By Kevin Young
Crashing
again—Basquiat
sends fenders
& letters headlong
into each other
the future. Fusion.
AAAAAAAAAAA.
Big Bang. The Big
Apple, Atom’s
behind him—
no sirens
in sight. His career
of careening
since—at six—
playing stickball
a car stole
his spleen. Blind
sided. Move
along folks—nothing
to see here. Driven,
does two Caddys
colliding, biting
the dust he’s begun
to snort. Hit
& run. Red
Cross—the pill-pale
ambulance, inside
out, he hitched
to the hospital.
Joy ride. Hot
wired. O the rush
before the wreck—
each Cadillac,
a Titanic,
an iceberg that’s met
its match—cabin
flooded
like an engine,
drawing even
dark Shine
from below deck.
FLATS FIX. Chop
shop. Body work
while-u-wait. In situ
the spleen
or lien, anterior view—
removed. Given
Gray’s Anatomy
by his mother for recovery—
151. Reflexion of spleen
turned forwards
& to the right, like
pages of a book—
Basquiat pulled
into orbit
with tide, the moon
gold as a tooth,
a hubcap gleaming,
gleaned—Shine
swimming for land,
somewhere solid
to spin his own obit.
Kevin Young, "Cadillac Moon" from To Repel Ghosts. Copyright © 2001 by Kevin Young. Reprinted with the permission of Zoland Books/Steerforth Press.
Source: To Repel Ghosts (Zoland Books, 2001)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
I am Trying to Break Your Heart
I am hoping
to hang your head
on my wall
in shame—
the slightest taxidermy
thrills me. Fish
forever leaping
on the living-room wall—
paperweights made
from skulls
of small animals.
I want to wear
your smile on my sleeve
& break
your heart like a horse
or its leg. Weeks of being
bucked off, then
all...
Negative
Wake to find everything black
what was white, all the vice
versa—white maids on TV, black
sitcoms that star white dwarfs
cute as pearl buttons. Black Presidents,
Black Houses. White horse
candidates. All bleach burns
clothes black. Drive roads
white as you are, white songs
on the radio stolen...
More Poems about Nature
Another Antipastoral
I want to put down what the mountain has awakened.
My mouthful of grass.
My curious tale. I want to stand still but find myself moved patch by patch.
There's a bleat in my throat. Words fail me here. Can you understand? I...
Whenever you see a tree
Think
how many long years
this tree waited as a seed
for an animal or bird or wind or rain
to maybe carry it to maybe the right spot
where again it waited months for seasons to change
until time and temperature were fine enough to...
More Poems about Social Commentaries
Grain Memory
A wishbone branch falls
from my Grandma Thelma’s oak
for me.
What do you know about magic? e1 asks.
E bends e old body down, turns
the wishbone branch into
a cross, places it around my neck.
I am strapped at the Black River’s right shoulder,
remembering my...
Another Antipastoral
I want to put down what the mountain has awakened.
My mouthful of grass.
My curious tale. I want to stand still but find myself moved patch by patch.
There's a bleat in my throat. Words fail me here. Can you understand? I...