My Seventy-Fifth Birthday |
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by Basil King
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My Seventy-Fifth Birthday
| Fifty years ago Leroi Jones Wrote a poem For a 25-year-old King’s Twenty-fifth birthday Seventy-five is three Quarters of a hundred Memories reach out And clothe The food I eat The bed I sleep in Seventy-five is three Quarters of a hundred Seventy-five is three Quarters of a hundred Multiply The seven of spades With the seven of clubs And augment kindness If it fails Begin again
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Having weathered The narrative I expose The whereabouts Of what Andrew Crozier called Me “The man who Was never there” I crossed the ocean And I couldn’t chuck bricks And was made a Jigger Man A flowerpot maker Flying an airplane In the Jungle I carved frames Box jockey Short order cook Mezzotint maker For Sergeant Major Lou Byerow Jingle bells Chess sets For Charles Olson Deliver the stones And get the corrections For ABC CBS and NBC Franz Kline Nijinsky Houdini Shackleton “I have a biography” The Brooklyn Museum wrote to William Hershel And being a scholar He wanted to know Why does Basil King Ask Where does the light Come from And I answered I know The empty canvas Has no favorite Painter
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I have heard the whispers and know Paranoia is never a friend It takes patience and belief To watch the clouds Move behind the trees Blue the color of love Insists light defines The teacher who taught me I am one of seven A scent of mischief Arrests the roof And in order Of content The house Secures a tapestry A coming together Of disparate things Clean plates trowels Something unknown Turns the rain Yesterday I used Grey Today I used Orange And a color I am still Mixing refers to a space That says There is always time A long time ago In a boarding school We called the “HOME” We crocheted and played Hospital I climbed trees and grew Sunflowers I was seven years old and I wrote letters To my mother who was in hospital And every weekend me and my father Went to the pictures THE BLACK SWAN and a biography Of the composer Handel My autobiography isn’t finished And I’m not sure it ever will be But in the meantime I take no pleasure in someone else’s pain Bygone catastrophes something lost Minorities are congratulated and then abused Listen to their voices and you will hear What they don’t tell is I eat where and whenever I can I knock on strangers’ doors I am Anne Frank Remember there were two families in the attic Without them there may never have been a dairy Climb the stairs and witness Those who did the killing And those who were killed Brothers and sisters check your DNA Summarize your fears Hate has festered for centuries To know what to tell and who to tell it to The oven baked bread and bricks and pottery The oven baked the baker’s imagination The retrogrades dismissal Evolved before you or I were born
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It’s been twenty years since I painted Playing cards Ninety-nine paintings Aces through 7’s Now I am painting “The Face Cards” Having internalized the father And wondered why didn’t my mother Name me Jack Martha knows I am one of seven She knows every one of us asks Which one is going to do the division Prime the canvas take out the garbage Answer the people who say they don’t know Where the paintings come from They come from dark spots External haunts Icons When I put my head down Seven beating hearts Ask Who is going to paint cook supper Write and dispel the confusion It has taken us A lifetime To take a fork in the road And find a table Wide enough to accommodate 8,9, and 10 Muscles and triangles The physical and the abstract And we are seven
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Basil King May 30, 2010 Born – Basil Hershel Cohen May 30, 1935 |
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