*The poets say that all who love are blind;
But I’m in love and I know what time it is!
The Good Book say’s “Go seek and ye shall find”.
Well I have sought and my what a climb it is!
My life is just like the weather,
It changes with the hours;
When he’s near I’m fair and warmer,
When he’s gone I’m cloudy with showers;
In emotion, like the ocean its either sink or swim
When a woman loves a man like I love him.
Never treats me sweet and gentle the way he should;
I got it bad and that ain’t good!
My poor heart is sentimental not made of wood
I got it bad and that ain’t good!
But
without a doubt
rome did the whi
te thing when it
killed christ.
It has been proven
that j.c. was non-whi
te in the darkest
way possible black ink on whi
te paper
contradictions
from the west
ern cowBoys with two guns & music
written on paper with
black lines.
it makes mary in-
too a first class
whore
john the bas
tard on
ly got people
wet
the cat
holic church cried
all the way to the
bank.
Sweet little Jesus Boy,
they made you be born in a manger.
Sweet little Holy Child,
didn’t know who You was.
Didn’t know you come to save us, Lord;
to take our sins away.
Our eyes was blind, we couldn’t see,
we didn’t know who You was.
Long time ago,
learn moreSipping the new tea
his wrinkled face absorbs steam…
the smell of roses
Summer evening sun;
a row of tombs-their shadows
reaching the ditchbank
a black woman
breastfeeding her infant-
the autumn moon
Winter stillness-
old barn’s splintered remnants caught
in a crescent moon….
In Cuba
a dark skin woman ask me
if I’m from Angola
I try to explain in the no Spanish I know
that I am American
she finds this difficult to believe
at times I do too….
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.
The usual is there,
nondescript trees opened like umbrellas,
pessimist always expecting rain,
chickadees whose folding and unfolding wings
suggest the shuffling and reshuffling
of the cardsharp’s deck;
nothing noteworthy except the beginning saxophonist
blowing with the efficacy of wolves addicted to pigs,
blowing down those poorly built houses,
the leaves off the trees, the water in
another direction, the ace of spades
into the ground with the cardsharp’s bad intentions.
The discord and stridency set off landslides
and avalanches; his playing moves the earth
not lo
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!
Preacher-man, don’t tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don’t know
What life is really worth.
It’s not all that glitters is gold;
‘Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights.
We were alone and did your life
As close as we could get-
You are neither of us!
Small one
Things happen merely because you are so imaginative-
You shall hear me upside down…
Live items more possible then real.
Your cries give my escape another draw-plate
From the last know escape.
Reprinted by permission of Lawrence McGaugh.
learn moreThis is the surest death of all the deaths I know.
The one that halts the breath,
The one that falls with snow
Are nothing but a peace
Before the second zone,
For Aprils never cease
To resurrect their own,
And in my veins
Flows blood as old as Eve.
The smallest cell contains
Its privileged reprieve.
But vultures recognize
This single mortal thing
And watch with hungry eyes
When hope starts staggering…
Copyright 1965, reprinted by permission of Naomi Long Madgett.
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