I am sorry you are
proud of the man
who raped your
great-great-great
grandmother and left
your hair good.
Please, this is not
envy it is sorrow
for the long road
we must travel
to be sisters. My
lineage can be traced
through the roots
of my hair to
Nairobi. Do not
try to make me
ashamed of this f
act, sorry my hair
grows in dry tight
cottonfields on my
head and will not
fly in the wind
like to woman I am not….
When it rained five days and the skies turned dark as night.
When it rained five days and the skies turned dark as night.
There was trouble taking place in the low-lands at night.
I woke up this morning, wouldn’t even get out of my door.
I woke up this morning, wouldn’t even get out of my door.
Enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she gonna go.
They rowed a little boat, about five miles’ cross the farm.
They rowed a little boat, about five miles’ cross the farm.
I packed up all my clothing, throwed it in and they rowed me along.
It thundered and it lightened and the w
learn moreHigh/yellow/black girl waken like the sun u be.
Move on even higher, those who laugh at yo/color have not moved
to the blackness we be about cuz as Curtis Mayfield be sayen
we people be darker than blue and quite a few of us yellow
all soul/shades of blackness. Yeah. High yellow/black/girl
walk yo/black/song cuz some of us be hearen yo/sweet/music….
why don’t you go on & integrate a german-american school in st.
learn moreThese are the years of the empty hands. And what
were those just past, swift with the flash of alloyed hulls
but carrying no cargo? Outside our lives, my mythical
America, dingy rollers fringed with soot deposit
cracked syringes and used condoms on beaches tinted gray
by previous waves, but when an hour waits just a moment,
everything begins again.
In Orangeburg my brothers did the African twist around a bone-fire they’d built at the gate to keep the hunkies out.
The day before they’d caught one shooting up the campus like the white hunter he was.
But a bone-fire? only conjures up the devil.
You keep saying you were always there
waiting for me to see you.
you said that once
on the wings of a pale green butterfly
you rode across san francisco’s hills
and touched my hair as i caressed
a child called militancy
you keep saying you were always there
holding my small hand
as I walked
unbending Indiana streets i could not see around
and you grew a black mountain
of curves and i turned
and became soft again
you keep saying you were always there
repeating my name softly
as i slept in
slow Pittsburgh blues and you made me
sweat nite dreams tha
Who is not a stranger still
even after making love,
or the morning after?
The interlude of sleep again divides
it is clear again where one body
ends and the next begins,
Think to think at each encounter,
we will be strangers still
even after making love
and long conversation,
even after meals and showers
together
and years of touching.
It is not often that the core
of what I am is lost in longing
and is less often filled.
I understand my clinging
to the though of you…
By Stephany Fuller, from Moving Deep, copyright 1969.
learn moreOnce, we had a persistent uncle, with us, at home, a slow burner,
with more than enough patience to light the whole family fire.
We called him names like hope, work, struggle, time and victory;
his smile hid years of torment; his walk was slow and very long.
When he died, the whole family called one another names like hope,
work, struggle, time and victory; and his footprints became ours…
When black people are with each other we sometimes fear ourselves whisper over our shoulders about unmentionable acts & sometimes we fight & lie. these are something’s we sometimes do.
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