I am the smoke king, I am black. I am swinging in the sky. I am ringing worlds on high: I am the thought of the throbbing mills, I am the soul of the soul toil kills, I am the ripple of trading rills, Up I’m curling from the sod, I am whirling home to God. I am the smoke king, I am black.
I am the smoke king, I am black.
learn moreBlack brother, think your life so sweet
That you would live at any price?
Does mere existence balance with
The weight of your great sacrifice?
Or can it be you fear the grave
Enough to live and die a slave?
O Brother! Be it better said,
When you are gone and tears are shed,
That your death was the stepping stone
Your children’s children cross’d upon.
Men have died that men might live:
Look every foeman in the eye!
If necessary, your life give
for something, ere in vain you die…
Reprinted by permission of Moore Publishing.
learn moreShe wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.
So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children’s naps.
Sometimes there were things to watch-
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she starred until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she’d see only her own vivid blood.
She had a hour at best before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,
building a palace.
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stir soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from the chalice steals-
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly to his perch and cling
When the fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And the pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting-
I know why he
Mowing this three acres with a tractor,
a man notices something ahead-a mannequin-
he thinks someone threw it from a car. Closer
he sees it is the body of a black woman.
The medics come and turn her with pitchforks.
Her gaze shoots past him to nothing. Nothing
is explained.
The craving of Samuel Rouse for clearance to create was surely as hot as the iron that buffeted him.
learn moreI will start at my beginning
From the womb into her arms I began
Born to a Sista in Love with her black man
She had two before me this is the truth
A man-child and a princess made two
She loved us all even the one that was to come
She provided for her Princes’ and princess out of true Love
This sista’s story mirrors many in our society
Battered misunderstood and ignored like a hearts’ beat
She pledged her Love to a man that was to provide
But his provisions were only troubled hearts and tormented minds
In her turmoil she struggled to see a light
She fought with all her might to m
we must kill our gods before they kill us
not because we will to kill but because
our gods think themselves gods
they are only actors who have lost their script
cannot remember their lines, and fake visions
of themselves without mirrors
phantoms screaming without voices
we must kill our gods before they kill us
this then is the law and the testament
with malice towards none we give you warning
when the statue falls the pedestal remains
black birds do not light upon the roots of trees
the wing praises the root by taking to the limbs
we are Americans looking in the m
We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn:
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de crust;
We sif de meal,
De gib us de huss;
We peel de meat,
Dey gib us de skin;
And dat’s de way
Dey take us in;
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us de liguor,
And say dat’s good enough for a nigger…
From: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1853
Reference:
Frederick Douglass
I know I’m not sufficiently obscure
to please the critics-nor devious enough.
Imagery escapes me.
I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.
Blood is blood and murder’s murder.
What’s a lavender word for lynch?
Come, you pale poets, wan, refined and dreamy:
here is a black woman working out her guts
in a white man’s kitchen
for little money and no glory.
How should I tell that story?
There is a black boy, blacker still from death,
face down in the cold Korean mud.
Come on with your effervescent jive
explain to him why he ain’t alive.
Reword our sp
