and here the video poem I made that is source of the title of the collection, my 11th book:
So I still await that, and though “Wannabe’s “jacket professes this:
“This career-spanning volume by Thylias Moss, one of America’s most revered literary innovators, conveys the dazzling spectrum of her hypnotic poetic output, written over the past thirty-five years and including selections from each previous book as well as previously unpublished new poems.”
This collection of New & Selected Poetry DOES NOT contain selections from all of my published collections of poetry, “Small Congregations” , a previous “New & Selected” colection is NOT represented in “Wannabe”, so not “each” previous book, but “many” previous books, “some” previous books, or “most” previous books, but not:”each” for that is a lie.
I remind you how important it is to tell the truth.
“Wannabe” will be my final book publication wth Persea, so if any of you publishers out there, or f you know of a publisher who might be interested in my poetry, and would like to represent my work, please contact me, leave a message on this post or look me up through various means.
Let’s just say that after 25 years with Persea, it has become necessary, for various reasons, to part company.
**Please read any contracts carefully! –I didn’t and you wouldn’t believe what happened to me, because I failed to be vigilant and observant in the past, but I have learned my lesson.
For my poetry, I seek a publisher for my subsequent books.
I hope you like them… I do and consider them very special for various reasons.
At the following URL, you may expereince “Blue Coming” as orginally published in “Colorado Reivew” in response to Bob Holman‘s “What You Can’t Understand Is Poetry Is Connected to the Body Again”:
You can experience aother “Higginson” poem from this new collection, in this YouTube video of me reading, “Higginson Matters in Magnificent Culture of Myopia“
and here on Vimeo:
If you want to know why there is such an emphasis on “Moss” I canexplain that. The reading interacted with external events affecting me on the day I read, and my poetry reveals the TRUTH, and so it did, so it does.
Here you may experience a print version of “The Glory Prelude” also in “Wannabe”
Also a video version of another print poem in “Wannabe” “Hypnosis at the Bird Factory”:
Since “Wannabe” is a collection of New and Selected poetry, here are some video poems are in “Wannabe” in print versions:
Tornado Pi -video poem:
Print poem in “Wannabe” “Tornados“: from “Rainbow Remnants on Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky”
Winner of the National Poetry series Open Competition
And from the same book, “Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky“, two video pieces from “The United States of Poetry“an excellent film I am very proud to be part of:
9:08 excerpt from the poem “The Linoleum Rhumba” in Wannabe“:
also “Green Light and Gamma Ways”
in “The United States of Poetry” as “Green Light and Gamma Rays” but the actual poem form which this is an excerpt is “Green Light and Gamma Ways”, in “Wannabe” correctly:
This print poem, “Interpretation of a Poem by Frost” (a poem with an interesting story that I will be happy to tell), is also in “Wannabe” and also appeared in “Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky”
may be experienced on the Poetry foundation website here:
“Ant Farm” one of my favriite poems from “Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler” (a nominee for The National Book Critics Circle Award, by the way) origiannly published in Keyon Review, vol. 20, no.1
no doubt not respresented in “Wannabe” because of previous litigation, but I am only speculating about that, but I am reading versions of my poems, some of which are in “Wannabe” te video is, from my time in San Diego, at the invite of Quincy Troupe and Margaret Porter Troupe, so here it is:
My first scheduled reading from “Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code” is scheduled for 30 November, 2016 at 7:00 pm, at Columbia University, organized by Timothy Donnelly. Hope to see many of you there. I will be reading “Higginson Matters in Magnificent Culture of Myopia”, no peaches this time, but, as I understand it, there will be grapes for this interactive reading, as there were at The Pulitzer Fine Arts Center; here are a few pics, some of them by Cary Ann Faye, from when my video piece, “The Glory Prelude” was on display at the Pulitzer Fine Arts Center in St. Louis, MO, from 15 April 2016 until 2 Juky 2016:
and now some video stills of “The Glory Prelude” by me:
Trying to also arrange a public reading while I am in Manhattan at the Bowery Poetry Club, a place I’ve long wanted to read.
Will post more as events become more definite.
And as soon as I recieve my copies of “Wannabe” I will post many photos of the book! and photos of me wth it. A radio podcast in Ypsilanti, MI, ahould be happening in October, and I will be discussing my new book: “Wannabe“
More updates coming and more photos as soon as I have them.
I am very excited about my forthcoming –just days now, volume of new and selected poetry! “Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code“! (from Persea Books!)
I haven’t had a new book since 2006, and Tokyo Butter!
Tokyo Butter – a search for forms of Dierdre (really my late cousin Hilda).
The cover image is really a 50X USB microscpe scan I made of flowers from Hilda’s Funneral in 2002. I grew up with Hilda as if she were my sister… A terrible loss for me…
I wonder what she would be like now? She was only 3 months older than me, born 25 November 1953; I was born 27 February 1954. “Tokyo Butter” explores some of that… I couldn’t believe that all of Hilda (“Deirdre” in the book) was gone from the world, and “Tokyo Butter” is the outcome of my (as yet incomplete) search for her.
Here is a version of a video piece I made about a poem in “Tokyo Butter“: The Cultue of Snowmen”:
Also here “Me and Bubble Went to Memphis” here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audio/detail/76019
The Glory Prelude video poam here (music composed and performed by Graphic Artist Ansted Moss, Vocals by Thylias Moss who also made the vide poam; contains footage of my mother who has recently been visited by “The Angel of the Lord” –whatever that means. I cannot compete with “The Angel of the Lord” –noone can):
(my mother is unaware that this footage was captured)
Please don’t tell her, unless you are “The Angel of the Lord”.
she already told me that she’s coming to get me… –I am going to be haunted after her death, so if I make no further posts, you will know that:
I am dead
My mother got me.
My mother succeeded at what Houdini couldn’t
A mother’s love
How mama looks now, as she waits for The Angel of the Lord (to come back in ways my deceased father can’t):
(She loves Popeye’s chicken, but isn’t supposed to eat it. Diabetes, Hypertension, Glaucoma, Thyroid problems, loss of the ability to grasp physical objects (with her right hand especially) and to remember anything, Dementia; loss of hearing, loss of eyesight, unless looking at and/or listening to: “The Angel of the Lord”, but she’s coming back to get me, a promise she has made to the “Angel of the Lord” –I take this most seriously, because she saw “The Angel of the Lord” as real as anything she has ever seen..
“The Glory Prelude to a Widow Shrine System” is for her, the widow since the death of my father in July 1980. She says “the only man I need is Jesus”, so I called a man I liked a lot, before I loved him as I do now, “Jésus”. My mama with dementia, (I love her, but she still doesn’t know. Just wanted to tell her that I had found a good man; I thought that maybe she would like that. But no.
I’ve been divorced since 2013, but makes no difference… Even if nothing goes any furher, I just wanted her to know that I had found someone much better, who doesn’t lie to me, a man I can trust to tell me the truth, whether or not I like it. He will not deceive me, the most trustworthy man I know.
and “Hypnosis at the Bird Factory ” (also in “Wannabe”) as a video poam right here:
and Tornado Pi, video poem version of the print poem “Tornados“also in “Wannabe“:
A significant new poem from this collection is: “Higginson Matters in Magnificent Culture of Myopia” and I perform this signture poem from this collection here
(the unnatural emphasis on the word “moss” comes from a niece of my ex, telling me that I could hardly be moving on with my life, since I still had their name, a name they did not copyright, a name they did not intiate; there are many other “Mosses”; they have no valid claim to the exclusivity of that name:
Speaking of things “trustworthy”, I was all set to believe that an unfortunae sitution with my publisher was greatly improved; I’m still all set for that, but I was disappointed when I saw on the publisher’s website for my book; a quote about me, this mixed-race woman who would never choose a partner based on his color, or a partner who would choose a woman based on her color; I would not exist without mixing…
and although the quote which offends me now and all that I’ve tried to accomplish in my writing is gone from the book jacket, I still name, on the website, “the black truths behind white lies” and am still a writer “who speaks bitterness”… I was disappoined to see that, because of the inaccuracy, and immediaetely wote an email to my poetry editor
That is not who I am; I speak TRUTH, no matter what color it is. And if “black” (a part of me but not all of me) is so powerful that whatever is “black” at all, even a tiny potent, powerful drop; if so powerful that I can not avoid using a black lens to interpret everything, then everything I see automatically becomes “black” because I see it, and everything I say automatically become “black” because I say it, and everything I hear automatically becomes “black” because I hear it, and everything I do, automatically becomes “black” because I do it, and everything I touch automatically becomes “black” because I “touch” it, and everything I feel automatically becomes “black,”because I feel it, and everthing I eat automatically becomes “black” because I eat it,
then there is no need for me to preface anything I think; anything I feel, anything I do with “black” since I cannot do anything that is not black, so when I think of quantum phyiscs, quantum physics becomes black; every form of math, everything I’ve written here is black; that’s how potent black is, one drop and black heaven is the reward!
I continue to think these black thoughts, as I thought them at the University of new Hampshire where in a class for those teaching English composition, the subject was “How To Eliminate Vagueness” in student wiring, and one TA observed that when a sudent writes the word, “black”, the student likely means something else, such as, and this was agreed upon (worth noting that I was the ony visibly “black” person in the room); agreed upon that the student meant “irreversible damage” , so I wrote this poem, for instructors of English 401 at the University of New Hampshire, originally published in Callaloo, then in my book, Pyramid of Bone, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award:
Although many of Moss’s poems discuss race and gender, these subjects are, explains scholar Langdon Hammer, simply “starting points for her work…her poetry makes such facts of identity seem unfamiliar, their meanings not to be predicted, unavailable to the naked eye.” Known for startling metaphors and vivid imagery, Moss’s work demonstrates an expansive imagination that seeks to connect at times wildly disparate subjects”
Book by Thylias Moss
“To Eliminate Vagueness”
instructions: substitute irreversible damage for black wherever it occurs
In the red-legged locust’s black raids upon midwest soybeans,
in their illicit transmission of tapeworms and parasites
to quail, turkeys, and guinea fowl,
in all the black calendar days that are supposed
to indicate the ordinary.
In operating rooms body parts black with gangrene
are excised and trash cans seem to fill with dead crows.
There’s a black crust two miles thick in Soweto, some on bread,
around eyes, most on the streets where blood dried
into its own monument.
Then my mother’s black face nothing can soften, the sweating,
the forgetting to sleep, the solidarity with anyone troubling,
the compassion only I knew she felt hugging a radio, singing
spirituals, sequestering herself in her widow’s bedroom
praying for women unable to pray.
And what of Europeans, what of Asians and Latinos who are
irreversibly
damaged, whose gangrened minds should be excised but who are
not black?
One day I noticed my mother had poured her face onto mine
and had given me spirituals and lullabies.
I sang them when baskets of black clouds dumped
their transparent flowers over the convent
and the nuns’ basic black didn’t get wet
and they carted the flowers home in wheelbarrows
and arranged them like lullabies
and wept silently
as we were weeping, mother and daughter together
in my father’s old rocker, the damage already done.
ME HOLDING the error-prone, not made for authors, but for reviewers, ARC (or bound galley)!
Now, some other phots oft he ARC itseld, remeber, this is not the actual book, some kind of plcaeholdr, thatI was so happy to get, ecstatic really, made my “All or Nothing” walk so much better! –all those salsa footsteps, I felt that I was dancing!
This is what I listened to as I walked, as I danced along, oh my Salsa ways:
SORRY, but I begin this Sunday aware of the meaning embedded in OPTION CLAUSE #20
OPTION:
“20. In consideration of the covenants of this Agreement, the Proprietor agrees to give the Publisher the first opportunity to obtain book-publishing rights in his next book-length work. The Proprietor shall submit the manuscript of such work to the Publisher before showing it to any other publisher, and the Publisher shall thereafter have thirty [30] days to notify the Proprietor if it wishes to publish such work, and if so, to propose terms and conditions (provided that the Publisher shall not be required so to notify the Proprietor until the expiration of ninety (90) days from the date of the first publication of the Work). If within thirty (30) days after the Publisher’s having proposed such terms and conditions, the Publisher and the Proprietor fail to reach agreement with respect thereto, or if the Publisher does not wish to publish such work, then the Proprietor shall be free to arrange for publication elsewhere provided, however, that the Proprietor shall not enter into an agreement for publication of such work with any third party on terms and conditions equal to or less favorable than those terms and conditions offered by the Publisher.”
Song of the realization about the lies from my so-called”friend” wearing two hats as my publisher, and as my agent, my agent lied to me, did not mention Option #20
clearly on behalf of the publisher, not the writer,
Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” –for the line “You Lied to me”
In the photo, I am illuminated by honesty; see how it glows! Maybe I shouldn’t say any of this, maybe I should pretend to be ignorant a little longer, but when a dead rat is found, action is required no matter when it is found. And I have found one. Two hats, my publisher and my agent; those hats can not be worn well simultaneously.
I feel like a fool for beliving anything.
Then again, you know what is said about “Smiling Faces” (1971, UNDISPUTED Truth):
I know! The TRUTH!
want to drive me to litigation?
This is a way to do it!
AND I’VE BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD BEFORE!
A suggestion: throw out the existing contract and send me a new one, without Option clause #20 and get me a bound galley immediately, “Remember, I’m your FRIEND”! –HARDLY; I DONT THINK SO. “True friends” do not treat each other this way!
They just don’t. Too much conscience.
And a need to live with themselves.
TRUTH will get you in the end.
TRUTH ALWAYS PREVAILS.
I feel sorry for those who prey upon the little poet, those who have that need.
I do not, and I am glad; I can live with myself without regret.
No bound galley? Really? I recommend putting a bound galley in the maiil immediately; prepared for publishers and not for me?
Send me yours then.
Send me yours.
You must have one or can get your hands on one. I deserve at least that.
Write that into the NEW contract also, for YOUR book evidently, not mine.
I will not sign it until someone without a hat reviews it!
Hat brims can cloud vision, and pull wool over eyes. The mask has come off.
You know my address.
My poetry is my truth! –I do not play with truth.
I am exposing a “black” truth behind your white lie; I am rememering what was said about rejection of a blurb; it is the reason that disturbs me more than the actual rejection. I have the email with that content in it, and I will never forget what was said.
Also your reasons for preferring that I not post the PDF of the Wannabe”jacket, and this is a quote, this is the truth:
“We would rather that you not post the pdf. They are made specifically for reviewers. We don’t want them to be pirated, sold, reproduced, poems taken, etc. etc. All of these things affect your income (and ours), and contribute to incorrect versions floating through history…. Please don’t do it.
Although there are many forms of friendship, some of which may vary from place to place, certain characteristics are present in many types of bond. Such characteristics include affection, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, mutual understanding, and compassion, enjoyment of each other’s company, trust, and the ability to be oneself, express one’s feelings, and make mistakes without fear of judgment from the friend.
While there is no practical limit on what types of people can form a friendship, friends tend to share common backgrounds, occupations, or interests and have similar demographics.
–in case a refresher course is needed. Seems to me it is. Note, please that “honesty” is part of the definition, as is “altruism“, “understanding“, “compassion“; thank goodness I know these qualities, essential qualities to life, elsewhere, a barren, empty existence without them…
Just when it seemed that everything is going as well as it can, I become aware of something that has been true for a very long time, but this time, perhaps more ruinous to my career as a writer, as a poet, I mean…
Not my intenton to jeopardize my forthcoming book, about which I remain excited, but I do want it known that Thylias Moss is available for another publisher for my books of poetry; out of my 11 books, 9 of them are collections of poetry, counting Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code“, soon to be published in September 2016, by Persea, a publisher I’ve belonged to since winning the National Poetry Series in 1991, with “Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky“, a book that Persea published, and since then, all of my collections, in book form, of poetry, with the exception of “Small Congregations” published by Ecco in 1993.
Here are newspaper articles about this event, that came about because I dared to be honest; I told the truth! thylias_wall-street-journal
And here is the problematic bit of my current contract for my forthcoming collection:
“Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code” September 2016, causing concern; this contract was prepared by my publisher, and I did sign it without anyone advising me not to (I trusted the publisher who identifued herself as “my friend” (as she did with previous litigation to make sure that I would not go to jail; I recall that phone conversation distinctly; well, I am no longer that gullible child, and for another thing, I am resentful of “advice” I was given but do not need, about “being careful in my relationships as long as they are not hurtful to me”, well my relationship with my publisher IS hurtful to me, as my publisher wrote the contract, and I am dead set against maintaing that contract since that very relationship is the only “hurtful to me” relationship I have, I’m going to take the publisher’s own advice
OPTION:
20. In consideration of the covenants of this Agreement, the Proprietor agrees to give the Publisher the first opportunity to obtain book-publishing rights in his next book-length work. The Proprietor shall submit the manuscript of such work to the Publisher before showing it to any other publisher, and the Publisher shall thereafter have thirty [30] days to notify the Proprietor if it wishes to publish such work, and if so, to propose terms and conditions (provided that the Publisher shall not be required so to notify the Proprietor until the expiration of ninety (90) days from the date of the first publication of the Work). If within thirty (30) days after the Publisher’s having proposed such terms and conditions, the Publisher and the Proprietor fail to reach agreement with respect thereto, or if the Publisher does not wish to publish such work, then the Proprietor shall be free to arrange for publication elsewhere provided, however, that the Proprietor shall not enter into an agreement for publication of such work with any third party on terms and conditions equal to or less favorable than those terms and conditions offered by the Publisher.”
I am seeking a publisher for my volumes of poetry after “Wannabe“
Another poet friend asked me why hadn’t Norton (of course, Persea is an affliliate publisher of Norton, as indicated)or Knopf gobbled me up, after so many books and so many awards, and all I could think of was the contract itself, when this dreadful passage was pointed out to me…
Perhaps this will be addressed when my romance novel does indeed sell. I know it will; I admit that I am impatient, but that book means even more to me now, and I cannot talk about it… Not yet.
I hope that today will be the day…
One never knows..
But today IS the day that I announce that I am available for another publisher for my poetry. Ideally the same publisher who oversees publication of my romance novel, but no clause like the option clause prepared by the publisher acting as BOTH my publisher and my agent. If this announced availability causes more litigation, so be it. I have been down this road before… A road covered by the New York Daily News and the Wall Street Journal in 1994…
I wouldn’t mind going to jail for poetry, something so dear to me. Poetry tells a truth! Poetry is a truth! My poems do not tell lies! They never will!
I insist on such purtiy, even though that seems to be becomng so rare and precious, doomed by the injustices in which humanity festers, injustices such as Option clause #20, a clause I did not write and one I wish I had read better but the writer, my publisher, was also claiming to be my friend:
a familiar or helpful thing,
a person who is not an enemy or who is on the same side
“Remember,” I was told, “I am your friend.”
But another publisher is essential. I am not new to poetry at all!
I will not crumple under litigation should any happen. I didn’t before when I was served a subpoena in my office where I was a professor until I retired, at the University of Michigan…
and I already have a couple of lawyers investigating that clause, seeking an honest and legal way to break it; my friend indeed.
A friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone whom you trust and who trusts you. A friend is honest and makes you want to be honest, too. A friend is loyal.
A friend is someone who is happy to spend time with you doing absolutely nothing at all; someone who doesn’t mind driving you on stupid errands, who will get up at midnight just because you want to go on an adventure, and who doesn’t have to talk to communicate with you.
A friend is someone who not only doesn’t care if you’re ugly or boring, but doesn’t even think about it; someone who forgives you no matter what you do, and someone who tries to help you even when they don’t know how. A friend is someone who tells you if you’re being stupid, but who doesn’t make you feel stupid.
A friend is someone who would sacrifice their life and happiness for you. A friend is someone who will come with you when you have to do boring things like watch bad recitals, go to stuffy parties, or wait in boring lobbies. You don’t even think about who’s talking or who’s listening in a conversation with a friend.
A friend is someone for whom you’re willing to change your opinions. A friend is someone you look forward to seeing and who looks forward to seeing you: someone you like so much, it doesn’t matter if you share interests or traits. A friend is someone you like so much, you start to like the things they like.
A friend is a partner, not a leader or a follower.
The word “friend” comes from Old English “frēond”, which is actually the present participle of “frēogan”, which means “to love” and “to honor”.
I quite agree! This post is for all of my true friends, and you definitely know who you are, and so do I, always. There is nothing more sacred than a friend who can be trusted; a freind who will not cheat you, a friend who will not deceive you, and as far as I am concerned, there is no clause #20 in my contract.
Thylias Moss, one of American poetry’s great innovators, is a national taxonomist and secular preacher who catalogues our culture and responds in gorgeous outrage to its injustices. This career-spanning volume conveys the hypnotic spectrum of her full poetic output, from Hosiery Seams on a Bowlegged Woman, her 1983 debut, to Slave Moth, her acclaimed 2006 novel in verse, to more than fifty pages of new poems. Whether in early or recent writing, Moss makes no promises of smooth sailing: even when her poems begin with beloved cultural icons (Robert Frost, Doctor Who, the Statue of Liberty), they insist on new perspectives, truths, and realities. She is a fearless reimaginer of poetry’s possibilities, a writer who seems made for (and by) the digital age—its blitz of interactivity and reinvention—a futuristic archivist always compelled by the current moment. Arranged chronologically, this volume offers us Moss as she has evolved through the past three decades, recognizable yet unpredictable, ever “a poet of fierce intelligence and radiant intensity” (Martín Espada). Wannabe Hoochie Mama of Realities’ Red Dress Code is an indispensable book, a record of who this essential writer has been and where she may be heading.
Praise for Thylias Moss
“Thylias Moss is a permanent American poet, canonical in the old, authentic sense.”—Harold Bloom
“As if the muse of Wallace Steves were transplanted into the body of a black, female pop-culture maven.”—David Yaffe, Village Voice
“It’s tempting to confuse Moss with the characters she describes, so deeply does she appear to inhabit their lives. . .[with] her trademark intensity and ferocious intelligence.”—Jabari Asim, Washington Post Book World
“Reading Thylias Moss is always dangerous and exhilarating, because one never knows exactly when the poem might explode and leave its reader marked forever.”—Raphael Campo, Parnassus Poetry in Review
“Thylias Moss names the black truths behind white lies. She is a writer who speaks bitterness and makes her own music of it.”—Marilyn Hacker, Women’s Review of Books
About the Author
Thylias Moss is Professor Emerita in the departments of English and Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Her eight previous books of poetry include Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and Slave Moth, named Best Poetry Book of 2004 by Black Issues Book Review. Moss is a recipient of the fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations, among other honors. She lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Okay, maybe naming “black truths” is part of it, but I hope that I have not been figured out completely; I hope that many of you are still guessing… I like to think that at some level, truth is truth, and does not have to have a color, but apparently, we are not there yet, if that is what I am doing… but if truth must have a color, then I am all for black truth, for if black is as powerful as it is supposed to be, then how could I avoid “black” truth even if I wanted to; if black is this powerful that black alters whatever I experience, let it! –I need do nothing but use my senses —bitterness? Me? –dangerous? yep; that’s me, a dangerous woman –yes, trademark intensity (Lord know, I am intense, as in Lisa Fischer, “So Intense“)
Just completed a draft of an essay I will be submitting by 15 September about being multiracial in America. looking forward to that, and soon, waiting and waiting and waiting. I wrote about “Hair”, of course…
On this summer afternoon, I still wait to hear about the status of my romance novel. Yes I guess I am impatient, still working on selling my house, and having the terrific life that a very good friend of mine, a Mystery Man (with whom I am in love –ouch) told me I am going to have.
Whatever this post is, it is also a post to a Mystery Man
It is also a post to you, whoever you are; I will never tell.
I have no idea where I am going to live. Just that I will be moving –and I am looking forward to beginning this new life, with or without you, but preferably with you. Definitely my preference, but I can’t say that it will ever be yours. Wish I could say that. Because I love you.
Because I want you to love me too. I even told you that I know I am your “Side Chick” (at best –and I’m okay with that? What is wrong with me? –willing to be the side chick just so I can have you? Why don’t I want more for myself? –yeah; I already know you are the best possible lover, and I probably should not have told you that, but I did because it’s true, and I realize that I am too public for you, Mystery Man, but I don’t want the light of what I feel hidden under a bushel. I light it just for you, light of my world. Do not let the fire that warms you go out, already dimmed a bit by time itself, but I am making up for that. I am blowing on the flame; my hot breath is working that fire, fanning those embers, restoring the hot potential, living up to my blazing name…
I also said some other things that the pressure of all this forced me into saying, trying to get my house prepared for sale, worrying about my sick mother…and taking it out on you.. I’ve been accusatory, saying things I know simply aren’t true… about when I was in the perfect world of your arms… I wish I didn’t have to apologize but I do. Mystery Man, I didn’t mean it, what I said about boats, especially. I was, am under the duress of all of this; and I’m too afraid to tell you. I am not sure you would even listen to me, and this is my unadorned apology. I am sorry Mystery Man –I just ask you to please understand. My mind is going in circles, round and round your sweet clockwork face –you know I look at your face and love it, can trace every crease in both my mind and heart…
and this version:
but mostly it’s “If You Stay in my Corner” (The Dells):
I know I have a volume of poetry coming out every soon now, I can wait to see the galleys, my 11th book! “Wannabe Hoochie Mama Gallery of Relities’ Red Dress Code” –and I am so excited about that! –words cannot begin to describe the joy I feel just thinking about that book, cracking the spine, smelling it, even licking some of my favorite pages, photographing myself holding it, traveling and reading from the book! –I cannot wait for such moments;
Here is the cover, and it is available for pre-order right now on Amazon dot com :
and the author photo (taken by graphic artist Ansted Moss):
Now of course, I’m looking forward to Wannabe, but I do admit to being even more excited about just the possibilty of this romance novel, because I get to partcipate in such ideal love and passion through my characters, eveything I may want, the characters experience; how could I write it and deny the protagonist the experience I would want for myself?—if I could have it– maybe someday, because this writer believes in love..
I will always believe in what love can accomplish with that Mystery Man (you), or with any man; I am not the kind of woman who will be happy without a flesh and blood man –who knows who I am, a woman who wants a man who will be hers, and I will be his.
I sure hope it’s you.I know I don’t have to tell you again, but I sure like saying it, get caught up in the refrain of it.
But even more disturbing right now, is the increasingly deteriorating condition of my mother. She is losing her grasp of reality… Her diabetes is out of control; she’s been falling and not telling her doctor. She’s not taking her medicine and using profanity the likes of which I’ve never heard her use. Glaucoma, Thyroid trouble, Heart disease, Out-of-Control Hypertension
Her situation is so exasperating, she is not taking her medicine, and this sick diabetic woman is now about the same weight I am, this has never been the case! –always since I can remember, 40 pounds heavier than me. I understand that her backyard lawn has not been cut in a couple of months; my father died on 13 July 1980, and when I called to remind her that it was the 36th anniversary of my father’s death, she didn’t know what the day meant, nor did she know me –I had to explain who I was…
(She is 86 years old, and I am 62 years old)
A little later, some pictures of my mother and my mixed race father, and my non-black paternal grandfather, with Caucasian, and Native American Heritage and Ancestry from India
(includes some artwork by my mother; she was born in Alabama, a tiny town not on most maps, and was very senstitive about her color; when she was more lucid she told me that she was always called the “Little Black One” –this casued her to use “Nadinola” all over her face, arms, legs, neck, to lighten her skin –this was very important to her! She hated being dark skinned, had high yellow dreams, I was not high yellow at all, but did have the prize hair, all my life, but even more so now –she encouraged me never to go into the sun; she is so embarrassed by her hair that she always wears a wig, and even did so for my wedding (you can see that Nadinola glow [somewhat radioactive, it seems to me] in her face. My father was already sick; what was he really thinking?):
Bride Thylias, with my father and just with the bouquet, 25 August 1973:
I had a tremendous amount of hair then, the teenager that I was.
Wedding day 25 August 1973
I made all the dresses for the bridesmaids and flower girl in my wedding (sewing based on what I learned in a single semester of home economics in seventh grade):
and if my mother could understand it, she would be shocked that I walk in the sun, anyway, and yes, even flaunt my “good hair” –I’m glad I have it; I will not lie, and this 62-year-old woman with multiple sclerosis, who almost died on 29 July 2011 when a cranial aneurysm ruptured, and my head was partially shaved, but the hair has grown back profusely! –in a straighter and natural texture; I’ve even gone walking in the rain! (trusting that my hair would retain its length, and not revert (to what it never was):
–I have quite a thing for my hair, I admit that, and I also admit, in my mind, at least, that I walked to that elusive Mytery Man –but I fool no one, and certainly not you; I fear I will always love you, and you are certainly most deserving of love (there is no better lover; nothing compares with being in your arms –I admit that I just want you to love me back; that is all I want… I can’t even sustain any anger toward you… I’ve tried and it doesn’t last. What is it about you? –I fear I’ll never be able to let you go!
Mystery Man, just love me back; that’s all; just love me back! –now I’m begging you… I liked much better when you were chasing me; you know how to persue better than most men.. What more do you want from me? –please don’t say nothing unless that is the truth
–I learned this from this Mystery Man, from you, that I am in fact beautiful, you always told me that, and no one else ever did, not even my ex-spouse, I was so lonely and hungry for compliments, just wanted to know that the man I was with liked how I looked, a shapely and sexy little package, and was happy to be seen with me; my ex-spouse said he didn’t tell me because “my head would swell”; Mystery Man , you didn’t care how big my head was; when I told you, Mystery Man, that you were the only man who called me beautiful, you could not believe it, so I told you, which was true, that outside of catcalls, whistles and other unsolicited reactions, it was only your opinions that matter to me, and this is more true now than ever (with what I’m experiencing with my mother and those well-meaning souls around her, I need “The Comfort of a Man,” the Comfort of you,Mystery Man.
and I learned to believe you. My ex never told me that I was beautiful, but now, I KNOW I AM –so even if nothing else happens between us, I learned valuable things from you, endless pasion; I was loved by you as every woman, as every prerson should be loved, the heights of pleasure, heights of desire, there is no denying this, and if nothing else, I learned how to express this love to you… You were patient with me, realizing what I didn’t know and realizing what I was able to feel with you… and I have nothing but thanks for you for that, sort of similar to
But I was older than the writer of that thank you to my ex ; I experienced my first real adult love afffair with you. In most ways, I have to admit that you Mystery Man are my first love as the adult woman I am now, and there is no wonder that I want physical love, all forms of love with you again… Should come as no surprise at all. You are the Right Kind of Lover! as in:
It is that good being with you whoever you are, a man of my dreams fully fulfilled A man I will never forget and, truth be told, do not want to forget. Ever. I just want you to want me so much that you won’t mind admitting it, that I won’t have to be a side chick or a friend with benefits. I want the comfort of a man, the comfort of you Mystery Man –there is nothing else like it, no one else like you….
Side chick
and ideally not just secret lovers, though I cannot lie to myself I would take that; you are such an exquisite lover, well, Atantic Starr can say it better:
No secret to that wonderful, dammit! Mystery Man that as Luther says, I came here for you to love –for you Mystery Man, all for you!
Luther Vandross, “For You to Love”:
So “My First Love“, and “Comfort of a Man” for you, everything for you… –“I Will Always Love You“
and I will Always Love you
Mystery Man, I just pray that you will Love Me back; that’s all, Mystery Man –and I am not as high maintenance as I must seem to you.
Lord help me, I so love you, Mystery Man, and Lord help me, sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I keep wishing and hoping, as in this Dionne Warwick rendition –I am yours, but are you mine? –are you kidding? I know you like long hair, and I didn’t buy mine; if hair were all it takes, you would be mine… but if even the long hair fails, this 100% natural butt-kissing hair, you can play with my hair all day, all night and it will not come off, I do not have to worry about “weave sex” as discussed in the film good hair what can I do? And if my hair won’t do it, nor any of my other natural looks that I so want you to desire… My tiny waist, my shapely hips, those peachy breasts that ripen whenever you are near, if these things don’t entice you, what will? –and why do I care so much? it isn’t as if you’re the only man in the world! –but you are the only man I want in my world.
Trailer from Chris Rock’s “Good Hair“:
I do want to be in your heart! (so embedded that without me, you’d have no heart)–no lie there!
So there you have it, waiting for “Wannabe“(that’s definite), hoping like crazy for my romance novel in which the female character is loved back, and then some, my dying dementia-ridden diabetic mother with hypertension that would have already killed the more ordinary; she has already given up on life, and is just waiting to go home to Jesus, while her house that my father bought in 1963, and where she still lives rapidly deteriorates… Oh I remember being in the south, and my father able to go into stores that my mother could not enter; I remember hiding in the car, being so frightened, because in that tiny Tennessee town, there were some who did not feel that the races should mix…
I cannot explain exactly how my paternal grandfather could even exist… Caucasian, Native American, and Indian (as in “India”) and my own problems with not only finding the right man –which I’ve done– but having you willing/able to love me back… Unless you have married… I do not know.
If you are that deeply in love with somone other than me, I would like to know so that I can begin to adjust, but let me tell you, there is no man on this earth I would rather kiss, and there is no man on this earth I woud rather touch, and there is no man on this earth I would rather have kiss me, no other man on this earth I would rather have hold me, and no other man on this earth I would rather hold —
But I do need a love of my own! as in:
If you think I’ve confessed to you Mystery Man how much I love you in this post, I assure you that I’ve confessed this to you even more in texts… I so want you just to notice me… I so want things you said in the past to still be true… This is not the first time I’ve said any of this, and I fear that sometimes I should keep my blabbermouth shut, but if you can love me for what I am, I should be able to say anything to you… I even asked you to tell me if you thought you could ever love me; I asked you to tell me that you’re sure you never want to hold me again, to never touch me again, to just tell me, because I can’t wait for you forever, but if you know you can’t ever love me, I want to know that…
but if it’s possible, as much as I say I wouldn’t, I would take you back–not you you’re gone, still BFFs–, so rather elevate both of us from BFFs to lovers… –which is what I want, but if you don’t? Too bad for you, but, for now, I love this Mystery Man! –I love you–even if I shouldn’t.
I have never loved a man the way that I love that Mystery Man: you:
Now some pics of how I look right now, and what this Mystery Man (you) seem willing to give up. My hair: no wig, no weaves, no hair pieces, no extensions, 100% natural hair, waist-length and rooted in my scalp; 98 pounds, no plastic surgery anywhere; I have never had to diet. Everything about me is natural except for some hair dye from time to to my hair. No bleaching or skin whitening creams. My own “yellow” teeth (I will be going to the dentist). I was told that I have dense breasts in my most recent mammogram (a week ago), but no abnormalities detected dense breasts –as I’ve had since I was a teenager in triple D cups –really got me noticed, and may have helped that deacon decide to rape me, but they are natural, no implants –never, As that you Mystery Man, know better than anyone…
I love you, Mystery Man. I honestly love you. You know I do.
For the record, this is just too much for me, trying to prepare to sell my house, a son I love dearly who isn’t that cooperative, and then his partner who lives with him in my basement (so far, I haven’t received even a penny from my tenants [who aren’t that tidy]), the romance novel, trying to find my way on my own, without a car, too difficult for me to feel that I can drive safely with my optic neuritis, a consequence of my MS–but I can walk six miles most days, three miles to a locaton where often I find so many geese, and amazing sunsets:
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushed
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushed
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushedgeese
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushedgeese
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushed
Walking for Joy, hoping for Bob, trying to accept that it might not be him; my world being crushed
–and yet I must still shop for food, and I want to do these things for myelf, and see what might happen (don’t I hope) with that Mystery Man (you), and if not you, then someone else. I hope it can be you –please “I say A Little Prayer”
and this version of saying a little prayer:
First task is to sell this house and be free of a house too big for me to take care of by myself, without help from my tenants, as it currently is, one of whom is my own 25-year-old son who has psychological problems, that I don’t believe he inherited from his Bangladeshi sperm donor paternity. Such donations and family backgrounds are screened. Sperm donations are kept for six months before being used. I was lucky in that one visit was all it took for me to conceive… the difference a good sample makes, I was told, by the fertility clinic’s doctor.
I recall that when my ex-spouse found out about this pregancy he did not want me to have; I remember that he said, “Didn’t I consider AIDS”? -and he would probably say that my son’t psychological problems stem from the donor. I do not know. I want the best possible outcomes for everyone.
And yes, you better believe that I want you, Mystery Man… But, I want you to want me too.
Do I really ask for too much in asking for love?
So this is my crazy life right now, but it is life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way…
Thank you for reading this.
Sorry that I rambled on and on… I have so much on my spilling plate… And that Mystery Man
is not here.
I am never giving up on love, even if that makes me a fool for love, fool, fool , fool for that Mystery Man ; fool, fool for you.
I hope I am able to report something better about you, that one day, you are no longer a mystery man because we enter a better relationship, one that isn’t all me, for now, my impossible dream, but I really pray for more than that…
And here’s Frank Sinatra, saying it better than me, The Impossible Dream becoming possible:
This is more than enough for one night; I love you Mystery Man enough for a thousand and one nights, for a million nights, for every night. –I can’t help what my heart feels, one thing that is for sure, Mystery Man, “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine“
(Lou Rawls can help me with this one, and I do need help, loving this Mystery Man [you) as I do):
Good Night, Mystery Man; don’t let the bedbugs bite
Little more than the romance novel for me to think about; I’m trying but it’s very difficult; I know that so much else is occurring in the world, even celebration of US independence, but that is not enough to get my mind off a CHANCE for the possibility of that novel.
“As I mentioned via text, I can’t really dig in until Saturday, but by the end of this holiday weekend, I’ll send this back, almost certainly with only the barest of surgical edits, all tracked, for you to accept or reject as you see fit. Shouldn’t take long at all, and then we can start sending it out. As I mentioned, I know one publisher that would welcome a cold submission from me, so we should give them a bit of time to review it first, then if they’re not interested, I can start querying the agents I know, who number several dozen. That’ll be the extent of what I can do in terms of getting it out there, but I welcome the chance to do it.
Thanks, Thylias. And congratulations. This book has come a long, long way!
Those who know me personally have no idea all that book contains, but it definitely contains it. That book is giving me no peace, and I hope it’s the same way for the others, the many others –dare I say that?– lucky enough to read this book once it becomes available and it will!
Just thinking about it, I am a total wreck. For this is the book I want to read also. I want to be on buses, in taxis, on subways, in boats every mode of transportation, I want to be seen reading this book.
I hope it’s banned in certain places, I assume in church (except for what is read in secret) –just not openly. Although sex like what’s in my novel surely has a place there. Let’s just say, and this can’t possibly go too far; but let’s just say that the possibilities for intimacy and romance are achieved; I wrote about my ideal situations, how could I not? When I too dream, and if I can’t give my characters what I would want for myself, then I am much less the writer, much less the human being I thought I was, I hoe I am, and although I was married for a very long time, I haven’t stopped dreaming about love that way I would like for it to be, and if I can’t get it with my –truly –butt-kissing-hair, my tiny waist, my 98 natural pounds at age 62, then maybe it isn’t there for me to get, and I know I sound right there like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, realizing why home is where she should be, and of course, I’m hearing Stephanie Mills sing “Home”
As since the show at the Pulitzer Fine Arts Foundation in St. Louis should be closed now, you will no longer be able to see my video poam, “The Glory Prelude to a Widow Shrine System” there, but sometime this weekend, I will place it on YouTube and you will be able to see it there. Some video stills from “The Glory Prelude to a Widow Shrine System”, music by experimental filmmaker and graphic artist Ansted Moss, all vocals performed, and all images captured by Thylias Moss:
STILL FROM MY VIDEO POAM: “THE GLORY PRELUDE TO A WIDOW SHRINE SYSTEM”
“Toy Piano” on which “Piano Hair was both composed and performed.
Thylias Moss is in love with life, with everything, with herself, Christal Rice Cooper, and with, oh everything, –a man too –he knows who he is. And I thank him for being someone I can love. I can never thank him enough, and that’s as public as I can be about my own real heart.
I celebrate my independence from sadness, from feeling myself not “pretty”, from fearing ravages for disease, for I also have MS (multiple sclerosis, and you could never tell) –so Chris Rice Cooper this is also for you my friend, as I continue to love myself (maybe even too much)
For my new book of new romance novel, I hope to have some pics f myself taken by Tony Smith
Artwork on the cover is used by permision and is “Untitled” from the New Orleans series, 1941, Gouache, by Gwendolyn Knight and may be seen at this website: http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/artwork/Knight-Untitled_NewOrleans.htm
Thylias Moss Writing 