With his blood
Is sealed.
PEACE
We passed their graves:
The dead men there,
Winners or losers,
Did not care.
In the dark
They could not see
Who had gained
The victory.
LAST PRINCE OF THE EAST
Futile of me to offer you my hand,
Last little brown prince
Of Malaysia land.
Your wall is too high
And your moat is too wide—
For the white world’s gunboats
Are all on your side.
So you lie in your cradle
And shake your rattle
To the jingo cry
Of blood and battle
While Revolt in the rice fields
Puts on a red gown.
Before you are king,
He’ll come to town.
THE DOVE
…and here is
old Picasso and the dove
and dreams as fragile
as pottery with dove
in white on clay
dark brown as
earth is brown
from our old
battle ground…
WAR
The face of war is my face.
The face of war is your face.
What color
Is the face
Of war?
Brown, black, white—
Your face and my face.
Death is the broom
I take in my hands
To sweep the world
Clean.
I sweep and I sweep
Then mop and I mop.
I dip my broom in blood,
My mop in blood—
And blame you for this,
Because you are there,
Enemy.
It’s hard to blame me,
Because I am here—
So I kill you.
And you kill me.
My name,
Like your name,
Is war.
5
AFRICAN QUESTION MARK
OPPRESSION
Now dreams
Are not available
To the dreamers,
Nor songs
To the singers.
In some lands
Dark night
And cold steel
Prevail—
But the dream
Will come back,
And the song
Break
Its jail.
ANGOLA QUESTION MARK
Don’t know why I,
Black,
Must still stand
With my back
To the last frontier
Of fear
In my own land.
Don’t know why I
Must turn into
A Mau Mau
And lift my hand
Against my fellow man
To live on my own land.
But it is so—
And being so
I know
For you and me
There’s
Woe.
LUMUMBA’S GRAVE
Lumumba was black
And he didn’t trust
The whores all powdered
With uranium dust.
Lumumba was black
And he didn’t believe
The lies thieves shook
Through their “freedom” sieve.
Lumumba was black.
His blood was red—
And for being a man
They killed him dead.
They buried Lumumba
In an unmarked grave.
But he needs no marker—
For air is his grave.
Sun is his grave,
Moon is, stars are,
Space is his grave.
My heart’s his grave,
And it’s marked there.
Tomorrow will mark
It everywhere.
COLOR
Wear it
Like a banner
For the proud—
Not like a shroud.
Wear it
Like a song
Soaring high—
Not moan or cry.
QUESTION AND ANSWER
Durban, Birmingham,
Cape Town, Atlanta,
Johannesburg, Watts,
The earth around
Struggling, fighting,
Dying—for what?
A world to gain.
Groping, hoping,
Waiting—for what?
A world to gain.
Dreams kicked asunder,
Why not go under?
There’s a world to gain.
But suppose I don’t want it,
Why take it?
To remake it.
HISTORY
The past has been a mint
Of blood and sorrow.
That must not be
True of tomorrow.
6
DINNER GUEST: ME
DINNER GUEST: ME
I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.—
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently
Over fraises du bois,
“I’m so ashamed of being white.”
The lobster is delicious,
The wine divine,
And center of attention
At the damask table, mine.
To be a Problem on
Park Avenue at eight
Is not so bad.
Solutions to the Problem,
Of course, wait.
NORTHERN LIBERAL
And so
we lick our chops at Birmingham
and say, “See!
Southern dogs have vindicated me—
I knew that this would come.”
But who are we to be
so proud that savages
have proven a point
taken late in time
to show how liberal I am?
Above the struggle
I can quite afford to be:
well-fed, degreed,
not beat—elite,
up North.
I send checks,
support your cause,
and lick my chops
at Jim Crow laws
and Birmingham—
where you,
not I
am.
SWEET WORDS ON RACE
Sweet words that take
Their own sweet time to flower
And then so quickly wilt
Within the inner ear,
Belie the budding promise
Of their pristine hour
To wither in the
Sultry air of fear.
Sweet words so brave
When danger is not near,
I’ve heard
So many times before,
I’d just as leave
Not hear them
Anymore.
UN-AMERICAN INVESTIGATORS
The committee’s fat,
Smug, almost secure
Co-religionists
Shiver with delight
In warm manure
As those investigated—
Too brave to name a name—
Have pseudonyms revealed
In Gentile game
Of who,
Born Jew,
Is who?
Is not your name Lipshit
z?
Yes.
Did you not change it
For subversive purposes?
No.
For nefarious gain?
Not so.
Are you sure?
The committee shivers
With delight in
Its manure.
SLAVE
To ride piggy-back
to the market of death
there to purchase a slave,
a slave who died young,
having given up breath—
unwittingly,
of course—
a slave who died young,
perhaps from a fix
with a rusty needle
infected,
to purchase a slave
to the market of death
I ride protected.
UNDERTOW
The solid citizens
Of the country club set,
Caught between
Selma and Peking,
Feel the rug of dividends,
Bathmats of pride,
Even soggy country club
Pink paper towels
Dropped on the MEN’S ROOM floor
Slipping out from under them
Like waves of sea
Between Selma, Peking,
Westchester
And me.
LITTLE SONG ON HOUSING
Here I come!
Been saving all my life
To get a nice home
For me and my wife.
White folks flee—
As soon as you see
My problems
And me!
Neighborhood’s clean,
But the house is old,
Prices are doubled
When I get sold:
Still I buy.
White folks fly—
Soon as you spy
My wife
And I!
Next thing you know,
Our neighbors all colored are.
The candy store’s
Turned into a bar:
White folks have left
The whole neighborhood
To my black self.
White folks, flee!
Still—there is me!
White folks, fly!
Here am I!
CULTURAL EXCHANGE
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o’-lanterns caper
and the wind won’t wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off going
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whistles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going—
Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa—
Not of her own doing—
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.
Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we moved up to Mount Vernon.
In the pot behind the paper doors
On the old iron stove what’s cooking?
What’s smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.
You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.
Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over—
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power—
Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies—
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!
Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammy.
Hurry up!
Make haste!
FROSTING
Freedom
Is just frosting
On somebody else’s
Cake—
And so must be
Till we
Learn how to
Bake.
IMPASSE
I could tell you,
If I wanted to,
What makes me
What I am.
But I don’t
Really want to—
And you don’t
Give a damn.
7
DAYBREAK IN ALABAMA
FREEDOM
Freedom will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
GO SLOW
Go slow, they say—
While the bite
Of the dog is fast.
Go slow, I hear—
While they tell me
You can’t eat here!
You can’t live here!
You can’t work here!
Don’t demonstrate! Wait!—
While they lock the gate.
Am I supposed to be God,
Or an angel with wings
And a halo on my head
While jobless I starve dead?
Am I supposed to forgive
And meekly live
Going slow, slow, slow,
Slow, slow, slow,
Slow, slow,
Slow,
Slow,
Slow?
????
???
??
?
MERRY-GO-ROUND
Colored child
at carnival
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
&
nbsp; White and colored
Can’t sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There’s a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we’re put in the back—
But there ain’t no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where’s the horse
For a kid that’s black?
DREAM DUST
Gather out of star-dust
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust
Not for sale.
STOKELY MALCOLM ME
i have been seeking
what i have never found
what i don’t know what i want
but it must be around
i been upset
since the day before last
but that day was so long
i done forgot when it passed
yes almost forgot
what i have not found
but i know it must be
somewhere around.
you live in the Bronx
so folks say.
Stokely,
did i ever live
up your
way?
???
??
?
SLUM DREAMS
Little dreams
Of springtime
Bud in sunny air
With no roots
To nourish them,
Since no stems
Are there—
Detached,
Naïve,
So young.
On air alone
They’re hung.
GEORGIA DUSK
Sometimes there’s a wind in the Georgia dusk
That cries and cries and cries
In lonely pity through the Georgia dusk
Veiling what the darkness hides.
Sometimes there’s blood in the Georgia dusk
The Panther and the Lash Page 3