Faggot As when a word lifts unexpectedly ________________________or implodes— you had meant to say maelstrom but now interposed between you and the open world, male storm (no one would think to give a sex to it, so were unready)—that was its arrival, _____________________________fire that didn’t act as one sheet but gathered separately as flames around some common matter: call it a heart, make this a Catholic scene, only the thorns are missing unless they lie, like everything else, beneath this oil-slicked water now risen, now ignited, as we are ignited—like faggots thrown at the sinner’s feet as he shakes, as he shouts It was only for love, as when all words abandon . . . __________________________________ Rickey Laurentiis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the recipient of several fellowships, including the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and [...]
This entry is part of a series, In a Dark Room» , In a Dark Room» It was late in the smoke-painted bar, a quarter past the blue hour, when The Interviewer pulled The Poet into an even darker room. And in the dark of that darkness, came the first question. Tell me, said the Interviewer, where do your poems live? Maybe where all poems live: in doubt, shame, fear, prayer and ecstasy. Maybe they live in the part of me that still sees the Rickey, pubescent, gap-toothed, shy to smile, shy to speak, not man-enough, not black-enough, desiring, but who thought to be desired was outside him. Or that they live in this Rickey, older, who smiles, speaks, is man-enough, whatever “man” means, is black-enough, whatever “black” means, desires, apparently is desired, is desired. Wherever the overlap is is where Rickey (his poems) lives. But poems also move. The [...]