Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players on a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through the storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
In a house of empty rooms, I thought I heard a door close down the long hall.
I couldn’t know whether someone had entered, whether someone had left.
No further step, simply the closing of a door-an absence of other defined stir, more like the hum of water in a hidden spring, like a starved echo from an exacting hill I could not measure.
I reached for the reassuring hand. It was not there. He had gone ahead.
Reference:
May Miller
Biafra should be the name of a woman, black and soft, smooth belly, and a heavy breast.
Biafra.
listen to the way she walks
Biafra.
listen to the way she walks
the black little boy dozes in the hot sun.
Biafra
she brings the burn of day.
Biafra. O mother, hear the growl, the night
is cold, cold, cold…
Copyright 1970 by Hill and Wang, Inc.
learn moreBlack knight with thor’s hammer in your bat.
I’ve heard how you blasted the hell out of bullets from the rifle of satch and the likes.
If grandpa still breathed he’d swear that the blood in his flesh should freeze if he were lying saying “old Josh now that was the biggest damn bat that ever lived,” smiling all the while in his profession.
He’d swear that ever when the babe reigned he sat on the throne. 200 homers (and some) a smaller king than you black knight with thor’s hammer in your bat.
And it’s testimony that grandpa’s tongue was pure like the serenade of a wooded stream…
My hair is springy like the forest grasses
That cushion the feet of squirrels-
Crinkled and blown in a south breeze
Like small leaves of native bushes.
My black eyes are coals burning
Like a low, full, jungle moon
Through the darkness of being.
In a clear pool I see my face,
Know my knowing.
My hands move pianissimo
Over the music of the night:
Gentle bird fluttering through leaves and grasses
They have not always loved,
Nesting, finding home.
Where are my lovers?
Where are my tall, my lovely princes
Dancing in slow grace
Toward knowledge of my beauty
Where
Are my bea
In the last civil war,
The white folks, they began it,
But before it could close,
The Negro had to be in it.
At the battle of San Juan hill,
The rough-riders they began it;
But before victory could be won
The Negro had to be in it.
The Negro shot the Spaniard from the tree,
And never did regret it;
The rough-riders would have been dead to-day
Had the he Negro not been in it.
To Buffalo, McKinley went,
To welcome people in it;
The prayer was prayed, the speech made,
The Negro, he was in it.
My brothers I will not tell you what to love or not love
I will only say to you that black women hove not been loved enough.
I will say to you that we are at war & that black men in America are being removed from the earth.
learn moreMy mind to me is a Kingdom
unlimited in its scope,
For in it can be found the realm
of Fear – of Joy – of Hope.
And in it can be found the towns
experience has built.
Each ruled by some powerful King
of Righteousness or Guilt.
Along the roads that run its breadth
some caravan always wends its way,
A wish – a word – a new idea – some new sensations of the day
that travels swiftly to its port.
And many times in my domain
some furious battle will be waged,
the fight of those base passions
that turn all men in rage.
My mind to me is a Kingdom
unlimited in its sc
My baby she done somethin, never done before
When I come home, had a pail up on the floor
Won’t you tell me woman, who’s that left here while ago?
When I come home, who’s that went out my back door?
Well it must have been a stranger, he did not understand
Went out my back door, padlock in his hand
Now won’t you tell me woman, who’s that left here while ago?
When I come home, who’s that went out my back door?
Well I ain’t gonna use no ice, gon’ buy me a frigidaire
Know that’ll keep the ice man away from here
Now won’t you tell me woman, who’s that left here while ago?
When I co
Call it neither love nor spring madness,
Nor chance encounter nor quest ended.
Observe it casually as pussy willows
Or pushcart pansies on a city street.
Let this seed growing in us
Granite-strong with persistent root
Be without name, or call it the first
Warm wind that caressed your cheek
And traded unshared kisses between us.
Call it the elemental earth
Bursting the clasp of too-long winter
And trembling for the plough-blade.
Let out blood chant it
And our flesh sing anthems to its arrival,
But our lips shall be silent, uncommitted….
