. In the back of this crowd, a young scholar home from college, brought by his friends who wanted to see if what their science professor said was true, that niggers did not feel pain the same as better men. Too old for the rowdy festival, someones grandfather remains at home.

An educated-in-the-North patrician who owns the newspaper that later will run the story. A savage raised his voice to a man. (One tenor singing counter to the other.) Or, he asked for his pay on Friday. Or, he did not dance when desired. Or, he did not step off the sidewalk for a lady. (Should I explain the Southern Anthropological Equation of lady plus race?) Her flowered honor required protecting.

The imperative of her womanhood: ax and gasoline and black blood. Pig-like screams of what is not a man to the mob, but a side of meat. What never was in this place. I will admit these things in my contemporary time, but not out loud. My white friends and colleagues (who are not My People) would feel indicted by my saying, I look at you and yes,Im frightened.I wonder if you would have sliced off my toe as I hung there, roasting overthe slowest firethe mob could build. And later, killed my pregnant wife, the babystill inside her. Im a sinner.

I fear what I crave. Or love. Part of the falling, the romance, is a quandary keeping the present here. The past there. A liquid-filled jar of sex in a general store: before that day, its name was Hayes. He made the mistake of calling to her.

Mary answered, her hand resting on her belly. DRAFT OF AN EX-COLORED LETTER SENT HOME FROM THE POST-RACE WAR FRONT A soldier in Baldwins Country & I cant even dance I say you cant beat me Each day I get up to face fear I made money & fixed my credit I escaped you dear my shame Yet how to escape white space Its impossible to return to your embrace to rough-trading sweet vowels to brothers on corners visiting my dreams I hear your whistles smell collard greens on suburban wind I love you with deception Ill be back Ill lift as I climb My remorse goes deep to the whiteness in me my bones Forgive me You dont know the trouble I see I cant tell these folks the truth They dont understand me & they dont try Or try too hard I want my birthright a mutual sight my own ancient rime In the bright trenches of the office I open my mouth but choke on bottled water Last week I returned for your wake but left before the Home-Going I miss our surviving dark ones The familiar is trivial & profound The strange a charge in my blood I clutch & shriek at these strangers I left drums for I sing B.B.s mean old song I END THE WINTER Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I end the winter, discontented and frightened an evil child facing the coming blues, the weight of glory, of expectation. This never-ending war. Every blade I sharpen is sure of its intentions. This war and that every one God has commanded. Im speaking a true word when its true that any bone can explain why Samson carried it into anothers hinterland.

Them bones, hambones, my-Lord-what-a-morning trombones oh please, come with me to smite the weak. I know that I know what God knows, because He lives in my scripture-singing self, and since I command the babble stirring the bricks of their tower, I am made a godly God and can piss oceans to replace dead mens salt but if I were human, I would know this: the soul has a body of its own and will walk left or right. The souls flesh will turn, its sweetness no longer nectar but unbearable kindred. This war today: dry bones. APOLOGIA FOR SOMETHING Fall in love with someones poetry and thus, fall in love with that someone. How many times can I explain this? Im running out of water.

Im not a child anymore. Im talking to you. Im talking to myself, repeating a harpys creation, the chatter of disappointed women. Child, get yourself together. Im closing a book as my fathers door was closed, as he locked himself in a small room. This is not a metaphor.

It was nearly a cell. How did I know? Daily, I sneaked in there. He was gone. The times he was present, maybe he was locked inside. I cant say for sure. I can say what he forbade me: his presence.

A knock at his black mans hour. He had a soul. I know that. It was lined with the approximation of tears. It was a hunger for scabs and scars. For life to finally be over.

He couldnt take his children and wife with him. He wrote so many poems. I believe Ive read them all. I read so many others. Ive tapped the covers, lifted a weight to my ear, hoping it would grow light in my hand. Congratulated the catharsis, but catharsis isnt healing and my love isnt love.

Its something else Ill get it together and Ill reopen the book. Youll reread this poem and fall in love with me. Drive someplace Im not. Cry one, two, three tears. MY FATHER AS WALTER LEE YOUNGER Here I am a giantsurrounded by ants! Ants whocant even understand what it is the giant is talking about. LORRAINE HANSBERRY He is the giant. We are the ants.

He wears the pants. Remember, he wears the pants. We are the ants. We wear the smiles of women in training. Explaining to him that we love him. Smiling when now, the weather changes our sunny explanations when his rage hails down.