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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: HAYES, TERRANCE Matches Found: 128 Hayes, Terrance Poet's Biography 128 poems available by this author A. MACHINE Poem Text First Line: Hey, I am learning what it means to ride condemned. Last Line: When you get this message, will you sigh, my lover is gone Subject(s): Life ABDUCTOR Poem Text First Line: Because I cannot correct my name. Because the boat Subject(s): Doubt; Love; Marriage; Skepticism; Weddings; Husbands; Wives ALTER CALL First Line: To ask it once & for all Last Line: Of imperfection, lord. %& cast them away ALTHOUGH First Line: In spite of & otherwise. The way you halt Last Line: The way more & more, he begins to gloat AMBULANCE Poem Text First Line: Some fool ignores the manual Last Line: Above you asking your name, but you won't have a clue Subject(s): Ambulances AMBULANCE First Line: Some fool ignores the manual Last Line: Above you asking your name, but you won't have a clue ANCHOR HEAD Poem Text First Line: Because keyless and clueless, Last Line: And then calling out no more APOTHECARY First Line: Where we're told they %house the panacea theory Last Line: Of the dry patch %of skin around your heart ARS POETICA # 789 First Line: My daddies have voices Last Line: But their snores make the wind chimes tremble AT PEGASUS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: They are like those crazy women Last Line: Wet & holy in its mouth Subject(s): Youth; Love - Beginnings; Desire AT PEGASUS First Line: They are like those crazy women Last Line: Wet & holy in its mouth AUTUMN First Line: Because the leaves ache Last Line: You, my backward-doubling little self, %awaken me BALLAD OF BULLETHEAD First Line: I was born in metal Last Line: Is a boy %who's dizzy BECKONED Poem Text First Line: Has your memory ever been Subject(s): Memory; Past BLACKBIRD (CALLING MY BROTHER TO HEAR ROBERTA) First Line: She was the blackbird in our house Last Line: The wing of my silent tongue BLUE BORGES First Line: Pessadilla, ephialtes, incubus, alp Last Line: All things long in their being to persist BLUE TERRANCE First Line: I loved bruce lee and a ten dollar ukulele Last Line: A gullet piping steam, the air inside a fist BLUES PROCESSION First Line: Come tomorrow, our car had to be bright Last Line: Slide down the glass like storm clouds %bound to wreck her somewhere in the week BOWLING First Line: He got home late & ling- %ered in the kitchen & when I heard his wing Last Line: Yes, I threw the soup on him, your honor. Then I threw the bowl BOXCAR Poem Text First Line: Black as snow & ice as cool / miles stood horn-handed while Subject(s): Play BOXCAR First Line: Black as snow & ice as cool / miles stood horn-handed while Last Line: These boxcars pullin & pullin & pullin past Subject(s): Play BREATHE First Line: When my great-great-grandfather caesar plops out of the ether Last Line: Until he can find a room to rent at an affordable rate BROKEN DANGERFIELD NEWBY VILLANELLE First Line: My voice made them shiver Last Line: But I sensed my own beauty; %what I could not remember, I felt BULLETHEAD Recitation by Author BUTTER First Line: The same old dream: women of the globe on a love strike. They want equal Last Line: In the morning I'll slide butter on my lover's toast BUY ONE, GET ONE First Line: The old white man reading a box of corn flakes is like me Last Line: Everything has its price; nearly everything has been bought CANDIED YAMS' Poem Text First Line: 3 boiled whole yams unpeeled and sliced, Last Line: I want to make magic / magic Subject(s): Food & Eating CARELESS First Line: Dear self, yesterday after class Last Line: As you. It was your father. Couldn't have been anyone else CARP POEM Poem Text First Line: After I have parked below the spray paint caked in the granite Last Line: Packed so close they might have eaten each other had there been nothing else to eat Subject(s): Prisons & Prisoners; African Americans; Youth; Poetry & Poets; Convicts; Negroes; American Blacks CLARINET First Line: I am sometimes the clarinet Last Line: One of the branches %leaning above you COCKTAILS WITH ORPHEUS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: After dark, the bar full of women part of me loves—the part that stood Last Line: Of pleas released, but I am a black wound, what's left of the deed Subject(s): Orpheus CORPORAL First Line: Best known in youth for its punishment, its poor Last Line: The skin's burning color. %the skull's charred parlor DERRICK POEM (THE LOST WORLD) Poem Text First Line: I take my $, buy a pair of very bright kicks for the game Last Line: "even when he said, “we should go to the movies sometime,"" Subject(s): Shoes; African Americans; Boots; Sneakers; Shoemakers; Negroes; American Blacks DERRICK POEM (THE LOST WORLD) First Line: I take my $, buy a pair of very bright kicks for the game Last Line: Even when he said, we should go to the movies sometime & stopped DIEGO RIVERA - DAMA DE BLANCO, 1939 First Line: Cobwebs & mandrake. Bride holding the skull Last Line: Beauty he swallows then returns, ruins then restores EMCEE First Line: You get to wear triple x Last Line: You want [beatbox beatbox beatbox] %breathlessness EVENING First Line: For now I am in love with the navy blue Last Line: Of the blouse. You are a map without boundaries, %wife. You are a river without end EXAMPLE First Line: An instance made of little moment. Huh? Consider the lamp Last Line: & you will get a window. What? But beware: no one will catch you when you leap FIRE First Line: It was not smoke rising from the mouth Last Line: & as long as she wept, there was food FISH HEAD FOR KATRINA Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The mouth is where the dead who are not dead Last Line: The mouth is a flooded machine Subject(s): Hurricane Katrina (2005) FLORIDA First Line: In the black-tiled room Last Line: Too many miles from this state %shaped like a leg gnawed up to the knee FOR PAUL ROBESON First Line: They have never heard a black man speak Last Line: They have never heard the sound when a river breaks free FOR ROBERT HAYDEN First Line: Did your father come home after fighting Last Line: Was he a blackjack smashed against your throat? FRIDAY POEM First Line: I ascend a few steps behind the women Last Line: Without water, finds a woman bathing in a creek GANDER First Line: When the girl near Last Line: Ask. It must be the book: humbert's danger- %ous poison passion. Dear you mutter. Dear. Dear. O dear GENERAL First Line: The eager- %ness of a man the war doesn't near Last Line: Of light on a blade? Into a gnarl & glare? GOD IS AN AMERICAN Poem Text First Line: I still love words. When we make love in the morning, Last Line: Alright. It aches like an open book. It makes it difficult to live Subject(s): Beauty GOLIATH POEM First Line: I am always sorry for the big ape falling Last Line: And the moon curved above us like an ear Variant Title(s): The Sound Of A Big Ma Subject(s): Memory GOSPEL OF THE TWO SISTERS First Line: Long ago two sisters lived in a small brick house beside a super highway. The Last Line: Scratchy, awkward gospel began to unravel & crawl across the room GULF STREAM'/FOUR STUDIES First Line: Then my dream went black as a sea without borders Last Line: Who does not ask for help, %but awaits the tide's eulogy GUN/WOMAN/SON First Line: His mother stands & pries the slug Last Line: Saying, daddy, tell me again how I was born HATHAWAY First Line: You close your eyes Last Line: When the words run out HEARTTHROB First Line: The music went out of my mother's heart Last Line: My mother told him. She'd heard that was where my father lived HERE AND HERE AND HERE THE EARTH PANTS Last Line: Of the poem that binds, of the poem that binds us HEROIC SESTINA First Line: And a ten gallon hat on his head %when he galloped into the heart Last Line: And my mother with a broken shoe, a heart you left unhealed HIP LOGIC First Line: Some shoot the soft bloodless Last Line: Sperm hop in the trenches %blessed with an ageless memory HOWYOUBEENS First Line: Mostly people talk to people, standing Last Line: Wasting it. Dumb. Bitching about the wind HOWYOUBEENS' Poem Text First Line: Mostly people talk to people, holding Last Line: Wasting it. Dumb. Whining about the wind Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary I WANT TO BE FAT Last Line: At center of it %this heart. This heart. This heart JUMPSCHOOL: POEM FOR MY BROTHER IN AIR First Line: Today there is no war Last Line: As an eighth note drifting against the sky LADY SINGS THE BLUES First Line: Satin luscious, amber beauty center-stage Last Line: My father's in a distant place LATE; FOR MY MOTHER First Line: This late, no one is clean Last Line: But I want to touch her now, as I did not then LIGHTHEAD'S GUIDE TO ADDICTION Recitation by Author First Line: And cif you are addicted to sleep, a bay of fresh coffee may help Subject(s): Addictions LIGHTHEAD'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state, Last Line: Out on a limb, there’s a chance you’ll fall in your sleep LINER NOTES TO AN IMAGINARY PLAYLIST Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Wind solo' by the felonious monks Subject(s): Music & Musicians LORDE First Line: Walking our boundaries Last Line: Who are you %without expectation MASCULINE First Line: The word some duded claim came Last Line: Streak in your father's work belt. The gram of vein & muscle %that tipped babylon's scale MAUSOLEUM First Line: Well, let's get right to it: my parents live in a mausoleum. It's never too Last Line: Cars. Like a house with a television in every room MIDNIGHT First Line: You call %minutes before the train Last Line: Myself for months %before now MORNING POEM First Line: After charlie rose where a man claimed proof Last Line: I stole off my father who smoked kools on the steps back %home, and grew too fat to wear it MOTHER TO SON First Line: He was whole evenings Last Line: As I fanned my dress %until the water dried MR. T- First Line: A man made of scrap muscle & the steam Last Line: That fat hollow medallion like the sun on a leash MYSTIC BOUNCE Poem Text First Line: Even if you love the racket of ascension, Last Line: "a hillside."" that's why I'm not a christian" Subject(s): Religion; Theology NEW FOLK Poem Text First Line: I said folk was dressed in blues but hairier and hemped. Last Line: "til it stilled. ""when the moon's black,"" I said. ""be faithful" Subject(s): African Americans - Song & Music NOIR: ORPHEUS First Line: Liberty avenue emptied long ago Last Line: Love should save us %but it won't NUCLEAR First Line: How to make a nation say, uncle Last Line: About the city as the sky becomes a caul- %dron. The bones burn clean ODE TO BALTHUS Poem Text First Line: Old dirty, dirty. Old dirty, dirty handful of skin & motion Subject(s): Sex; Virginity; Vestals ODE TO BIG TREND Poem Text First Line: Pretty soon the negroes were looking to get paid. Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; African Americans; Work; Workers; Negroes; American Blacks ODE TO TONE First Line: My child is old as stone Last Line: This morning I fill my mouth with dirt %from a hill gorged with bones OMNIPOP, 1982 First Line: Little things like pants get a mind of their own. They get their legs and Last Line: Sound a doll makes. The world needs miniature pants. Bless the little %pants ORIGIN OF THE DAYS First Line: Sunday: day of sun, a word old as religion Last Line: As in stars. As in saturnine. Meaning, I just sat %on the dock of the bed all day OVERSEAS First Line: I traveled so far west it became east again, over Last Line: Of an ink on a white kimono in a skin I couldn't erase PITTSBURGH First Line: Is a fat lady jabbering at the bus stop Last Line: My stout rambling metaphor? PITTSBURGH IS' Poem Text First Line: A large woman gabbing at the bus stop. Last Line: My stout, blabbering metaphor Subject(s): Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania POET DYING AT THE WINDOW First Line: I have a goddamn for every blade Last Line: Flakes / covering your tracks as you go POSTCARD FROM OKEMAH First Line: Turned from the camera's eye, hovering Last Line: The ones who are hung or the ones who hang PREFACE First Line: Well, ain't your mouth a pretty little pacemaker Last Line: Because, baby, I've got at least an acre %of desires you can reap REPAID First Line: By the seventeenth year of mortgage your eyes are pried Last Line: Before the mule throws you from the ride' SAINTLY First Line: What the bible said. A satin %cassock. A tail Last Line: Pin pecks for eyes. No last %minute please to be added to the list SALAMI (A MANIFESTO) First Line: My mother works third shift in a men's prison Last Line: I'll be by after breakfast SEABROOKS First Line: I began %with dark water, %ripples made Last Line: We began with the broken song %gurgling from a brook SEGREGATE First Line: On the first morning of school there is a young tree Last Line: But clearly the cool-blooded amphibian-american does not agree SHAFRO Poem Text First Line: Now that my afro's as big as shaft's Last Line: I grow beautiful as the theatre dims Subject(s): Shaft (fictional Character); African Americans; Negroes; American Blacks SHAFRO First Line: Now that my afro's as big as shaft's Last Line: I grow beautiful as the theatre dims SHAFT & THE ENCHANTED SHOE FACTORY OR ARS POETICA: THE EPIC QUEST FOR First Line: Shoeboxes line the walls like books Last Line: Theme music blasts as shaft walks out into a ticker tape of snow SHAKUR Recitation by Author Subject(s): Shakur, Topac (1971-1996) SMALL NOVEL First Line: The protagonist spends the first twenty pages Last Line: And ends: 'there was nothing I could do about race' SOME LUMINOUS DISTRESS First Line: Not even tomorrow morning can save us Last Line: Where ever I'm going, I've been SOMETHING FOR MARVIN First Line: Used to be %that skull cap Last Line: In the record's groove SONNET First Line: We sliced the watermelon into smiles Last Line: We sliced the watermelon into smiles SQUAWK First Line: Under the spell %of the doctor's polka-dot sweater Last Line: The road runner was running our of road. %the black man ruffled & squawked with rage STICK ELEGY Poem Text First Line: The dead were still singing turn the lights down low Last Line: Into trend's shadow because our money always followed Subject(s): Friendship; Death; Dead, The STILL MUSIC First Line: How long til this water evaporates? Last Line: Linger like a music in your throat, %vanish like water under heat STUPOR First Line: Because sooner or later it will all go sour Last Line: Of cold water pour- %ing from her bathroom spigot, slap you awake like a strap SUMMER First Line: In oakland a white girl sings Last Line: O summer, let me spread my wings TENDERNESS First Line: It does not stop. It does not stop until you are safely home Last Line: So I let it come. And it does not move from me THE BLUE TERRANCE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: If you subtract the minor losses, Last Line: Yes, I’m lonesome and I’m blue Subject(s): Solitude THE GOLDEN SHOVEL Poem Text Last Line: Of hunger, we end too soon Subject(s): Family Life; Youth; Relatives THE SAME CITY Recitation by Author THINGS-NO-ONE-KNOWS BLUES First Line: I filed for bankruptcy in the borough of luxury Last Line: Monster. Occasionally death %calls me collect TOENAILS First Line: They can be shellacked to shine like satin Last Line: Is written. Or each toe is a window his nose %is pressed into TOUCH Poem Text First Line: We made our own laws. Last Line: For collision. We called it touch Subject(s): Games; Youth; Recreation; Pastimes; Amusements TOUCH First Line: We made our own lawns %I want to be a hawk Last Line: They did not use, a name %for collision. We called it touch WHAT I AM Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Fred sanford's on at 12 Last Line: Fred tells lamont Subject(s): African Americans; Negroes; American Blacks WHAT I AM First Line: Fred sanford's on at 12 Last Line: You big dummy! %fred tells lamont WHEN THE NEIGHBORS FIGHT First Line: The trumpet's mouth is apology Last Line: There is the good pain %of your bite WILLIAM H. JOHNSON First Line: Forgive this letter covered in paint Last Line: I cannot tell you who I am, but who I ain't WIND IN A BOX Poem Text First Line: This ink. This name. This blood. This blunder. Last Line: In the body. This wind in the blood Subject(s): Touch (sense); Self WOMAN WALKING ON THE ROAD First Line: We were in the car. We were heading home when christian Last Line: My car sat in the lot disconnected, unopened, unmoved WOOFER (WHEN I CONSIDER THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN) Poem Text First Line: When I consider the much discussed dilemma Last Line: Linked by a blood filled baton in one great historical relay Subject(s): African Americans; Negroes; American Blacks YUMMY SUITE; BLUES First Line: Sun out like a floodlight Last Line: Does it hush? YUMMY SUITE; BLUES FOR SHAVON First Line: Shouldna been playin %on that corner anyway Last Line: Lord he shouldna been there, baby YUMMY SUITE; DERRICK & CRAGG First Line: Do you think of shavon %when they take you to the underpass Last Line: Do you think of shavon YUMMY SUITE; FROM MICAIAH First Line: Everybody asks if I knew you Last Line: He was throwing things at them or setting them on fire YUMMY SUITE; FROM REEN First Line: Yummy's mother, lorina called him Last Line: Hope they don't call me YUMMY SUITE; JANIE FIELDS First Line: At the corner of 95th street Last Line: Returning his shirt to the drawer YUMMY SUITE; LITTLE RON First Line: What exactly did he look like? Last Line: I wasn't cryin if that's what you want to know YUMMY SUITE; LOCAL GROCER First Line: Not catching the little crook on aisle four Last Line: He knows the price %of everything |
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