[THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES]

By Bob Kaufman 1925–1986 Bob Kaufman

THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES

SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE

SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE

SOUTH

FOREVER,

GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE

FROM RED PLANET MARS

CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR

THEM

TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO

THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER

AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT

IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS

OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA

OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP

BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL,

THE NEGROES HAVE GONE

INTO CRACKLING BLUENESS.

CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL ARRIVE WITH THE BOSTON

COMMONS, TO TAKE ELISSI LANDI

NORTH, CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL

BE LAYING ON BOSTON COMMONS,

ELISSI LANDI SHALL FEEL ALIVE

AGAIN. I SHALL CALL HER NAME

AS SHE STEPS ON TO THE BOSTON

COMMONS, AND FLIES NORTH FOREVER,

LINCOLN SHALL BE THERE,

TO SEE THEM LEAVE THE

SOUTH FOREVER, ELISSI LANDI, SHE WILL BE

GREEN.

THE WHITE SOUTH SHALL GATHER AT

PRESERVATION HALL.

Source: The Ancient Rain (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1981)

Biography

A Beat poet, and founder of the journal Beatitude with Allen Ginsberg and others, poet Bob Kaufman was born in New Orleans in 1925 to a German Jewish father and a black Catholic mother. As a young man, he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, briefly studied at the New School in New York, and moved to San Francisco, where he associated with such writers as Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Ginsberg.

Kaufman was a . . .

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