Unknown Presence

By Clarence Major b. 1936 Clarence Major

How to name what is unnameable.

The long road of history right up till now.

Think about Robert Johnson's deal with the Devil.

Unnameable, I think of you.

I know my demise is coded in your name.

But what does Unnameable know that I don't know?

In retrospect, oh, so that's how it all adds up.

We're in a new car driving along but

if something goes wrong

out here in the middle of nowhere,

no mechanic to deal with the problem.

The deal is that moment when no one knows

who has the ball, not even he, scratched and bruised, carrying it.

So, we keep bumping into one another,

used, our keys rattling.

You leave stage and come back dancing.

And I have no choice.

Watching your high kicks with a longing

that matches your tease.

And Lil at the piano at Bob's.

A big deal for me.

We stayed up all night

listening to her play and

doing so made all mystery leave

at least for those few hours.

But the reality is, I bear the weight.

I listen to your screams coming up.

I no longer deny that

your voice and heartbeat are my own.

People are happiest when they forget.

Everyone forgot you that time in Kansas City

when Half Pint pitched high

and sang way up in a voice not his own.

Not unhappy, now I am inside you

crossing an imaginary stretch

as if you were an unending coastline,

too lovely to look at with the naked eye.

I couldn't have been dealt a better hand.

Clarence Major, "Unknown Presence" from Waiting for Sweet Betty. Copyright © 2002 by Clarence Major. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townshend, WA 98368-0271, coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Waiting for Sweet Betty (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)

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Poet Clarence Major b. 1936

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

Subjects Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Arts & Sciences, Music

Poetic Terms Free Verse

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Biography

American writer Clarence Major "has been in the forefront of experimental poetry and prose," Eugene B. Redmond writes in Parnassus. "In prose he fits 'loosely' into a category with William Melvin Kelley and Ishmael Reed. But his influences and antecedents are not so easy to identify." Perhaps best known for his novels, Major draws on his experience as a Southern African-American to "[defy] the white-imposed 'traditions' of black . . .

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