If the drum is a woman
why are you pounding your drum into an insane
babble
why are you pistol whipping your drum at dawn
why are you shooting through the head of your drum
and making a drum tragedy of drums
if the drum is a woman
don’t abuse your drum don’t abuse your drum
don’t abuse your drum
I know the night is full of displaced persons
I see skins striped with flames
I know the ugly disposition of underpaid clerks they constantly menstruate through the eyes
I know bitterness embedded in flesh
the itching alone can drive you crazy
I know that this is America and c
Steam rises over my nose
against this night cold empty room as wide as my throat; eases/flows
river a mocha memory from aunt ora’s kitchen.
She made it in
the big tin percolator and poured the brew into thick
white fist-sized mugs and
put lots of sugar and milk in it for me and
the other kids who loved it better than chocolate
and the neighbor woman used to tell her and us
it wasn’t good for young colored children
to drink. It made you get blacker
and blacker…
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…….
Reference:
Lucille Clifton
To be a Negro on a day like this Demands forgiveness.
Bruised with blow on blow,
Betrayed, like him whose woe dimmed eyes gave bliss,
Still must one succor those who brought one low,
To be a Negro on a day like this
To be a Negro on a day like this
Demands rare patience-patience that can wait
In utter darkness. ‘Tis the path to miss,
And knock, unheeded, at iron gate,
To be a Negro on a day like this
To be a Negro on a day like this
Demands strange loyalty, we served a flag
Which is to us white freedom’s emphasis.
Ah!
Don’t you know
They’re talking, about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don’t you know
They’re talking, about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
While they’re standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what’s theirs
Don’t you know
You better run, run, run…
Oh I said you better
Run, run, run…
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin’ bout a revolution…..
father
i am not equal to the faith required.
i doubt.
i have a woman’s certainties;
bodies pulled from me,
pushed into me,
bone flesh is what I know.
father
the angels say they have no wings.
i woke one morning
feeling how to see them.
i could discern their shadows
in the shadow.
