DAILY: August 16, 2019

(1) BEFORE GOOGLE:  May Swenson, Beauford Delaney, and Elizabeth Bishop at Yaddo

 

 

(2) STARS IN BLACK TURTLENECKS:  May Swenson

 

 

(3) SOME JOY:  Swenson

 

(4)  A poem by May Swenson

 

The James Bond Movie

The popcorn is greasy, and I forgot to bring a Kleenex.

A pill that’s a bomb inside the stomach of a man inside

The Embassy blows up. Eructations of flame, luxurious

cauliflowers giganticize into motion. The entire 29-ft.

screen is orange, is crackling flesh and brick bursting,

blackening, smithereened. I unwrap a Dentyne and, while

jouncing my teeth in rubber tongue-smarting clove, try

with the 2-inch-wide paper to blot butter off my fingers.

A bubble-bath, room-sized, in which 14 girls, delectable

and sexless, twist-topped Creamy Freezes (their blond,

red, brown, pinkish, lavendar or silver wiglets all

screwed that high, and varnished), scrub-tickle a lone

male, whose chest has just the right amount and distribu-

tion of curly hair. He’s nervously pretending to defend

his modesty. His crotch, below the waterline, is also

below the frame—but unsubmerged all 28 slick foamy boobs.

Their makeup fails to let the girls look naked. Caterpil-

lar lashes, black and thick, lush lips glossed pink like

the gum I pop and chew, contact lenses on the eyes that are

mostly blue, they’re nose-perfect replicas of each other.

I’ve got most of the grease off and onto this little square

of paper. I’m folding it now, making creases with my nails.

 

(5) A poem by Elizabeth Bishop

Exchanging Hats

Unfunny uncles who insist

in trying on a lady’s hat,
–oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen’s caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o’er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
–the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian’s feather bonnet,
–perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what might a miter matter?

Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can’t you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?

Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

 

(6)  Three images: Beauford Delaney

 

 

Beauford Delaney. Charcoal portrait by Georgia O’Keefe. 1943

 

Marian Anderson. Portrait by Beauford Delaney. 1965

 

James Baldwin. Portrait by Beauford Delaney. 1945

 

  • Kevin Sessums is the author of two New York Times bestselling memoirs, Mississippi Sissy and I Left It on the Mountain.

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