Body: mismanaged carapace of was. You’d be better as a constellation, ignoring light years of interstellar bric-a-brac. You could be Hammer Muted by Shirt Sleeve or Sleep Trip-Wired with Trumpets. If I could remake you, I’d shape the maker’s image. Adam’s apple like a fistful of Tuesdays. No more chin music. Once new eyes adjusted, […]
I had to be introduced to The Man. He was around before 1977. I just couldn’t see him, like air or welfare. My mother told me: No matter what you do, the man is going to try and keep you down. I already knew no one was keeping me down. So when teacher asked me […]
When I was twelve, a wiser sixteen- year-old told me: If you really want to get that, homeboy, you best be bringing Al Green’s Greatest Hits. And if you ain’t in the mix by song five, either she’s dyking it or you need to re-evaluate your sexual orientation. Know what I’m saying? With those words, […]
from Looking for The Cantos in Texas Great afro, huge hands, guitarus: mountains here and there from hardwood and devil’s dust. You strung other things— colors thumb-picked from a dragonfly’s blink. Moons cemented in the sunk of a girl’s Sunday dreams. Only on Monday. Free-falling from planes grabbing fistfuls of air must have done something. […]
from Looking for The Cantos in Texas Attic in smoky light, caution tape for the myopic, Brazos Exterminators! William S. Burroughs! Hear me. I can’t find The Cantos in the brazen of palmetto exoskeletons and lost limbs, dust reconstituting between wood panel and drywall. A window air-conditioner beats, whirs: exhalation of not-so-conditioned air and the […]
(c.1896-1956) from Looking for The Cantos in Texas There’s jake leg blues in this box. There’s carnal scribbling: a constellation of bug prints in a gypsy’s biography—loose-leaf, crayon etchings and the sun shining on my back door some day. Tommy Johnson, forget about air. Ignore the wind, shimmying with seeds and hair. But […]
Adrian Matejka talks about his attempt to marry aspects of his favorite rap music with aspects of his favorite poetry.
Adrian Matejka, a Cave Canem Fellow and author of The Devil’s Garden, talks about the genesis of his poem Battle Rhyme.