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Like Rousseau

By Amiri Baraka b. 1934 Amiri Baraka

She stands beside me, stands away,

the vague indifference

of her dreams. Dreaming, to go on,

and go on there, like animals fleeing

the rise of the earth. But standing

intangible, my lust a worked anger

a sweating close covering, for the crudely salty soul.

Then back off, and where you go? Box of words

and pictures. Steel balloons tied to our mouths.

The room fills up, and the house. Street tilts.

City slides, and buildings slide into the river.

What is there left, to destroy? That is not close,

or closer. Leaning away in the angle of language.

Pumping and pumping, all our eyes criss cross

and flash. It is the lovers pulling down empty structures.

They wait and touch and watch their dreams

eat the morning.

Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), “Like Rousseau” from Poetry (December 1964). Copyright © 1964 by Amiri Baraka. Reprinted with the permission of Sll/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

Source: Poetry (December 1964).

Biography

Amiri Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and Howard University, spent three years in the U.S. Air Force, and returned to New York City to attend Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. Baraka has become most known for his strident social criticism, often writing in an incendiary style that has made it difficult for some audiences and critics to respond . . .

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