She wanted to be a blade of grass amid the fields But he wouldn’t agree to be the dandelion She wanted to be a robin singing through the leaves but he refused to be her tree She spun herself into a web and looking for a place to rest turned to him but he stood […]
learn more(With special love to James)
Where are your heroes, my little Black ones
You are the Indian you so disdainfully shoot
Not the big bad sheriff on his faggoty white horse
You should play run-away-slave
Or Mau Mau
These are more in line with your history
Ask your mothers for a Rap Brown gun
Santa just may comply if you wish hard enough
Ask for CULLURD instead on Monopoly
DO NOT SIT DO NOT FOLLOW KING
GO DIRECTLY TO STREETS
This is a game you can win.
As you sit there with all your understanding eyes
You know the truth of what I’m saying
Play Back-to-Black
I am 25 years old, black female poet
asking nigger can you kill
if they kill me it won’t stop the revolution.
I have been robbed it looked like
they knew that I was to be hit
they took my TV my two rings
my piece of African print and my two guns
if they take my life it won’t stop the revolution.
My phone is tapped my mail is opened
they’ve caused me to turn on all my friends
and all of my new lovers if I hate all black people
and all Negroes it won’t stop the revolution.
I’m afraid to tell my roommate where I’m going
and scared to tell people if I’m coming
The women gather because it is not unusual to seek comfort in our hours of stress.
A man must be buried.
It is not unusual that the old bury the young though it is an abomination.
It is not strange that the unwise and the ungentle carry the banner of humaneness though it is a castration of the spirit.
It no longer shatters the intellect that those who make war call themselves diplomats.
We are no longer surprised that the unfaithful pray loudest every Sunday in church and sometimes in rooms facing east though it is a sin and a shame.
So how do we judge a man.
