Fantasia for the Man in Blue

Tommye Blount

• Publisher: Four Way Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781945588495
• eBook ISBN: 9781945588655
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

In his debut collection Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount orchestrates a chorus of distinct, unforgettable voices that speak to the experience of the black, queer body as a site of desire and violence. A black man's late-night encounter with a police officer—the titular "man in blue"—becomes an extended meditation on a dangerous erotic fantasy. The late Luther Vandross, resurrected here in a suite of poems, addresses the contradiction between his public persona and a life spent largely in the closet: "It's a calling, this hunger / to sing for a love I'm too ashamed to want for myself." In "Aaron McKinney Cleans His Magnum," the convicted killer imagines the barrel of the gun he used to bludgeon Matthew Shepard as an "infant's small mouth" as well as the "sad calculator" that was "built to subtract from and divide a town." In these and other poems, Blount viscerally captures the experience of the "other" and locates us squarely within these personae.

I

How Sweet this Great Land

The white girl is arrested

by joy—or is it hunger?

Whatever is there bubbling

in her perfect little body,

she has been taught

to subdue it. Crossed,

her arms make an X

like a contract’s signature; her wrists

rest against her skirt’s pleats.

Almost as if I were a lecherous savage

and not the coheir of this

moment, my nose brushes

the photograph—what must her hands

smell like? Not an odd question

when I consider the dangers

of hunger. Ah yes, there it is—the scent

too loud for even history to shush:

sweet relish, sharp chives, crush of dill—

sandwiched under her nails; a sandwich

some Black child’s mother made. How sweet

this great land of nostalgia—

when there were fewer

houses than there were trees;

safe. She looks as if she might hum;

so happy to be in the cool shade

of the man swinging from his branch.

Americana Elegy

Less boy, more band,

more twang, less bling,

less hip-hop, on brand,

more opry, less bang,

less cornrows, more corn-

field, spiritual, less house,

more plantation, a shorn

image, more downhome,

more green, more blue

sky, more bluegrass,

less rhythm, less

blues, more church pew,

more cross, less hood,

more hood, more white

washed denim, less back-

lash, more goldenrod,

less ballad, more lyric,

less gold grills, less rap

sheet, more sheet music,

less trap beat, less trap

beat, more poplar,

less popular, a more authentic timbre,

more big game, more field

dressing, more lake,

more master—control.

My God, Lick Him Clean

After “Portrait of Christopher D. Fisher, Fourth Reich Skinhead, 1995,”

Peter Williams

“Who is this,” you asked

yourself, then swiped right

across the white boy’s face.

And the rest was history.

It’s immense—larger than Williams’ canvas;

larger than the skinned head of that framed white boy

staring back. I’m talking an old big boat,

a Portuguese schooner named Arrogante.

It’s an old story: the ship trucked

its swiped cargo all the way from Sierra Leone

only to be captured in Montego Bay.

In the hull of the ship, a boy

whose skin and hair were brighter than any

the sailors had ever seen before. Out of curiosity or love

of ritual from the old country, they held him down;

pulled his head back

—the neck opened faster than his wrists or ankles.

If you were there, you would have mistaken his begging

for song, you would have heard the splash

of their laughter. You should have seen

the head, its brilliant blond halo, put out in the Atlantic.

Oh, you too would have found yourself in the hull of the ship;

hungry. Bad horse meat, you would have said.

You’d never be able to get the blond strand

out of your teeth. Refuse to eat and the men

would have made sure you never hungered

again. As a charm or votive to God, the men,

before eating it, held that boy’s heart in their hands

the way Williams’ white boy has yours now. Now, don’t go worrying

your pretty little head, all of that stuff happened a long time ago.

A long time ago, after the white boys in blue

beat Rodney King, I was there watching

when the Black boys dragged Reginald Denny

from his truck; my face was cast in the television set;

my face, an American intersection, the black sun

of my face burned into four Black sons;

An old story: once you fell for a blond boy

with black suns for eyes; fell to your knees,

put him in your mouth. It was immense,

you could not breathe. He held your head

down there for so long. Oh, he coul...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Fantasia for the Man in Blue
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author