by Alice Walker
Within the cleanswept tower stair
Rock Eagle pinesounds
Rush of stillness
Lifting up my hair.
Pinned to the earth
The eagle endures
The Cherokees are gone
The people come on tours.
And on surrounding National
Forest lakes the air rings
With cries
The silenced make.
Wearing cameras
They never hear
But relive their victory
Every year
And take it home
With them.
Young Future Farmers
As paleface warriors
Grub
Live off the land
Pretend Indian, therefore
Man,
Can envision a lake
But never a flood
On earth
So cleanly scrubbed
Of blood:
They come before the rock
Jolly conquerers.
They do not know the rock
They love
Lives and is bound
To bide its time
To wrap its stony wings
Around
The innocent eager 4-H Club.
Baptism
They dunked me in the creek;
a tiny brooklet.
Muddy, gooey with rotting leaves,
a greenish mold floating;
definable.
For love it was. For love of God
at seven. All in white.
With God’s mud ruining my snowy
socks and his bullfrog spoors
gluing up my face.
J, My Good Friend (another foolish innocent)
It is too easy not to like
Jesus,
It worries greatness
To an early grave
Without any inkling
Of what is wise.
So when I am old,
And so foolish with pain
No one who knows
me
Can tell from which
Senility or fancy
I deign to speak,
I may sing
In my cracked and ugly voice
Of Jesus my good
Friend;
Just as the old women
In my home town
Do now.
View from Rosehill Cemetery: Vicksburg
for Aaron Henry
Here we have watched ten thousand
seasons
come and go.
And unmarked graves atangled
in the brush
turn our own legs to trees
vertical forever between earth
and sun.
Here we are not quick to disavow
the pull of field and wood
and stream;
we are not quick to turn
upon our dreams.
Revolutionary Petunias
for June and Julius
Beauty, no doubt, does not make
revolutions. But a day will come when
revolutions will have need of beauty.
—Albert Camus, The Rebel
REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS
Sammy Lou of Rue
sent to his reward
the exact creature who
murdered her husband,
using a cultivator’s hoe
with verve and skill;
and laughed fit to kill
in disbelief
at the angry, militant
pictures of herself
the Sonneteers quickly drew:
not any of them people that
she knew.
A backwoods woman
her house was papered with
funeral home calendars and
faces appropriate for a Mississippi
Sunday School. She raised a George,
a Martha, a Jackie and a Kennedy. Also
a John Wesley Junior.
“Always respect the word of God,”
she said on her way to she didn’t
know where, except it would be by
electric chair, and she continued
“Don’t yall forgit to water
my purple petunias.”
Expect Nothing
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Be Nobody’s Darling
for Julius Lester
Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.
Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.
Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.
Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.
Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.
Reassurance
I must love the questions
themselves
as Rilke said
like locked rooms
full of treasure
to which my blind
and groping key
does not yet fit.
and await the answers
as unsealed
letters
mailed with dubious intent
and written in a very foreign
tongue.
and in the hourly making
of myself
no thought of Time
to force, to squeeze
the space
I grow into.
Nothing Is Right
Nothing is right
that does not work.
We have believed it all:
improvement, progress,
bigger, better, immediate,
fast.
The whole Junk.
It was our essence that
never worked.
We hasten to eradicate
our selves.
Consider the years
of rage and wrench and
mug.
What was it kept
the eyes alive?
Declined to outmode
the
hug?
Crucifixions
I am not an idealist, nor a cynic,
but merely unafraid of contradictions.
I have seen men face each other when
both were right, yet each was determined
to kill the other, which was wrong.
What each man saw was an image of the
other, made by someone else. That is
what we are prisoners of.
—A personal testament by Donald Hogan,
Harper’s Magazine, January, 1972
Black Mail
Stic
k the finger inside
the chink;
nail long and sharp.
Wriggle it,
jugg,
until it draws blood.
Lick it in your mouth,
savor the taste;
and know your diet
has changed.
Be the first at the crucifixion.
Stand me (and them and her and him)
where once we each together
stood.
Find it plausible now
to jeer,
escaped within your armor.
There never was a crucifixion
of a completely armored man.
Imagine this: a suit of mail,
of metal plate;
no place to press the dagger in.
Nothing but the eyes
to stick
with narrow truth.
Burning sharp,
burning bright;
burning righteous,
but burning blind.
Lonely Particular
When the people knew you
That other time
You were not as now
A crowding General,
Firing into your own
Ranks;
Forcing the tender skin
Of men
Against the guns
The very sun
To mangled perfection
For your cause.
Not General then
But frightened boy.
The cheering fell
Within the quiet
That fed your
Walks
Across the mines.
A mere foot soldier,
Marching the other way;
A lonely Particular.
Perfection
Having reached perfection
as you have
there no longer exists
the need for love.
Love is ablution
the dirtied is due
the sinner can
use.
The Girl Who Died # 1
“Look!” she cried.
“I am not perfect
but still your sister.
Love me!”
But the mob beat her and kicked her
and shaved her head;
until she saw exactly
how wrong she was.
Ending
I so admired you then;
before the bloody ending
of the story
cured your life
of all belief.
I would have wished
you alive
still. Or even
killed.
Before this thing we
got,
with flailing arms
and venomous face
took our love away.
Lost My Voice? Of Course. / for Beanie*
Lost my voice?
Of course.
You said “Poems of
love and flowers are
a luxury the Revolution
cannot afford.”
Here are the warm and juicy
vocal cords,
slithery,
from my throat.
Allow me to press them upon
your fingers,
as you have pressed
that bloody voice of yours
in places it could not know
to speak,
nor how to trust.
* A childhood bully.
The Girl Who Died #2 / for d.p.
No doubt she was a singer
of naughty verse
and hated judgments
(black and otherwise)
and wove a life
of stunning contradiction,
was driven mad
by obvious
professions
and the word
“sister”
hissed by snakes
belly-low,
poisonous,
in the grass.
Waiting with sex
or tongue
to strike.
Behold the brothers!
They strut behind
the casket
wan and sad
and murderous.
Thinking whom
to blame
for making this girl
die
alone, lashed
denied
into her room.
This girl who would not lie;
and was not born
to be “correct.”
The Old Warrior Terror
Did you hear?
After everything
the Old Warrior Terror
died a natural death at home,
in bed.
Just reward
for having proclaimed abroad
that True Believers never
doubt;
True Revolutionaries never
smile.
Judge Every One with Perfect Calm
Follow the train full of bodies;
listening in the tiny wails
for reassurance of your mighty
right. Ride up and down the gorges
on your horse
collecting scalps.
Your creed is simple, and even
true: We learn from each other
by doing. Period.
Judge every one with perfect calm.
Stand this man here and that one
there;
mouths begging open holes.
Let them curtsey into the ditch
dug before them.
They will not recall tomorow
your judgment of today.
The QPP
The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout. Who tell lies to
children, and crush the corners
off of old men’s dreams.
And now I find your name,
scrawled large in someone’s
blood, on this survival
list.
He Said Come
He said come
Let me exploit you;
Somebody must do it
And wouldn’t you
Prefer a brother?
Come, show me your
Face,
All scarred with tears;
Unburden your heart—
Before the opportunity
Passes away.
…Or maybe the purpose of being
here, wherever we are, is to increase
the durability and the occasions of
love among and between peoples. Love,
as the concentration of tender caring
and tender excitement, or love as the
reasons for joy. I believe that love
is the single, true prosperity of any
moment and that whatever and whoever
impedes, diminishes, ridicules, opposes
the development of loving spirit is
“wrong” /hateful.
—June Jordan
Mysteries
The man who slowly walked away from
them was a king in their society. A day
had come when he had decided that he
did not need any kingship other than the
kind of wife everybody would loathe
from the bottom of their hearts. He had
planned for that loathing in secret;
they had absorbed the shock in secret.
When everything was exposed, they had
only one alternative: to keep their prejudice
and pretend Maru had died.
—Bessie Head, Maru
MYSTERIES
Your eyes are widely open flowers.
Only their centers are darkly clenched
To conceal Mysteries
That lure me to a keener blooming
Than I know,
And promise a secret
I must have.
I
the gift he gave unknowing
she already had
though feebly
lost
a planted thing
within herself
scarcely green
nearly severed
till he came
a magic root
sleeping beneath
branches
long grown wild.
II
and when she thought of him
seated in the dentist’s chair
she thought she understood
the hole she
discovered through
her tongue
as mysteries in
separate boxes
the space between them
charged
waiting till the feeling
should return.
III
but she was known to be
unwise
and lovesick lover of motionless
things
wood and bits of clever
stone
a tree she cared for swayed overhead
in swoon
but would not follow
her.
IV
and his fingers peeled
the coolness off
her mind
his flower eyes crushed her
till
she bled.
Gift
You intend no doubt
to give me nothing,
and are not aware
the gift has already been
received.
Curse me then,
and take away
the spell.
For I am rich;
no cheap and ragged
beggar
but a queen,
to rouse the king
I need in you.
Clutter-up People
The odd stillness of your body
excites a madness
in me.
I burn to know what it is like
awake.
Arching, rolling
across
my sky.
Your quiet litheness
as you move across the room is
a drug
that pulls me
under;
your leaving slays me.
Clutter-up people
casually track
the immaculate
corridor/passion
of my death
and blacken the empty air
with talk of war,