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.
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks Page 10