Leveler Poetry Journal
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sometimes the night’s too bright

 

put the pile where years
have gone to nigh/ put the dial
where ears have come to cry/

 

there’s an opera blowing through
the trees with no motherfuckers to hear it/
& they all wanna be as pretty as me/

 

at 3 am on larkin/ eyelashes on fleek/
& dope wasn’t the thrill we thought it
would be/ you want reassurance from

 

some nigga in the sky/ i want to air our
dirty laundry on the street/ there’s the smell
of hair being relaxed in the apse of the

 

looney bin/ we were just sword fighting
in the men’s room/ just huddled around the
pipe like a quarterback/ & if that nigga’s a

 

doctor/ then i’m the queen of ______/
& you’re everybody’s darlin/ like
ray robinson in paris

 

Note: “Put the smile where tears have come to dry” is a line from the Dylan Thomas poem “Sometimes The Sky’s Too Bright.”




Kwame Opoku-Duku

levelheaded: sometimes the night’s too bright

 

In Kwame Opoku-Duku’s poem, most apparent is the coexistence of consistency and versatility. On one hand, all stanzas are tercets, all sentences are divided by forward slashes, no words are capitalized, no commas or periods, no exceptions. On the other hand, the use of poetic devices is free of any monotonic burden. Rhymes come and go: “nigh/cry” end the first couple of sentences; “air”/”hair” and “relaxed”/”apse” are hidden mid-sentence, and most other lines contain no rhymes. The meter is as long as the poet needs it to be at any line, and does not conform to any rules. The language is free to be as literary as “years / have gone to nigh” or as colloquial as “they all wanna be as pretty as me.”

 

This freedom attracts us and keeps us engaged and focused, safe in the consistent form but inspired by the creativity. We trust the voice, which leaves all mannerism behind in favor of saying what it wants to say as it comes. That is not to say metaphors are absent from the poem: “i want to air our / dirty laundry on the street” strikes us as both an explicit statement and a metaphor for the speaker’s urge to maybe discuss, quarrel, or bring up issues in public.

 

A couple notable figures pop up in the end. “ray robinson” is likely Sugar Ray Robinson, who, by bringing his secretary, barber, masseur, and other personal providers wherever he went, created the archetype of a celebrity entourage (and became “everybody’s darlin” in Paris). Also, the final note tells us this poem refers to Dylan Thomas in title and in one of the lines. We could think of various ways this piece speaks to its source of inspiration, but that’s for each reader to consider based on their interpretation of Thomas’s poem.

 

We’ll end with pointing out the various settings and personas in the poem, all of which collectively drive the atmosphere. We are outdoors as we’re looking at a bright night. A street is mentioned. Paris, too. A “looney bin” somehow features an “apse.” For a moment we’re in the “men’s room.” We encounter “trees,” “motherfuckers,” “a doctor” and a “queen,” “an opera” and “a quarterback.” We respond: smiling and serious. Some parts resonate with us immediately, and others lead us to read and reread, try to get to know the speaker as well as it would allow.

 

We won’t get much “reassurance” for our interpretations, but hopefully we can capture some of the music—the “opera blowing through / the trees.”

 

 

– The Editors