Hey Gloria, Jobari wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good Malaika, wasn’t it good?
Wasn’t it good sister, wasn’t it good sister,
Sister, sisters, sisters, oh sisters,
oh ain’t it good?
II
What Nikki knows
Jesus Keep Me is
what kept me and
How I Got Over is
how we got over.
III
to Margaret and Gwen
Mama
two dozen daughters stand together
holding hands and singing cause
you such a good mama we
got to be good girls.
All of Us Are All of Us
Malcolm and Martin
George
little Emmett
Billie of the flower
the flower Bessie
all of us are
all of us
Nat
Gabriel
Denmark
Patrice and Kwame
Marcus
black Hampton
all of us are
all of us
Stepen Fetchit
Amos and Andy
Sapphire and
Uncle Tom
all of us are
all of us
Orangeburg
Jackson
Birmingham
here
my Mama
your Daddy
my Daddy
your Mama
oh all of us are
all of us and
this is a poem about
Love
an ordinary woman
(1974)
to fred
you know you know me well
sisters
in salem
to jeanette
weird sister
the black witches know that
the terror is not in the moon
choreographing the dance of wereladies
and the terror is not in the broom
swinging around to the hum of cat music
nor the wild clock face grinning from the wall,
the terror is in the plain pink
at the window
and the hedges moral as fire
and the plain face of the white woman watching us
as she beats her ordinary bread.
sisters
for elaine philip on her birthday
me and you be sisters.
we be the same.
me and you
coming from the same place.
me and you
be greasing our legs
touching up our edges.
me and you
be scared of rats
be stepping on roaches.
me and you
come running high down purdy street one time
and mama laugh and shake her head at
me and you.
me and you
got babies
got thirty-five
got black
let our hair go back
be loving ourselves
be loving ourselves
be sisters.
only where you sing
i poet.
leanna’s poem
for leanna webster
one
is never enough for me
you said
surrounded by the lunch
we could not taste for eating,
and i smiled and thought about meals
and mealmates and hunger
and days and time and life and
hunger, and you are right
it is not, it is never enough;
and so this poem is for us,
leanna, two hungry ladies,
and i wish for you
what i wish for myself—
more than one
more than one
more than one.
on the birth of bomani
for jaribu and sababu
we have taken the best leaves
and the best roots
and your mama whose skin
is the color of the sun
has opened into a fire and
your daddy whose skin
is the color of the night
has tended it carefully with
his hunter’s hands and
an afrikan treasure-man.
may the art in the love that made you
fill your fingers,
may the love in the art that made you
fill your heart.
salt
for sj and jj
he is as salt
to her,
a strange sweet
a peculiar money
precious and valuable
only to her tribe,
and she is salt
to him,
something that rubs raw
that leaves a tearful taste
but what he will
strain the ocean for and
what he needs.
a storm poem
for adrienne
the wind is eating
the world again.
continents spin
on its vigorous tongue
and you adrienne
broken like a bone
should not sink
casual as dinner.
adrienne.
i pronounce your name.
i push your person
into the throat
of this glutton.
for you
let the windmouth burn at last.
for you
let the windteeth break.
god’s mood
these daughters are bone,
they break.
he wanted stone girls
and boys with branches for arms
that he could lift his life with
and be lifted by.
these sons are bone.
he is tired of years that keep turning into age
and flesh that keeps widening.
he is tired of waiting for his teeth to
bite him and walk away.
he is tired of bone,
it breaks.
he is tired of eve’s fancy and
adam’s whining ways.
new bones
we will wear
new bones again.
we will leave
these rainy days,
break out through
another mouth
into sun and honey time.
worlds buzz over us like bees,
we be splendid in new bones.
other people think they know
how long life is
how strong life is.
we know.
harriet
if i be you
let me not forget
to be the pistol
pointed
to be the madwoman
at the rivers edge
warning
be free or die
and isabell
if i be you
let me in my
sojourning
not forget
to ask my brothers
ain’t i a woman too
and
grandmother
if i be you
let me not forget to
work hard
trust the Gods
love my children and
wait.
roots
call it our craziness even,
call it anything.
it is the life thing in us
that will not let us die.
even in death’s hand
we fold the fingers up
and call them greens and
grow on them,
we hum them and make music.
call it our wildness then,
we are lost from the field
of flowers, we become
a field of f
lowers.
call it our craziness
our wildness
call it our roots,
it is the light in us
it is the light of us
it is the light, call it
whatever you have to,
call it anything.
come home from the movies,
black girls and boys,
the picture be over and the screen
be cold as our neighborhood.
come home from the show,
don’t be the show.
take off some flowers and plant them,
pick us some papers and read them,
stop making some babies and raise them.
come home from the movies
black girls and boys,
show our fathers how to walk like men,
they already know how to dance.
to ms. ann
i will have to forget
your face
when you watched me breaking
in the fields,
missing my children.
i will have to forget
your face
when you watched me carry
your husband’s
stagnant water.
i will have to forget
your face
when you handed me
your house
to make a home,
and you never called me sister
then, you never called me sister
and it has only been forever and
i will have to forget your face.
my boys
for chan and baggy
my boys beauty is
numberless. no kit
can find their colors
in it. only afrikan artists,
studying forever, can
represent them. they are
brothers to each other
and to other live and
lovely things. people
approaching my boys
in their beauty
stand stunned
questioning over and over—
What is the meaning of this?
last note to my girls
for sid, rica, gilly and neen
my girls
my girls
my almost me
mellowed in a brown bag
held tight and straining
at the top
like a good lunch
until the bag turned weak and wet
and burst in our honeymoon rooms.
we wiped the mess and
dressed you in our name and
here you are
my girls
my girls
forty quick fingers
reaching for the door.
i command you to be
good runners
to go with grace
go well in the dark and
make for high ground
my dearest girls
my girls
my more than me.
a visit to gettysburg
i will
touch stone
yes i will
teach white rock to answer
yes i will
walk in the wake
of the battle sir
while the hills
and the trees
and the guns watch me
a touchstone
and i will rub
“where is my black blood
and black bone?”
and the grounds
and the graves
will throw off they clothes
and touch stone
for this touchstone.
monticello
(history: sally hemmings, slave at monticello,
bore several children with bright red hair)
God declares no independence.
here come sons
from this black sally
branded with jefferson hair.
to a dark moses
you are the one
i am lit for.
come with your rod
that twists
and is a serpent.
i am the bush.
i am burning.
i am not consumed.
Kali
queen of fatality, she
determines the destiny
of things. nemesis.
the permanent guest
within ourselves.
woman of warfare,
of the chase, bitch
of blood sacrifice and death.
dread mother. the mystery
ever present in us and
outside us. the
terrible hindu woman God
Kali.
who is black.
this morning
(for the girls of eastern high school)
this morning
this morning
i met myself
coming in
a bright
jungle girl
shining
quick as a snake
a tall
tree girl a
me girl
i met myself
this morning
coming in
and all day
i have been
a black bell
ringing
i survive
survive
survive
i agree with the leaves
the lesson of the falling leaves
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
the coming of Kali
it is the black God, Kali,
a woman God and terrible
with her skulls and breasts.
i am one side of your skin,
she sings, softness is the other,
you know you know me well, she sings,
you know you know me well.
running Kali off is hard.
she is persistent with her
black terrible self. she
knows places in my bones
i never sing about but
she knows i know them well.
she knows.
she knows.
she insists on me
i offer my
little sister up. no,
she says, no i want
you fat poet with
dead teeth. she insists
on me. my daughters
promise things, they
pretend to be me but
nothing fools her
nothing moves her and
i end up pleading
woman woman i am trying
to make a living here,
woman woman you are not
welcome in these bones,
woman woman please but she
walks past words and
insists on me.
she understands me
it is all blood and breaking,
blood and breaking. the thing
drops out of its box squalling
into the light. they are both squalling,
animal and cage. her bars lie wet, open
and empty and she has made herself again
out of flesh out of dictionaries,
she is always emptying and it is all
the same wound the same blood the same breaki
ng.
she is dreaming
sometimes
the whole world of women
seems a landscape of
red blood and things
that need healing,
the fears all
fears of the flesh;
will it open
or close
will it scar or
keep bleeding
will it live
will it live
will it live and
will he murder it or
marry it.
her love poem
demon, demon, you have dumped me
in the middle of my imagination
and i am dizzy with spinning from
nothing to nothing. it is all your fault
poet, fat man, lover of weak women
and i intend to blame you for it.
i will have you in my head
anyway i can, and it may be love you
or hate you but i will have you
have you have you.
calming Kali
be quiet awful woman,
lonely as hell,
and i will comfort you
when i can
and give you my bones
and my blood to feed on.
gently gently now
awful woman,
i know i am your sister.
i am not done yet
as possible as yeast
as imminent as bread
a collection of safe habits
a collection of cares
less certain than i seem
more certain than i was