IN A CLASS WITH BARAKA

[The wake for Amiri Baraka is being held today at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, or New Ark as Amiri wrote it. I wrote the poem below in 1979, but didn't get around to publishing it till I included it in my 1998 collection, VEXT.]


IN A CLASS WITH BARAKA

In the end then to a room
Half hangs outside
The hall trashed overheated
Pupils smart
Squirm in dust
Ashes add up under chairs
Motes streaming
Cling to blinking lids
An odor of investment accrues
To this room


English beats against the glass
Shadowing through the panes
Upon the table obstructing
Paths of passing planes the capital's
Accumulation of images in the mute
Wavering grain is something we dissect
Practicing between ourselves the
Removal of harmful forms


Head at the window
Scarring the glass
Meaning glazes over
The watching White House
Beating back American
Artist in residence in the new
Department
Of corrections
Planes the blades
Of our speech
Asks examples


Mine is of a piece
With a room at an end
That hangs outside
In essential
Popular air


Mine is of a flight that exclaims


Fingers against the glass
I check my watch
Prepare to give examples