Poem: "Blake's Influence"

Blake’s Influence 

the cities where he didn’t make love,
the kind of woman he despised,
the way he was influenced by Blake.

     Belkis Cuza Malé, “Poet’s Biography”


He didn’t make love in the city where he studied Blake.
He didn’t study Blake but saying that he did in the city
where he didn’t make love impresses his biographers.
He didn’t despise any women either—he was too mild
for vitriol—but said he did, tutors with pinched faces,
ministers’ wives in sundresses, girls strapped to babies.
He despised all women who made their lives negligible.
His biographers look up admiringly. One is skeptical,
so he repeats he didn’t make love in the city, for that
is true, and the skeptic sees the parallel to Jerusalem.

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