So this is a letter that I got.
I got two more.
This is a letter I got from Walpole prison, prison
in Massachusetts.
And I think I'll read the letter,
and then I'll turn around and do the poem,
because it's broken up.
Sitting in my dimly lit cell after having my possessions
confiscated from me, my loneliness
demanded that I disrupt my neighbor requesting something
to read, which, in itself, is a task in my repressive housing
condition.
To receive anything from your neighbor,
one must attach a solid object to a line, torn sheet,
and take direct aim at the cell behind him
and hope the line is close enough to the two-inch opening
at the bottom of your door to retract his line
and whatever else that might be attached
to it, which, in this instance, happens
to have been a poem by you.
I was real impressed with your writing--
how you was able to relate misfortunate and articulate it
on paper.
I also enjoy writing--
not particularly poetry-- but at times
I find myself needing to express what I am feeling.
And having no other outlet other than my pen,
I create stories that have a favorable scenario, which,
most of the time, helps ease my pain.
At this time, I am indigent and have no one that
would purchase poetry for me.
If possible, please send me poetry.
Sitting in my dimly lit cell after having all my possessions
confiscated from me.
In some places a man owns only what he can see.
He can own a pummeled wall, a sheet
laundered until it is blade, a letter groaning
at its folds and folds.
He could possess a hoard slab of bread,
an hoarded slab of bread, neon wads of chewed gum,
one curling-cornered Polaroid of a small brown boy,
pages from an old magazine scarred with semen, water,
and soup.
If he's lucky, he also owns a squat jar of oil
he uses to grease his scalp and shine his dusty knees.
Even these are too many things.
What is owned by some men is owned by other men.
Some men are owned.
My loneliness demanded that I disrupt my neighbor.
How to tell if a Black man is lonely--
he stumbles into a lyric and never comes out.
Requesting something to read.
The words he didn't know came back to him in dreams,
letters tumbled and coaxed.
If he remembered the sounds, he clicked and hissed them
in his sleep, desperate to cram the wayward rhythms into place.
When he awoke, his mouth was ripe and wounded--
and always gaping wide, wrestling
with another song he could not sing,
which, in itself, is a task in my repressive housing
condition.
Sometimes he forgets where he is.
He opens his eyes and thinks, I'll have my coffee first.
But then the smell of other men rides in on a rancid wave
and dizzies him.
All those caged bodies rising at once.
The terrible lies, they slept inside, escaping their bodies
like smoke.
To receive anything from your neighbor,
one must attach a solid object to a line-torn sheet
and take direct aim at the cell behind him
and hope and hope the line is close
enough to the two-inch opening at the bottom of your door
to retract his line and whatever else that might be attached
to it, which, in this instance, happens
to have been a poem by you.
He used to think that poetry was all
about the longing for a woman--
trying to put into pretty words the good wrongs
her body could do--
or maybe about purple fields of flowers in places
he would never find himself.
No one had told him that a line could actually
speak his name out loud--
that his sins had shape and heft and could line up
nice on paper just like that woman.
I was real impressed with your writing--
how you was able to relate misfortunate and articulate it
on paper.
It took him hours sometimes to scrawl
that list of all the ways he didn't fit;
turns he took that lead him into alleys; the woman
he-- the women he regretted leaving,
loving; that thing his mama said he didn't listen to.
Sometimes it took him hours, but then he
had a list of what he'd done.
And when he looked at where he was, it all made sense.
He always heard men asking, why?
why?
And now he knew.
I also enjoy writing--
not particularly poetry-- but at times
I find myself needing to express what I am feeling.
What he is feeling--
a cracked aura, deep blue at 3:00 PM on Tuesdays,
like drinking a really bitter beer,
mad at that roach on his wall, lonely as a motherfucker,
like writing the word "headstrong,"
like any damned day in Brooklyn, like killing someone,
like killing someone else, like walking out,
like looking straight on at somebody, like saying,
damn you to hell, like crying into the cap of his hands--
in other words, like a poem.
And having no other outlet other than my pen,
I create stories that have a favorable scenario, which most
of the time helps ease my pain.
He thinks he'd be good in the movies
because he writes himself into a laughter he can't stop,
he rides a horse but doesn't shoot a gun,
he dances with a satin-wrapped woman in a pouring rain
and doesn't get wet, he writes himself a home
where he goes from room to room and screeches just to hear
nobody answer.
He thinks he'd be that good at life so he writes himself one.
He always looks so sharp when he steps inside it.
And if it's bathed in blue, he steps outside again--
rewrites the color.
At this time I am indigent.
I am nothing but my swallow and have no one that
would purchase poetry for me.
If possible, please-- he's writing a face that he has
conjured, a Black girl who looks like his sister and he wishes
she could see him--
send me poetry.