He fled from them; they frightened him.
Women, some of whom should have been at home, teaching their grandchildren how to have pray, stood, night after night, twisting their bodies into lewd hallelujahs in smoke-filled, gin-heavy dance halls, singing for their ‘loving man.’ And their loving man was any man, any morning, noon, or night- when one left town they got another- men could drown, it seemed, in their warm flesh and they would never know the difference.
‘It’s here for you and if you don’t get it it ain’t no fault of mine.’ They laughed at him when they saw him- ‘a pretty man like you?’- and they told him they knew a long brown girl who could make him lay his bible down.
-from James Baldwin’s, Go Tell it on the Mountain
Behold the beautiful lily of worship
Behold the red-haired torch inextinguishable
Behold the pale son and scarlet of the dolorous Mother
Behold the tree forever tufted with prayer
Behold the double gallows honor and eternity
Behold the six-pointed star
Behold the God who dies on Friday and rises on Sunday
Behold the Christ who flies higher than aviators
He holds the world’s record for altitude
- from Alcools by Guillame Apollinaire
