Thucydus

Thucydus
__________________

—for Ahmos ZuBolton

“Soon they would
enter the Delta.”
—William Faulkner,
“Delta Autumn,”
Go Down Moses
_________________

Thucydus
Ike McCaslin
Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin
Tommy Turl
___________________

Thucydus

Why did I want to—
Go to bed with this
Cute Mississippi guy?

This young guy & me—
Tonight together
Nowadays just friends?

What if I fall—
In love with this black
Fastidious poet?

The space between—
Us & the Deep South
All that Delta history?
______________________

Will my kiss—
Suffocate him with
My whitey love?

Will the campus—
Be ready to survive
Our forbidden love?

To me ZuBolton—
Was Bon the Beautiful
Slipping his shirt off

And him looking at me—
I was Henry Sutpen
Slumming at Ole Miss

Could we survive—
Our brotherly love
Tonight in bed?

Ike McCaslin

“The girls said I
sure was black for
a white guy”
—Philip Roth,
The Human Stain

It wasn’t just—
A black & white
Miscegenal romance
Kind of thing

There already was—
A genealogy narrative
Running thru me like
The sluggish Yazoo

Already the stain—
Of my mother’s dinge
Legacy saxophonist
Chicago young lover

Down deep in me—
Blind annealing roots
Dark Mississippi dinge
Silt and rich refuse
___________________

The constant stain—
Unslumbering and
Anonymous down
Low the Delta night

Dark Trojan horse—
My shadow family
Seeping, creeping into
Dinge Delta Autumn

There was this sullen—
Unacknowledged gift
Nameless and yet
Both womb & tomb

Without much grace—
Forsaken, accidental
A young jazz nightclub
Saxophonist cumming
______________________

An antebellum orphan—
Apocryphal birth of
Myself into the world
Thru Mommy Dearest

Not exactly honey—
Sunlight, pealed grapes
Chicago convulsions
Pink annealing pussy

And so it was
With this understudy
That Ahmos gave me
As his dinge brother

Invisible shades—
And nameless Nubian
Men oozing thru me
His Congolese cock

And so it wasn’t—
Mere miscegenation
But rather something
Philoprogenitive

Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin

“himself composed,
himself selfprogenitive”
—William Faulkner,
“The Bear,” Go Down Moses

I had this—
“Doubleness” kind
Of emotional and
Physical entanglement

I deliberately—
Cultivated my feelings
For Ahmos ZuBolton
As my brother then

I found him more—
Compelling because
I knew he was str8t
And unattainable

No depravity—
Just inchoate vibes
Of gentleness, care
And dinge devotion

I tried to penetrate—
The Negro stereotype
That embodied both
My body & poetry

My Bon blackness—
My Absalom Other
My gender & sexuality
Stayed a mystery

Most black guyz—
Didn’t want anything
To do with me, not
Love me or be friends

The problem of incest—
Was another poem I
Submitted to Delta
Ahmos as editor

Wrinkling his nose—
I thought at first
He was going to call me
A sick whitey faggot

Instead he wanted—
To know more about
The poem, my affair
With my kid-brother

“The secret of my—
Paternity lies in the
Grave of my divorced
Mulatto mother”

“I’ve got both the—
white McCaslin blood
and the Mandingo black
Beauchamp genes”

“My kid brother”
I told Ahmos ZuBolton
“Had more of the dark
Beauchamp than me”

I attempted to—
Explain myself to
Myself as well as
To Ahmos ZuBolton

I had my own Ledger—
My own Pandora’s Box
Incest and miscegenation
In my boyhood past

Breeders kept breeding—
Spawning and spawning
I was in the middle of it
Disillusioned & horny

I didn’t have any—
Male partner to help me
Accept the dinge part
Of my postbellum angst

I’d been born a slave—
Portrayed, enslaved
Myself up there on the
Slave block of my lust

My dinge identity—
My Charles Bon cock
My mixed blood penis
A planter’s son’s prick

I’d read Faulkner—
Sexual blaxploitation
Was nothing new to me
My dingehood ambiguous

But Going Down on Moses—
That was totally different
Yet I was just the same as
Old Carothers McCaslin

My handsome kid-brother—
My very own young brother!
I got him off every night
He was my dinge heartache!

Tommy Turl

“old Carothers’ doomed
and fatal blood seemed
to destroy all it touched”
—William Faulkner,
“The Bear,” Go Down Moses

Plantation-bred incest—
Lucius Quintus Carothers
McCaslin buying a wife
For his brother Thucydus

Kicked outta Carolina—
For getting it on with
Each other, the young
Exiles off to Mississippi

His very own brother!—
Thucydus the dinge stud
Half-brother thru their
Own Charleston family

Thucydus’ young wife—
Bears him a daughter
And a son engendered
Cumly dinge dynasty

Going down on Moses—
Turl young son of Thucydus
And Eunice ending up
There in LQCM’s bed…

Tommy Turl’s prick—
Well-endowed son of
Thucydus that’s what
Old Carothers wants

Born-again dinge lover—
Actual and apocryphal
Corrupted legacy of youth
His own Negro son!

“So that’s why, Ahmos—
I’m a dinge queen too
I’ve got Delta Autumn
Blues really bad, man.”