[previous] [next] [more by this author] [home]
 
Boy Breaking Glass
Gwendolyn Brooks

To Marc Crawford
From Whom the Commission

Whose broken window is a cry of art
(success, that winks aware
as elegance, as a treasonable faith)
is raw: is sonic: is old-eyed premiˆre.
Our beautiful flaw and terrible ornament.
Our barbarous and metal little man.

``I shall create! If not a note, a hole.
If not an overture, a desecration.''

Full of pepper and light
and Salt and night and cargoes.

``Don't go down the plank
if you see there's no extension.
Each to his grief, each to
his loneliness and fidgety revenge.

Nobody knew where I was and now I am no longer there.''

The only sanity is a cup of tea.
The music is in minors.

Each one other
is having different weather.
``It was you, it was you who threw away my name!
And this is everything I have for me.''

Who has not Congress, lobster, love, luau,
the Regency Room, the Statue of Liberty,
runs. A sloppy amalgamation.
A mistake.
A cliff.
A hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun.

 
[previous] [next] [more by this author] [home]