On the themes of Life Cycle, Epitaph and Envy
Life Forms
Forgive the stone but not the stick,
the fangs but not the snake.
Weigh the bite and taste the venom.
Measure each vein but not a drop of blood.
Count the hydrogen (twice), compute the oxygen?
Consider the carbon but not the copy?
Why conjugate the 3 but not the 2
and all its tenses of conspiracies,
its theories of present and past perfect,
moisture and light?
Confide in the ancestors walking away from the ocean
but not its progeny flying through endless foreplay.
Trust Eve’s woodish brown eyes
but not her unfed tears.
Forgive this impersonal death
but not its pretentious lie.
(Again) We Speak in Tongues
I’ve forgotten the humidity of old languages.
New books have dried
and gone out of print.
Nouns like breast and mouth
escape down a receding road,
searching for fluid grammar.
Some evenings I remember the syntax
of moisture and melody, thrust and thirst.
The sound of silk
floating toward a bedroom floor.
Your sigh running sticky
into the fibers of clean, fertile sheets.
Last night I dreamed in French; realized
I don’t know how to translate your kiss,
even if I had a reason to try.
Muse (Transposing)
For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how
we are delighted, and how we may triumph
is never new, it must be heard.
James Baldwin
You were with Monk tempting
all those black keys
in a semi-dark chocolate room, 13
round tables full of liquor.
You were with Trane, backlit glistening
in the shadows, (bleeding the edge)
shedding thick, dissonant
scales.
You were Blue Note and Black Saint
in vinyl groove goodness,
cotton-spinning hollers and harmonics
into Black art for waiting ears.
You are the moment when a C minor
chord resolves (slow
ly)
into sweat, smoke,
caramelized satisfaction.
You were with Baldwin in a Paris
flat, Sonny’s piano cooking
cornbread and collards.
Now, you are with me in the glare
of an Earl Grey morning.
White-empty walls, blank page, 26
letters full of risk.
Author Biography
Le Hinton is the author of four poetry collections including, most recently, The God of Our Dreams (Iris G. Press, 2010). His work has been published in Gargoyle, Little Patuxent Review, haggard and halloo, Watershed, Fox Chase Review and in the poetry anthology/cookbook, Cooking Up South. His poem “Epidemic” was the winner of the Baltimore Review’s 2013 Winter Issue contest. In 2012, his poem, “Our Ballpark,” was incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread and installed at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as part of the Poetry Paths project. He is the founder and chief editor of the poetry journal Fledgling Rag.