Born under a bad sign
Been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
You know I wouldn’t have no luck at all
Hard luck and trouble
Been my only friend
I been out on my own
Ever since I was ten
Born under a bad sign
Been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
You know I wouldn’t have no luck at all
I can’t read,
I didn’t learn how to write
My whole life has been
One long fight
Born under a bad sign
I’ve been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
You know I wouldn’t have no luck at all
You know if wasn’t for
learn moreShinny record albums scattered over the living-room floor, reflecting light from the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt my eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters, the beer foam making mustaches on your lips.
And, too,
the shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes fascinate me-almost as much as the dimples: in your cheeks, your arms and your legs:
dimples…dimples…dimples…
You
hum along with Mathis-how you love Mathis !
YOUnited we stand, YOUnited we phall, but you steel phall 2 your knees 2 Live because you are afraid 2 make a stand Like Hodges, 2 give yourself, phamily, and community tha opportunity for rebirth in self you refuse 2 draw tha chalk line around self, wanting more worldly wealth, I am tha brother Like stealth 2 be tha sakrafice of tha BLAKMAN’s double destiny goin’ into tha twenty-phirst century 2 awaken every BLAKMAN and BLAKWOMAN in tha world.
I am, YOU are tha BLAK pearl that has withstood that pressures phrom amerikkka at tha bottom of tha sea, phrom Oregon 2 tha sea in D.C.
learn moreFast breaks, Lay up, With Mercury’s Insignia on our sneakers,
We outmaneuvered the footwork
Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot
Swish of strings like silk
Ten feet out. In the roundhouse
Labyrinth our bodies
Created, we could almost
Last forever, poised in midair
Like storybook sea monsters.
A high note hung there
A long second. Off
The rim. We’d corkscrew
Up & dunk balls that exploded
The skullcap of hope & good
Intention.
Tapped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1dead), grandfathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins (1st & 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know their dark eyes, they know mine. I am all of them, they are all of me; they are farmers, I am a thief, I am me, they are thee.
learn moreI can’t help but think of bodies
spoon-fashion in the belly of a ship.
Gods pour us into molds they dream;
Legba mends hope, the breath-cup, footsteps
in plaster of Paris.
and yeah, brothers,
while white/America sings about the unsink
able molly brown
(who was hustling the titanic
when it went down)
I sing to thee of Shine
the stoker who was hip
enough to flee the fucking ship
and let the white folks drown
with screams on their lips
(jumped his black ass into the dark sea, Shine did, broke free from the straining steel.)
yeah, I sing of Shine
and how the millionaire banker stood on the deck
and pulled from his pocket a million dollar check
saying Shine Shine save poor me
and I’ll give all the money a black boy needs-
First you must have unbelievable faith in water, in women dancing like hands playing harps as principle forces for straw to grow stalks of fire.
You must understand the year that begins with your hands tied behind your back, worship of dark totems weighed down with night-birds that shift their weight & leave holes in the sky.
You must know what’s behind the shadow of a treadmill; its window the moon’s reflection-the silent season that reaches toward red sunlit hills which everything returns to.
You must know the hard silence of building walls that sway with summer storms-locking arms
learn moreWinnin’ boy,
if you were mine,
I’d rock you in my
cradle of careless love-
true blue love,
and let you jass me
with your sporting house,
red gravy, diamond-studded,
gambling, hot Creole
rambling, down-town
ragtime blues.
Lord Jelly, Oh Mister Jazz King,
You salty dog….
Rhythm it is we
walk to against the evil
of monsters who try to kill the Spirit
It is the power of this song
that colors our every act
as we move from the oppressor-made gutter
Gut it is will move us from the gutter
It is the rhythm of guts
blood-black, granite hard
and flowing like the river or the mountains
It is the rhythm of the unchained Spirit
will put fire in our hands
to blaze our way
to clarity to power
to the rebirth of real men……
Copyright 1971, reprinted by permission of Broadside Press
