Maybe the Saddest Thing (7 page)

where it blooms into a beautiful

exhale.     Toke two

takes the same route

but springboards

from the gut, splatters

a brain cell. & in that small

space & for nine sublime songs

sun trickles into her thoughts.

She thinks about hydroponics. About

five-gallon buckets & fertilizer.

About thousand-watt sodium vapor

lights, pruning shears &

the invisible hand. She considers

the self-regulating nature

of a marketplace. How it's all bullshit

& doesn't apply to her

life. How her insides are a kind

of marketplace. She thinks

about supply & demand &

obtrusively marked state lines.

About how people are never this way.

How our states are so rarely

pronounced. The way we're always

passing through this & that

in the supermarket or Laundromat &

without batting an eyelash.

She contemplates clam chowder.

How it costs a buck

but triggers New England

Xmas morns, gifts netting

her childhood & the bed

of a pickup truck—

a man's hand hooking her throat.

She thinks about dirt roads &

green, green grass. The number

of yards crossed

to put a ziplocked smile

in her hands. & it doesn't

matter what's bothering the woman.

It's heavy. & back in the room

her two little boys are laughing &

zooming toy cars along carpet

or coiling springy phone cords

around their necks. & good

or bad those kids are learning something.

Some states are harder to access

every year. & the mother could just

as easily be a father. & down

the block & around the corner & in

double-wides & mansions

this is happening. & these people sit

inches from your cubicle.

They teach in your schools & sing

in your choir. Make your lattes

& dental appointments. They walk

your streets & sleep in

your bed. & on & on & on. &

sometimes these people

are you.

originates from “Break Beat.” As in,

the faithful kick drum ride cymbal solo pattern

that never fails to unlock a host of holy ghosts

in any B-boy with a pulse. As in, James Brown.

Anything by James. As in, the “Amen Break”—

six seconds of a liquored-up Gospel B-side.

The break in Break Beat Break comes from you.

It is part of our collective audio unconscious.

A pause for the cause. The cause being the body's

never-ending addiction to movement, which, spun

backward on a turntable, would reveal a link

to thought. It happens on a deserted island

of a song, when a funky-ass fault line rips through

your bass-induced Buddhist empty state and you

start thinking,
Damn. What breed of human am I?

What type of man walks around with rhythm rattling

the trunk of his dome?
And wherever you are you run

to the closest piece of light-reflecting glass, say
Oh
,

that's right, I do.
You become a drum-dumb addict

and never recover. You let the Break Beat break

into your closet. Headphones on, you nod toward

high-water cords, think
Yeah, that's me.

My walk alone could make tight pants fit.

You bounce to the bathroom absentminded, brush

teeth with Break Beat Breaks. They start

looking like moldy gold fronts, and you say

Yo, this yellow is classic!
An unfilled cavity.

You'd gladly crumble a break into a blunt

wrapper, roll it up, and smoke if you could

keep that mighty Midas-high in your body

for even thirty days. Baby, when the break starts

knocking everything you think turns to music.

And dancing never felt so motherfucking right.

“Ars Poetica in the Mode of J-Live”

Composed in the mode of J-Live's “It's Like This, Anna.”

“When faced with the statement ‘there are more black men in jail than college,' I think Order of Operations”

Title remixes the following lines from Showbiz and A.G.'s “Runaway Slave.” “Nine out of ten are black on black crimes / Four out of nine were killed before their prime / The other five wanted vengeance / So now five out of five are doing a jail sentence.”

“Stakes Is High”

Title samples De La Soul's “Stakes Is High.” Epigraph samples Black Star's “Astronomy (8th Light).”

“The Light”

Title samples Common's “The Light.” Poem alludes to lines from Common's “Hungry.” “Downtown interracial lovers hold hands / I breathe heavy like an old man with a cold can of Old Style.”

“Bonita Applebum”

Title and epigraph sampled from A Tribe Called Quest's “Bonita Applebum.”

“Who in their right mind thinks they can put a stop to hip-hop, if it don't stop till I stop, and I don't stop till it stops?”

Title samples J-Live's “Longevity.”

“The Message or Public Service Announcement Trailing a Meth Lab Explosion”

Title samples Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's “The Message.”

“The Chronic”

Title samples Dr. Dre's
The Chronic
.

Thanks to the editors of the following journals where these poems appeared, sometimes in earlier forms:

Anti-
/ “The Break Beat Break,” “Self-Dialogue with Marcus”

Beloit Poetry Journal
/ “Maybe the Saddest Thing,” “The Message or Public Service Announcement Trailing a Meth Lab Explosion,” “Who in their right mind thinks they can put a stop to hip-hop, if it don't stop til I stop, and I don't stop til it stops?”

Boston Review
(Online) / “Stakes Is High”

Cave Canem XIII
/ “To You”

The Collagist
/ “The CEO of Happiness Speaks,” “To You”

Columbia Poetry Review
/ “Love Letter to Dave Chappelle”

Crab Orchard Review
/ “Some Revisions”

cream city review
/ “Love Letter to Bruce Leroy”

DIAGRAM
/ “Ars Poetica in the Mode of J-Live”

Harpur Palate
/ “Love Letter to RuPaul”

Hayden's Ferry Review
/ “Everything I Know About Jazz I Learned from Kenny G”

jubilat
/ “Love Letter to Justin Timberlake,” “Self-Dialogue Watching Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip”

Minnesota Review
/ “I'm a Sad, Sad Man. So Sad”

Missouri Review
(Online) / “Love Letter to Flavor Flav”

Muzzle
/ “Love Letter to Pam Grier”

Mythium
/ “Self-Dialogue Camping at Yellowwood State Forest,” “When faced with the statement ‘there are more black men in jail than college,' I think Order of Operations”

PANK
/ “About the Time Two Ducks Advised Me on Matters of the Flesh,” “Oblivious Spring”

Southern Indiana Review
/ “1998,” “Interrupting Aubade Ending in Epiphany,” “Self-Dialogue Staring at a Mirror”

Sou'wester
/ “Love Letter to Jim Kelly”

Vinyl Poetry
/ “I remember the scene in that movie,” “The Light,” “Something Like Sleep.”

Many thanks to D. A. Powell for selecting this book for the National Poetry Series and for his sincere, thoughtful support.

Thanks to the National Poetry Series and HarperCollins Publishers for the gift of a book. Special thanks to Michael Signorelli at Harper Perennial for his eternal patience and editorial expertise.

I owe a tremendous debt to all my teachers, especially Maurice Manning, Ross Gay, and Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Their incredible, generous teaching opened up a world for me.

Nothing but love to my friends and colleagues at Indiana University.

Endless thanks to the Fine Arts Work Center; for the time and space; for the sea; for the beautiful people you placed in my life.

For the love and support, much gratitude to Cave Canem, where many of these poems began.

I am grateful to the following teachers and friends for commenting on this book or its poems at various stages of development: Cornelius Eady, Toi Derricotte, Ed Roberson, Maura Stanton, Claudia Rankine, Colleen McElroy, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Jacob Shores-Arguello, Myron Michael Hardy, Douglas Brown, and Cheri Johnson. Thanks to francine harris for allowing me to borrow her title “I remember the scene in that movie.”

Thanks to William Paine, DeAntae Prince, Chad Anderson, Mike Rowe, and Ashley Rutter for holding me down.

Thanks to Ryan Teitman.

Thanks to Raleigh Lee and Kelly Wilson.

Thanks to Jeff Kass for the spark; to Jason Olsen for the push.

Above all, thank you to my parents and family. This book is theirs.

Marcus Wicker's poems have appeared in
Poetry
,
jubilat
,
Third Coast
,
Ninth Letter
, and
Crab Orchard Review
, among other journals. The recipient of a 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, he has also held fellowships from Cave Canem, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Indiana University, where he received his MFA. Marcus is assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana.

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Cover design/collage by Richard Ljoenes

Cover art: Bruce Lee by Chris Achilleos;

Flavor Flav illustration by Hannah Buck;

escalator by Exstream 3D/Pycomall;

all other art by iStockPhoto

MAYBE THE SADDEST THING
. Copyright © 2012 by Marcus Wicker. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-219101-4

EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780062191021

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