Black Box

Poems

Frank X Walker

• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781735224213
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Amerikanische Poesie

A powerful collection from Frank X Walker, winner of the 2005 Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry.

In this collection of sixty-eight poems, Kentucky writer Frank X Walker continues the personal poetic writing of his bestselling debut collection, Affrilachia. In Black Box, he expertly melds autobiography, political commentary, and literary allusions into a devastatingly beautiful journey through the real "Affrilachia"—a word Walker created to render visible the lives of the African Americans who call the rural and Appalachian South home. Written with passion, clarity, and emotional honesty, the poems in Black Box illuminate profound experiences at the intersection of race, love, social justice, family, identity and place.

Published in 2005 by Old Cove Press

Last Writes: A Requiem for Mamma

i.

this is the first morning i’ve run

since we gave her to the ground

this is the first dirt i’ve sprinkled

since i walked out of the church

after finding quiet in my own season of tears

i follow the creek around the road

to a cemetery

i know the peace i’m seeking

is somewhere among the granite

i know i will hajj here every morning at sunrise

to look for lessons

chiseled in stone

clyde and eliza

john and raye

russell and thelma

robert and pearl

rows and rows of tutors

hugging the edge of the cobblestone path

and each other

i have traveled

to these quiet pennsylvania hills

to get lost, to be invisible

to hide in a forest of poets

i don’t tell them

i’m here to bury a loved one

i don’t tell them

i’m here to say goodbye to my mother

ii.
a banner announcing
50% off plots purchased now	an empty vase
styrofoam crosses hidden
by crooked flags	a fallen concrete bench
every shade and texture of gray
cast in	rows and rows of granite
one day i will return here
and see nothing but	flowers

iii.

these stones, my father’s stoic cousins,

help me recall the gentle hand

he placed on my shoulder

at her homegoing

there were no words

i thought he said nothing

they say i wasn’t listening

iv.

water’s exact path and speed

are barely discernable

until it encounters a rock

only then does it write its course

choose a new path

invite this stubborn obstacle’s roughness

into a seductive duel

that makes all rocks smaller over time

v.

i put on a white cotton tee

and exit the building

the brisk morning air reminds me

to draw deep clean breaths

and begin again

when the lavender wildflowers

dance in the weeds at the edge of the road

i shorten my stride, slow to a walk and

pick up three black rocks

this will be my fourth morning

at hillview cemetery

i left my family

and a fresh grave back in kentucky

on the other side of these appalachian hills

maybe i come here out of guilt, maybe i come here

to bury something in me, to dig myself out of a hole

maybe this is as close to home as i can get

by now my mountain mornings

have fallen into a pattern

at dawn, i follow one road across two bridges

the same creek

and deposit gifts of stone into still water

in my mind, i am laying the foundation

for an underwater

pyramid

i circle each field of monuments

first at a reverential pace

then briskly like a parade march

hannah and hiram hawk, first row, second field

willard shakespeare, back row, third field

the smooth black kemp family obelisk

somewhere in the middle

the tiny apple-shaped headstones

of the three smith children

given back to earth

before breathing even five months

the youngest only nine days

i circle these stones

i gather and gift these rocks

i cross these bridges...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• KENTUCKY VS. TEXAS WESTERN, 1966
• HANDMADE
• CANNING MEMORIES
• VIEW FINDER
• KODAK MOMENT
• PHOTOSYNTHESIS
• FAMILY REUNION
• GLUTTON
• SUGAR BABIES
• TWENTY-FIRST SENTRY
• WRITES OF PASSAGE
• TOO WISE MEN
• ELVES
• ALTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
• ENOUGH
• JESUIT
• CURIOSITY
• WHY WE KEEP PLANTS
• FRONTIER SPIRIT
• CREEK PHILOSOPHY
• SALT
• LAST WORDS
• EARTHMEN
• LIL’ LEAGUE SHAMAN
• JUMPMAN
• TEED OFF
• NOSOTROS
• DOUBLE EXPOSURE
• RUSTLIN’
• WE REAL CRUNK
• BRER FOX
• COLD STILL
• WHEN I CAN’T FIND THE WORDS
• WALK WITH ME BASHŌ
• LITERARY PATRIARCH
• AFTER CHARLOTTE LEFT GEORGE ELLA’S PARTY AT HINDMAN
• MY POEMS BEEN RUNNIN’ THEY MOUTHS AGAIN
• HOW TO BURY A DEAD MAN
• WRITE LIKE A DOG
• THE DOZENS
• CROOKED LETTER CROOKED LETTER EYE HUMPBACK HUMPBACK EYE
• MEMENTO
• BOONESBOROUGH
• BEACON
• GREAT DAY IN HARLAN
• BLUES RIDGE
• METEOROLOGIST
• THEORY OF RELATIVITY
• BREAD AND FRUIT
• MASSAGE
• CAMEL CONQUERS EYE OF NEEDLE
• MS. CEGENATION
• SUNDAY MORNING
• SON RISE
• BLACK LEPRECHAUNS
• SPIT SHINE
• SILENT WITNESS
• FETAL POSITION
• HOLLOW
• LAST WRITES: A REQUIEM FOR MAMMA
• HAIKU FOR NIKKI
• LA ARQUITECTURA
• VOYEUR
• CINCINNATI
• HE WHO SLEEPS ALONE
• BLACK BOX
• ANNIVERSARY
• WINGS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR