Black girl black girl
lips as curved as cherries
full as grape bunches
sweet as blackberries
Black girl black girl
when you walk you are
magic as a rising bird
or a falling star
Black girl black girl
what’s your spell to make
the heart in my breast
jump stop shake…
Reprinted by permission of Dudley Randall.
Reference: Dudley Randall
learn moreMusing on roses and revolutions,
I saw night close down on the earth like a great dark wing,
and the lighted cities were like tapers in the night,
and I heard the lamentations of a million hearts
regretting life and crying for the grave,
and I saw the Negro lying in the swamp with his face
blown off,
and the northern cities with his manhood maligned and felt
the writhing
of his viscera like that of a hare hunted down or the
bear at bay,
and I saw men working and taking joy in their work
and embracing the hard eyed whore with joyless excitement
and lying with wives and
What desperate nightmare rapts me to this land
Lit by a bloody moon, red on the hills,
Red in the valley’s, Why am I compelled
To tread again where buried feet have trod,
The shed my tears where blood and tears have flowed?
Compulsion of the blood and the moon
Transports me. I was molded from this clay
My blood must ransom all the blood shed here,
My tears redeem the tears. Cripples and monsters
Are here.
