Enward

by Ron Silliman

l

So much depends
upon

the first violin
glazed by

three oboes
beside

the white
cellist

When the moon hits your brain
and it’s starting to rain
that’s free–market land use:
whose father is that, asleep on the flattened cardboard box under
the convention center awning, blue paper Covid mask gently
stirring with his breath? In Guerneville (silent e), under the
bridge, the war in Nam is lost every night. Social distancing at the
crack park. George Washington sent the sick all the way to Yellow
Springs to keep the troops at the Forge from getting infected.
Durante sings Dylan.

2

Racism predates capitalism, but capital — like the church — puts it
to work.

My grandfather’s great grandfather signs ’is name with an X. Out
of what bog on which island & how begot & by whom? You
meaning me? Like a bet I made, that I’d see 45. Not him, the year.
Scream or screen, wch one? Not a beat cop but a dispatcher:
location location location. When this you see, GED.

3

N word
Enward

As if the language
were about to collapse
in on itself
at the center
Furious perhaps
at the idea
(what’s an idea?)
of signing a Kenyan
to play the Nigerian Ifemelu
How Americanah is that?
How Charlie Chan?

4

It was only a matter of time, once the lockdown began,
before there’d be riots in the streets,
whacked plot against the governor of Michigan
a nation designed to fail the Marshmallow Test.

Colorism in India, in Africa, in Nawleans

All about ultraviolet

Just like the queens in the back room at Stonewall,
once Buttigieg & Klobuchar pulled out, centrists had nowhere
else to go.
Which is the donut, which the cup of coffee? You meaning me?

5

Only a matter of time
eight minutes 46 seconds
calculated at the base of the neck

It was capitalists who heard the whole phrase: Workers of the
world. A home for global engagement.
Power invariably lies elsewhere, like mercury sliding under the
door.

White people? No such thing.
McKay in Marseille, say hey!
You meaning me?

The essence of a demand is that it cannot be met: Defund the
police. Bad cop, no donut.

6

Race is the modality
thru wich class is experienced

Stuart Hall

No women in the family were permitted to drive, to learn how to
drive, until my grandfather died. My aunt understood class
abandonment, marrying a real estate developer her father’s age,
becoming a school librarian, living out where transit simply didn’t
exist. The last recipient of the Civil War Widows & Orphans
Fund did not die until 2020. Time stretched as though over a
drumhead. I did not understand until I was ten that the N word
was something people would have feelings over, that it wasn’t in
fact polite.

Albany was not carved out initially to trigger spatial segregation
(though that’s what it became) but because the dynamite works
feared codes in a municipality whose core voting bloc might be
university faculty. Hagley Creek, but a tributary of the
Brandywine, where they called it (earlier iteration of that same
process) gunpowder mills, three–sided brick buildings so the body
parts would blow out over the water. You can hear Champ &
Major barking.

When this you see, PTSD

7

I can see clearly now
my brain is gone
I can see all
grand juries
in my way
Money laundered before the dawn
is gonna pay
for the dacha
where I’ll stay

The oceans were a curse. Who speaks of the Great Belgian Novel
or the French frontier? We, on the other hand, plowed west,
killing everything in our path. Tombstone, Arizona.