The Black Wine of Li Po

by Thomas Rabbitt

Men die. My last friend told me that I might find
In the Chinese poets rare complexity
And depth of character. Dull joke, dead friend,
Who can neither commit prolixity
With me again nor reach to touch my hand.
One morning, when the air outside my window
Crackles with birdsong and the smell of pine,
I will set down my brush and let it blot.
I will take up the pot of ink and drink
Pine soot, carp skin, the dark draught of romance
Which, no matter its complex depths, will not
Deliver the cure against what I think.
My tongue could sketch the character for soul,
Tree or mountain. Instead I draw the fool.

                                                              —from Enemies of the State (Black Belt, 2000)


The author of several books of poems—including Exile (1975), The Booth Interstate (1981), The Abandoned Country (1988), Enemies of the State  (2000), and Prepositional Heaven (2001) — Thomas Rabbitt has retired from his teaching career and currently lives and writes in Tennessee.  In 1972, he founded the MFA program in creative writing at The University of Alabama.  In Fall 2004 NewSouth Books will release American Wake: New & Selected Poems.

selected by Dan Albergotti