these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987
learn morewhen i watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when i watch you
in your old man’s shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week’s grocery
i say
when i watch you
you wet brown bag of woman
who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
i stand up
through your destruction
i stand up…
My Daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle Brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times
My Mama has made bread
and Grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
Oh these is good times
good times
good times
oh children think about the
good times…
Reference:
Lucille Clifton
boys
I don’t promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
I will redeem
what you steal
I wil conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all I got
girls
first time a white man
opens his fly
like a good thing
we’ll just laugh
laugh real loud my
black women
children
when they ask you
why your mama so funny
say
she is a poet
she don’t have no sense…
From Good Times Copyright 1969 by Lucille Clifton.
Reference:
Lucille Clifton
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.
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
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.
