K. Curtis Lyle's freedom is the Monster Among Us

K. Curtis Lyle

So like I was saying, there will be a poetry performance at Mad Art (2727 South 21st St.) at 7:30 p.m. Monday, January 30 to close The Shape of a Man group art show. The event is free and open to the public. Mad Art will run a cash bar.

The performing poets will be K. Curtis Lyle, Stefene Russell, Nicky Rainey and Chris King (that's me), reading in the opposite order of that list. Leading up to the event, I plan to post a little more info about each of the poets, along with one of their more "manly" poems.

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from THE MONSTER AMONG US
Excerpt from the Merovingian Erosnaut Told in Tongues
By K. Curts Lyle

My freedom is the monster among us
A chant is a form of madness
My freedom is a chant inverse tragedy
First animate song against suicide pause of
Color between love and death pre herald
Of what is coming my freedom is
A ten stage tongue rocket already decreed

My freedom is the monster among us
Not your freedom not our freedom but
My freedom is selfish like a billion
Year old gene undying walking in reverse
The new man posing as a retiree
My freedom cracks mirrors for a living
My freedom casts no shadow no where

My freedom is the monster among us
Has no border cannot adjoin is both
Light shield and gravity my freedom shuns
Length and depth and breadth and joy
And pain and does not respond to
The short version my freedom has met
All yogas and tasted all pending psyches

Of Bella Dona Datura Amanita Father Peyote
My freedom can pick out a warrior
From a cluster of pimps she can
Stop the world turn a warrior back
Into a pimp a hero into a
Bum cake the one thing you’ve loathed
All your life into a secret lover

(c) 2012 K. Curtis Lyle
All rights reserved

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K. Curtis Lyle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was a founding member of the Watts Writers Workshop, joining it in 1966 and becoming a prominent member of the Los Angeles renaissance that the group represented. He has taught, lectured and read his poetry in performance in the major intellectual and urban centers of North America.

Lyle has published widely over the years and been anthologized in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe. Lyle’s work has been widely adapted to music, especially to jazz. He built a performing and recording relationship with the late world renowned saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill (1938-1995). The text of Lyle’s poem, Drunk on God, was recorded for Julius Hemphill’s Big Band (Electra/Asylum).

In June 2003, Lyle published a work of selected poetry entitled, Electric Church. In February of 2008 he published a long prose poem, The Epileptic Camel Driver Speaks to a Refugee Death (Poetry Scores & Firecracker Press). In November 2008, Poetry Scores and Firecracker Press published a new work entitled Nailed Seraphim.

He currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri.


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The Shape of a Man group art show, featuring Amy VanDonsel, was organized in conjunction with the publication of Chris King's new chapbook of poetry, The Shape of a Man (Intagliata Imprints, 2012). The peformance Jan. 30 will include a reception and book signing.