O my hate, so majestic saintly, pure, and angelic bless my excess with a fat caress make me bow and make me proud.
Humped by humble squires proud to be living sans Desire sans Goodness, sans Faith sans sun’s caressing grace.
O my hate, grandiloquent shield agitate my soul to infinite zeal beyond other harms concealed.
Hate wins, hate resounds!, armor ’gainst a vile amour that defrauds all— seven deadly Sins of my ardor!
After CRUZ E SOUSA (Afro-Brazilian, c. 1898)
Charles BernsteinCharles Bernstein is author of Attack of the Difficult Poems: Essays & Inventions (Chicago), All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School). He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of PennSound. Photo credit "Kush / Cloud House"