Tuesday, 8 January 2019

Tuesday Poem: "American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison”]" by Terrance Hayes


I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.

I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat

Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.

I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold

While your better selves watch from the bleachers.

I make you both gym & crow here. As the crow

You undergo a beautiful catharsis trapped one night

In the shadows of the gym. As the gym, the feel of crow-

Shit dropping to your floors is not unlike the stars

Falling from the pep rally posters on your walls.

I make you a box of darkness with a bird in its heart.

Voltas of acoustics, instinct & metaphor. It is not enough

To love you. It is not enough to want you destroyed.

by Terrance Hayes


For more information about poet, Terrance Hayes, see:


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