The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

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The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks Page 10

by Elizabeth Alexander (ed)


  Paul Robeson

  That time

  we all heard it,

  cool and clear,

  cutting across the hot grit of the day.

  The major Voice.

  The adult Voice

  forgoing Rolling River,

  forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge

  and other symptoms of an old despond.

  Warning, in music-words

  devout and large,

  that we are each other’s

  harvest:

  we are each other’s

  business:

  we are each other’s

  magnitude and bond.

  FROM

  BECKONINGS | 1975

  The Boy Died in My Alley

  to Running Boy

  The Boy died in my alley

  without my Having Known.

  Policeman said, next morning,

  “Apparently died Alone.”

  “You heard a shot?” Policeman said.

  Shots I hear and Shots I hear.

  I never see the Dead.

  The Shot that killed him yes I heard

  as I heard the Thousand shots before;

  careening tinnily down the nights

  across my years and arteries.

  Policeman pounded on my door.

  “Who is it?” “POLICE!” Policeman yelled.

  “A Boy was dying in your alley.

  A Boy is dead, and in your alley.

  And have you known this Boy before?”

  I have known this Boy before.

  I have known this Boy before, who

  ornaments my alley.

  I never saw his face at all.

  I never saw his futurefall.

  But I have known this Boy.

  I have always heard him deal with death.

  I have always heard the shout, the volley.

  I have closed my heart-ears late and early.

  And I have killed him ever.

  I joined the Wild and killed him

  with knowledgeable unknowing.

  I saw where he was going.

  I saw him Crossed. And seeing,

  I did not take him down.

  He cried not only “Father!”

  but “Mother!

  Sister!

  Brother.”

  The cry climbed up the alley.

  It went up to the wind.

  It hung upon the heaven

  for a long

  stretch-strain of Moment.

  The red floor of my alley

  is a special speech to me.

  Steam Song

  Hostilica hears Al Green

  That Song it sing the sweetness

  like a good Song can,

  and make a woman want to

  run out and find her man.

  Ain got no pretty mansion.

  Ain got no ruby ring.

  My man is my only

  necessary thing.

  That Song boil up my blood

  like a good Song can.

  It make this woman want to

  run out and find her man.

  Elegy in a Rainbow

  Moe Belle’s double love song.

  When I was a little girl

  Christmas was exquisite.

  I didn’t touch it.

  I didn’t look at it too closely.

  To do that to do that

  might nullify the shine.

  Thus with a Love

  that has to have a Home

  like the Black Nation,

  like the Black Nation

  defining its own Roof

  that no one else can see.

  FROM

  PRIMER FOR BLACKS | 1980

  Primer for Blacks

  Blackness

  is a title,

  is a preoccupation,

  is a commitment Blacks

  are to comprehend—

  and in which you are

  to perceive your Glory.

  The conscious shout

  of all that is white is

  “It’s Great to be white.”

  The conscious shout

  of the slack in Black is

  “It’s Great to be white.”

  Thus all that is white

  has white strength and yours.

  The word Black

  has geographic power,

  pulls everybody in:

  Blacks here—

  Blacks there—

  Blacks wherever they may be.

  And remember, you Blacks, what they told you—

  remember your Education:

  “one Drop—one Drop

  maketh a brand new Black.”

  Oh mighty Drop.

  —— And because they have given us kindly

  so many more of our people

  Blackness

  stretches over the land.

  Blackness—

  the Black of it,

  the rust-red of it,

  the milk and cream of it,

  the tan and yellow-tan of it,

  the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,

  the “olive” and ochre of it—

  Blackness

  marches on.

  The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride

  is to Comprehend,

  to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,

  which is our “ultimate Reality,”

  which is the lone ground

  from which our meaningful metamorphosis,

  from which our prosperous staccato,

  group or individual, can rise.

  Self-shriveled Blacks.

  Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:

  YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.

  All of you—

  you COLORED ones,

  you NEGRO ones,

  those of you who proudly cry

  “I’m half INDian”—

  those of you who proudly screech

  “I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in

  MY veins—

  ALL of you—

  you proper Blacks,

  you half-Blacks,

  you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,

  Niggeroes and Niggerenes.

  You.

  To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals

  Never to look a hot comb in the teeth.

  Sisters!

  I love you.

  Because you love you.

  Because you are erect.

  Because you are also bent.

  In season, stern, kind.

  Crisp, soft—in season.

  And you withhold.

  And you extend.

  And you Step out.

  And you go back.

  And you extend again.

  Your eyes, loud-soft, with crying and with smiles,

  are older than a million years.

  And they are young.

  You reach, in season.

  You subside, in season.

  And All

  below the richrough righttime of your hair.

  You have not bought Blondine.

  You have not hailed the hot-comb recently.

  You never worshiped Marilyn Monroe.

  You say: Farrah’s hair is hers.

  You have not wanted to be white.

  Nor have you testified to adoration of that state

  with the advertisement of imitation

  (never successful because the hot-comb is laughing too.)

  But oh the rough dark Other music!

  the Real,

  the Right.

  The natural Respect of Self and Seal!

  Sisters!

  Your hair is Celebration in the world!

  FROM

  THE NEAR-JOHANNESBURG BOY | 1986

  The Near-Johannesburg Boy

  In South Africa the Black children ask each other: “Have you been detained yet? How many times have you been detained?”

  The herein boy does not live in Johannes
burg. He is not allowed to live there. Perhaps he lives in Soweto.

  My way is from woe to wonder.

  A Black boy near Johannesburg, hot

  in the Hot Time.

  Those people

  do not like Black among the colors.

  They do not like our

  calling our country ours.

  They say our country is not ours.

  Those people.

  Visiting the world as I visit the world.

  Those people.

  Their bleach is puckered and cruel.

  It is work to speak of my Father. My Father.

  His body was whole till they Stopped it.

  Suddenly.

  With a short shot.

  But, before that, physically tall and among us,

  he died every day. Every moment.

  My Father . . . .

  First was the crumpling.

  No. First was the Fist-and-the-Fury.

  Last was the crumpling. It is

  a little used rag that is Under, it is not,

  it is not my Father gone down.

  About my Mother. My Mother

  was this loud laugher

  below the sunshine, below the starlight at festival.

  My Mother is still this loud laugher!

  Still moving straight in the Getting-It-Done (as she names it.)

  Oh a strong eye is my Mother.

  Except when it seems we are lax in our looking.

  Well, enough of slump, enough of Old Story.

  Like a clean spear of fire

  I am moving. I am not still. I am ready

  to be ready.

  I shall flail

  in the Hot Time.

  Tonight I walk with

  a hundred of playmates to where

  the hurt Black of our skin is forbidden.

  There, in the dark that is our dark, there,

  a-pulse across earth that is our earth, there,

  there exulting, there Exactly, there redeeming, there Roaring Up

  (oh my Father)

  we shall forge with the Fist-and-the-Fury:

  we shall flail in the Hot Time:

  we shall

  we shall

  Shorthand Possible

  A long marriage makes shorthand possible.

  The Everything need not be said.

  Much may stay within the head.

  Because of old-time double-seeing.

  Because of old-time double-being.

  The early answer answers late.

  So comfortably out-of-date.

  The aged photographs come clear.

  To dazzle down the now-and-here.

  I said: “Some day we’ll have Franciscan China.”

  You said: “Some day the Defender will photograph your house.”

  You said: “I want you to have at least two children.”

  Infirm

  Everybody here

  is infirm.

  Everybody here is infirm.

  Oh. Mend me. Mend me. Lord.

  Today I

  say to them

  say to them

  say to them, Lord:

  look! I am beautiful, beautiful with

  my wing that is wounded

  my eye that is bonded

  or my ear not funded

  or my walk all a-wobble.

  I’m enough to be beautiful.

  You are

  beautiful too.

  FROM

  CHILDREN COMING HOME | 1991

  The Coora Flower

  Tinsel Marie

  Today I learned the coora flower

  grows high in the mountains of Itty-go-luba Bésa.

  Province Meechee.

  Pop. 39.

  Now I am coming home.

  This, at least, is Real, and what I know.

  It was restful, learning nothing necessary.

  School is tiny vacation. At least you can sleep.

  At least you can think of love or feeling your boy friend against you

  (which is not free from grief.)

  But now it’s Real Business.

  I am Coming Home.

  My mother will be screaming in an almost dirty dress.

  The crack is gone. So a Man will be in the house.

  I must watch myself.

  I must not dare to sleep.

  Nineteen Cows in a Slow Line Walking

  Jamal

  When I was five years old

  I was on a train.

  From a train window I saw

  nineteen cows in a slow line walking.

  Each cow was behind a friend.

  Except for the first cow,

  who was God.

  I smiled until

  one cow near the end

  jumped in front of a friend.

  That reminded me of my mother and of my father.

  It spelled what is their Together.

  I was sorry for the spelling lesson.

  I turned my face from the glass.

  I Am A Black

  Kojo

  According to my Teachers,

  I am now an African-American.

  They call me out of my name.

  BLACK is an open umbrella.

  I am Black and A Black forever.

  I am one of The Blacks.

  We are Here, we are There.

  We occur in Brazil, in Nigeria, Ghana,

  in Botswana, Tanzania, in Kenya,

  in Russia, Australia, in Haiti, Soweto,

  in Grenada, in Cuba, in Panama, Libya,

  in England and Italy, France.

  We are graces in any places.

  I am Black and A Black

  forever.

  I am other than Hyphenation.

  I say, proudly, MY PEOPLE!

  I say, proudly, OUR PEOPLE!

  Our People do not disdain to eat yams or melons or grits

  or to put peanut butter in stew.

  I am Kojo. In West Afrika Kojo

  means Unconquerable. My parents

  named me the seventh day from my birth

  in Black spirit, Black faith, Black communion.

  I am Kojo. I am A Black.

  And I Capitalize my name.

  Do not call me out of my name.

  Uncle Seagram

  Merle

  My uncle likes me too much.

  I am five and a half years old, and in kindergarten.

  In kindergarten everything is clean.

  My uncle is six feet tall with seven bumps on his chin.

  My uncle is six feet tall, and he stumbles.

  He stumbles because of his Wonderful Medicine

  packed in his pocket all times.

  Family is ma and pa and my uncle,

  three brothers, three sisters, and me.

  Every night at my house we play checkers and dominoes.

  My uncle sits close.

  There aren’t any shoes or socks on his feet.

  Under the table a big toe tickles my ankle.

  Under the oilcloth his thin knee beats into mine.

  And mashes. And mashes.

  When we look at TV

  my uncle picks me to sit on his lap.

  As I sit, he gets hard in the middle.

  I squirm, but he keeps me, and kisses my ear.

  I am not even a girl.

  Once, when I went to the bathroom,

  my uncle noticed, came in, shut the door,

  put his long white tongue in my ear,

  and whispered “We’re Best Friends, and Family,

  and we know how to keep Secrets.”

  My uncle likes me too much. I am worried.

  I do not like my uncle anymore.

  Abruptly

  Buchanan

  God is a gorilla.

  I see him standing in the sky.

  He is clouds.

  There’s a beard that is

  white and light gray.

  His arms are gorilla arms,

  limp at his sides; his fists
/>
  not easy but not angry.

  I tell my friend.

  Pointing, I tell my friend

  “God is a gorilla. Look!

  There!”

  My friend says “It is a crime

  to call God a gorilla. You have insulted our God.”

  I answer:

  “Gorilla is majesty.

  Other gorillas

  know.”

  FROM

  IN MONTGOMERY AND OTHER POEMS | 2003

  An Old Black Woman, Homeless, and Indistinct

  1.

  Your every day is a pilgrimage.

  A blue hubbub.

  Your days are collected bacchanals of fear and self-

  troubling.

  And your nights! Your nights.

  When you put you down in alley or cardboard or viaduct,

  your lovers are rats, finding your secret places.

  2.

  When you rise in another morning,

  you hit the street, your incessant enemy.

  See? Here you are, in the so-busy world.

  You walk. You walk.

  You pass The People.

  No. The People pass you.

  Here’s a Rich Girl marching briskly to her charms.

  She is suede and scarf and belting and perfume.

  She sees you not, she sees you very well.

  At five in the afternoon Miss Rich Girl will go Home

  to brooms and vacuum cleaner and carpeting,

  two cats, two marble-top tables, two telephones,

  shiny green peppers, flowers in impudent vases, visitors.

 

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