For those of you who were at Philip Levine's reading
last night, he has a poem called "They Feed They Lion," which
I like a lot.
And I, usually I don't like poems
that gringos write about Blacks and probably vise versa.
Anyway, but I think it's a pretty fine poem.
Somehow it comes across very strongly.
And I sort of have been trying to write a sort of tribute
to it.
I use lion in here, L-I-O-N, toward the end.
It's called "Woman to Man."
And what lion means--
You might have-- lion heart, it's strong.
It's just a simple use of the word.
"Lightning hits the roof, shoves the knife,
darkness, deep in the walls.
They bleed light all over us.
And your face, the fan, folds up so I won't see how
afraid to be with me you are.
We don't mix even in bed where we keep ending up.
There's no need to hide it.
You're snow.
I'm coal.
I've got the scars to prove it.
But open your mouth.
I'll give you a taste of black you won't forget.
For a while, I'll let it make you strong.
Make your heart lion and then I'll take it back."
And this is not about Black and white.
It's about-- see, my use of men and women
is basically like dualism sort of like Daoism.
It's the opposites that I bring together.
So they're sort of symbols if you'd like to use that.
Somehow or other they're supposed to meet,
when I die probably.