Those days when it was all right to be a criminal, or die, a postman’s son, full of hallways and garbage, behind the hotdog store or in the parking lots of the beautiful beer factory.
Those days I rose through the smoke of chilling Saturdays hiding my eyes from the shine boys, my mouth and my flesh from their sisters. I walked quickly and always alone watching the cheap city like I thought it would swell and explode, and only my crooked breath could put it together again.
By the projects and small banks of my time.
learn moreLet them keep it whatever it is for whites only hides.
And smiles.
I was in the pale inn
after the writs
after the whores
after the hilariously lonely convention men
and was not improved
and wondered why anyone bothered.
I was in the mausoleum
with the corpses
and counted the bones and was sad.
I went up high and came down
and hurried home
to you and hugged the broken-glass ghetto
and was glad and wondered again
why anyone bothered…..
Reprinted by permission of Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Poplars are standing there still as death
and ghost of dead men
meet their ladies walking
two by two beneath the shade
and standing on the marble steps.
There is a sound of music echoing
through the open door
and in the field there is
another sound tinkling in the cotton:
chains of bondmen dragging on the ground.
The years go back with an iron clank,
a hand is on the gate,
a dry leaf trembles on the wall.
Ghost are walking.
They have broken roses down
and poplars stand there still as death….
Copyright 1963, by Arna Bontemps.
What shall I give my children? who are poor,
Who are adjudged the leastwise of the land,
Who are my sweetest lepers, who demand
No velvet and no velvety velour;
But who have begged me for a brisk contour,
Crying that they are quasi, contraband
Because unfinished, graven by a hand
Less than angelic, admirable or sure.
My hand is stuffed with mode, design, device.
But I lack access to my proper stone
And plenitude of plan shall not suffice
Nor grief nor love shall be enough alone
To ratify my little halves who bear
Across an autumn freezing everywhere . .
HEART free, band free,
Blue above, brown under,
All the world to me
Is a place of wonder.
Sun shine, moon shine,
Stars, and winds a-blowing,
All into this heart of mine
Flowing, flowing, flowing!
Mind free, step free,
Days to follow after,
Joys of life sold to me
For the price of laughter.
Girl’s love, man’s love,
Love of work and duty,
Just a will of God’s to prove
Beauty, beauty, beauty!!!!!!
Reference:
William S. Brathwaite
I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep, within my heart the fear That wind or fowl would take the grain away.
He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black-A lover come from legends long ago-With silver spurs and silken plumes a-blow,
And flashing sword caught fast and buckled back In a craven sheath of Tamarack.
He came with footsteps beautifully slow, And spoke in voice meticulously low.
He came and romance followed his track….
I did not ask his name-I thought him Love; I did not care to see his hidden face.
All life seemed born in my intaken breath; All thought seemed flown like some forgotten dove.
Whose children are these? Who do these children belong to?
With no power to look over,
He look at them sleeping,
Exhaustion overwhelming hunger, barely
Protect with burlap from the cold
Cabin. Fear and rage make him tremble
For them; for himself, shame
That he can do no more
Than die for them
For no certain purpose. He heard
About a woman, Margaret garner,
In spite of the white folks’ silence.
How she killed two
Of hers to keep them from being taken
Back; killed herself
After the others were taken back
Anyway. So she saved
Two.
The last quarter moon of the dying year,
Pendant behind a naked cottonwood tree
On a frosty, dawning morning
With the back of her silver head
Turned to the waking sun.
Quiet like the waters
Of Galilee
After the Lord had bid them
“Peace be still.”
O silent beauty, indestructible!
Dead do they say?
Would god that shall seem
So beautiful in death……..
At home we pray every morning, we
get down on our knees in a circle,
holding hands, holding Love,
and we sing hallelujah.
Then we go into the world.
Daddy speeds, to break bread with his Girl Friend.
Mommy’s a Boss. And a lesbian.
(She too has a nice Girl Friend.)
my brothers and sisters and I come to school.
We bring knives pistols bottles, little boxes, and cans.
We talk to the man who’s cool at the playground gate.
Nobody Sees us, nobody stops our sin.
Our teachers feed us geography.
We spit it out in a hurry.
