we were raised on the lower eastside of detroit,
close to harlem, new york, around the block from watts,
next to the Mississippi delta in north america.
Good night to you and you,
and especially to you.
The music stops and now the party’s through.
This night has been such fun,
my thanks to every one,
and especially to you.
Sweet dreams to you and you,
and may all your dreams come true.
Tonight I know that I’ll be dreaming too.
For that love song I sang,
that seemed to please the gang,
was especially to you.
Before my eyes at last I’ve seen that someone
we all hope to see.
I realized that when I saw that someone,
I would fall helplessly.
A
learn moreSometimes we walk hand in hand by the sea
And we breathe in the cool salty air;
You turn to me with a kiss in your eyes
And my heart feels a thrill beyond compare!
Then your lips cling to mine,
Its wonderful! Wonderful!
Oh, so wonderful, my love!
Oh, so wonderful, my love!
This world is full of wondrous things, it’s true,
But they wouldn’t have much meaning without you.
Some quiet evenings I sit by your side
And we’re lost in a world of our own;
I feel the glow of your unspoken love,
I’m aware of the treasure that I own.
Then I say to myself,
Its wonderful!
My brothers I will not tell you who to love or not love. I will only say to you that Black women have 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. Like loose sand in a wind storm and that the women Black are there to teach us.
No my brothers I will not tell you who to love but I will make you aware of our self hating and hurting ways. Make you aware of whose bellies you dropped from.
learn moreMy mother warned me I’d perish in dirt:
Girl, how you going to take care of a filthy man
when you got so many nasty habits yourself?
Ambition don’t make you immune to the facts of life.
Ask me, you do too much dreaming and scheming and not nearly enough cleaning.
Let me tell you, honey, even career women have to
wipe their man’s pee off the toilet seat before they sit down.
You got to get realistic one of these days,
or do you think you going to
paint finger pictures in grimy window panes,
grow gardens under gritty fingernails,
practice broad-jumping the length of the un-swe
At last I am acquitted
My body heavy with shame.
I dip myself in the dark river,
Wash again, and once more,
What us the mass that floats from me
Down the dark river?
I am not guilty!
I am not guilty!
I tell the white birds
Flying low over my head.
(But they’re busy with each other.)
lovers, accept me, you lover!
I call to the pairs
Swept by in a canoe’s rhythm.
(No answer, no matter,
I’ll never see them again.)
I return to the waters
Trampling the hollow sedges
That do not bother to answer
Even persistent winds.
Only the river responds
Promising no unholy footprint…
Through random doors we wandered
into passages disguised as paradise
and out again, discarding,
embracing hope anew, discarding again:
exits and entrances to many houses.
Without joy we sang,
without grace we danced,
our humpback rhythms colliding
with our sanity,
our beauty blanching in a hostile sun.
How should we, could we
sing our song in a strange land?
Through door we have come
home to our kingdom, our own battleground,
not with harps, not with trumpets even,
but harmed with the invincible sword and shield
of our own names and faces…..
Referenc
learn moreshe draws fat birds
in stokes tight as geography
their plump bodies
arch above bent twigs and flowers
in a splash of boneless color
remember the leaves and veins she says
Chinese painting captures the spirit
the character of space
the observer looks down
stresses only the foreground
the use of line gives substance
to the motion
these contours fall into simple patterns
like Tu Fu’s poems
easy she says watching my brush
tremble toward the paper
but it is difficult
these fats birds and simple bamboo stalks
they have no urban counterparts
I want to fill th
Deify the room/ space/drive…mass control into love…
get medium/brake into high/find mellow/perch there/drift…find her/move/stop…
Impress the air cool with love turning over every tremor to find new note/new time to woo bass and feet tap.
drift sky/sea/earth motion on without you/within you/…you…
Follow up/expand/chill/blow to extinction then find second breath and leave/new life yelling deep…
Vibrate/rap your sad tale blue plus black/don’t dwell…too long…sing of your dreams different…
Burn hell with new freakish devil/new man wants new world to love him/new 7th brakes peace and upsets wh
I am Nuba!
The great warrior of the world.
My strengths are my mind and soul.
I walk as upright as an oak tree.
My muscles last forever under this tight skin.
I talk through the world as a “God”.
I am Nuba!
