Tyrone Williams
BIZARRE FRUIT
White noise
exploding ache
and then, no aching
as I try to raise an arm, and fail,
utter a word, or sound, and fail,
civil war
of a body dreaming two dreams,
only one of which is called
a black man awake in America,
the other, America
itself, which a white man,
sitting alone in the bleachers
around a deserted diamond,
might mistake
for a rope in the back of a jeep
or a lone elm tree in foul
territory, or worse,
all three.
DORIAN BLUE
Through the hard set mouth of the window
rush hours honking in tongues—
soothjamming jazz ventriloquists.
Set in its ways—wood
hammered into a wall—
the dumb pane frowns
down on the pile-up:
photos, letters, roaches, empties, etc.
It stares down the grace of the answering machine
blinking like a turn signal.
Glassy-eyed, I stumble to my feet,
head straight for the squawking clarity
of nothing but this work of art.
I know how to read this window.
I know I’m supposed to lunge for its throat
(having glimpsed the white flash of your car—
or was that lightning?) and wind up
eating concrete if I’m lucky and the sudden
shards don’t fillet my face on impact.
Yeah. Right.
Who do you take me for?
You must think I’m out of my mind
or something. Well? Say something!
Tyrone Williams (1954-2024) was a poet, teacher and a cultural critic. He was the author of numerous chapbooks, critical essays and several books of poetry, including c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), The Hero Project of the Century (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), Howell (2011) and As Iz (2018). Williams was co-editor of Inciting Poetics: Thinking and Writing Poetry; and contributing editor for Long News: In the Short Century and Three Fold, among others. Tyrone grew up in Detroit, with undergraduate degree and Ph.D from Wayne State University. He was Professor Emerita at Xavier University in Cincinnati (1983-2023). In 2023, he joined SUNY-Buffalo faculty as David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters.
Both poems were previously published in Long News: In the Short Century, Issue #1, 1991.
“Dorian Blue,” was also published in Adventures of Pi, Dos Madres Press, 2011.