while i read green dolphin street
and the sun is my undoing
never understanding my exclusion
but knowing quite clearly the hero
is always misunderstood
though always right in the end
roy gave me a yellow carnation
that year for the junior prom
the red rose was from michael
who was the prettiest boy i’d ever known
he took me to the jack and jill dance
and left me sitting in the corner until
the slow drags came on then he danced
real tight and sweated out my bangs
i had a white leather monstrosity that passed
for taste in my adolescence pressed with dances
undanced though the songs were melodious
and somehow three or four books were filled
with proms and parties and programs that
my grandmother made me go to
for “culture” so that i could be
a lady
my favorite is the fisk book with clippings
of the forum and notes from the dean of women
saying “you are on social probation” and “you are
suspended from fisk”
and letters from my mother saying “behave yourself”
and letters from my grandmother reminding me
“your grandfather graduated fisk in 1905” and not
to try to run the school
but mostly notes from alvin asking when
was i coming over
again
i purchased a blue canvas notebook for the refrain
it’s really something when you sit
watching dawn peep over apartment buildings
that seemed so ominous during the night and see
pages of smiling pictures groups of girls throwing
pillows couples staring nervously ahead as if they
think the kodak will eat them someone with a ponytail
and a miles davis record a lady with an afro pointing
joyously to a diploma a girl in a brown tan and red
bathing suit holding a baby that looks like you
and now there is a black leather book filled
efficiently by a clipping service
and a pile of unanswered letters that remind
you to love those who love you
and i sit at dawn
all my defenses gone sometimes
listening to something cool sometimes
hearing tears on my pillow
and know there must be other books
filled with failures and family and friends
that perhaps one day i can unfold
for my grandchildren
When I Die
when i die i hope no one who ever hurt me cries
and if they cry i hope their eyes fall out
and a million maggots that had made up their brains
crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh
that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person
that i probably tried
to love
when i die i hope every worker in the national security council
the interpol the fbicia foundation for the development
of black women gets
an extra bonus and maybe takes one day off
and maybe even asks why they didn’t work as hard for us as they did
them
but it always seems to be that way
please don’t let them read “nikki-roasa” maybe just let
some black woman who called herself my friend go around and collect
each and every book and let some black man who said it was
negative of me to want him to be a man collect every picture
and poster and let them burn—throw acid on them—shit on them as
they did me while i tried
to live
and as soon as i die i hope everyone who loved me learns
the meaning
of my death which is a simple lesson
don’t do what you do very well very well and enjoy it
it scares white folk
and makes black ones truly mad
but i do hope someone tells my son
his mother liked little old ladies with
their blue dresses and hats and gloves that sitting
by the window
to watch the dawn come up is valid that smiling at an old man
and petting a dog don’t detract from manhood
do
somebody please
tell him i knew all along that what would be
is what will be but i wanted to be a new person
and my rebirth was stifled not by the master
but the slave
and if ever i touched a life i hope that life knows
that i know that touching was and still is and will always be the true
revolution
[ Untitled ]
(For Margaret Danner)
one ounce of truth benefits
like ripples on a pond
one ounce of truth benefits like a ripple
on a pond
one ounce of truth
benefits like ripples on
a pond
as things change remember my smile
the old man said my time is getting near
the old man said my time
is getting near
he looked at his dusty cracked boots to say
sister my time is getting near
and when i’m gone remember i smiled
when i’m gone remember
i smiled
i’m glad my time is getting there
the baby cried wanting some milk
the baby cried needing some milk
the baby he cried for wanting
his mother kissed him gently
when i came they sang a song
when i was born they sang a song
when i was saved they sang a song
remember i smiled when i’m gone
remember i smiled when i’m gone
sing a good song when i’m gone
we ain’t got long to stay
My Tower
(For Barb and Anthony)
i have built my tower on the wings of a spider
spinning slippery daydreams of paperdoll fantasies
i built my tower on the beak of a dove
pecking peace to a needing woman
i have built my dreams on the love of a man
holding a nation in his palm asking me the time of day
i built my castle by the shore thinking
i was an oyster clammed shut forever
when this tiny grain i hardly noticed
crept inside and i spit around
and spit around and spun a universe inside
with a black pearl of immeasurable worth
that only i could spin around
i have borne a nation on my heart
and my strength shall not be my undoing
cause this castle didn’t crumble
and losing my pearl made me gain
and the dove flew with the olive branch by harriet’s route
to my breast and nestled close and said “you are mine”
and i was full and complete while emptying my wombs
and the sea ebbed ohhhhhhhhh
what a pretty little baby
Poem
(For Nina)
we are all imprisoned in the castle of our skins
and some of us have said so be it
if i am in jail my castle shall become
my rendezvous
my courtyard will bloom with hyacinths and jack-in-the pulpits
my moat will not restrict me but will be filled
with dolphins sitting on lily pads and sea horses ridden by starfish
goldfish will make love
to Blac
k mollies and color my world Black Gold
the vines entwining my windows will grow butterflies
and yellow jackets will buzz me to sleep
the dwarfs imprisoned will not become my clowns
for me to scorn but my dolls for me to praise and fuss
with and give tea parties to
my gnomes will spin cloth of spider web silkness
my wounded chocolate soldiers will sit in evening coolness
or stand gloriously at attention during that midnight sun
for i would have no need of day patrol
if i am imprisoned in my skin let it be a dark world
with a deep bass walking a witch doctor to me for spiritual
consultation
let my world be defined by my skin and the skin of my people
for we spirit to spirit will embrace
this world
Africa I
on the bite of a kola nut
i was so high the clouds blanketing africa
in the mid morning flight were pushed
away in an angry flicker
of the sun’s tongue
a young lioness sat smoking a pipe
while her cubs waved up at the plane
look ida i called a lion waving
but she said there are no lions
in this part of africa
it’s my dream dammit i mumbled
but my grandmother stood up
from her rocker just then
and said you call it
like you see it
john brown and i are with you
and i sat back for my morning
coffee
we landed in accra and the people
clapped and i almost cried wake up
we’re home
and something in me said shout
and something else said quietly
your mother may be glad to see you
but she may also remember why
you went away
Africa II
africa is a young man bathing
in the back of a prison fortress
the guide said “are you afro-american
cape coast castle holds a lot for your people”
and the 18th century clock keeps perfect
time for the time it has
i watched his black skin turn foaming
white and wanted to see this magnificent
man stand naked and clean before me
but they called me to the dungeons where above
the christian church an african stood listening
for sounds of revolt
the lock the guide stated indicated a major once ran
the fort and the british he said had recently demanded
the lock’s return
and i wanted the lock maybe for a door
stop to unstop the 18th century clock
“and there is one African buried
here we are proud of him” he said
and i screamed NO there are thousands
but my voice was lost in the room
of the women with the secret passageway
leading to the governor’s quarters
so roberta flack recorded a song
and les mccann cried but
a young african man on the rock
outside the prison where my people were
born bathed in the sunlight
and africa is a baby to be
tossed about and disciplined and loved
and neglected and bitten on its bottom
as i wanted to
sink my teeth into his thigh
and tell him he would never be
clean until he can
possess me
They Clapped
they clapped when we landed
thinking africa was just an extension
of the black world
they smiled as we taxied home to be met
black to black face not understanding africans lack
color prejudice
they rushed to declare
cigarettes, money, allegiance to the mother land
not knowing despite having read fanon and davenport
hearing all of j.h. clarke’s lectures, supporting
nkrumah in ghana and nigeria in the war that there was once
a tribe called afro-americans that populated the whole
of africa
they stopped running when they learned the packages
on the women’s heads were heavy and that babies didn’t
cry and disease is uncomfortable and that villages are fun
only because you knew the feel of good leather on good
pavement
they cried when they saw mercedes benz were as common
in lagos as volkswagens are in berlin
they shook their heads when they understood there was no
difference between the french and the english and the americans
and the afro-americans or the tribe next door or the country
across the border
they were exasperated when they heard sly and the family stone
in francophone africa and they finally smiled when little boys
who spoke no western tongue said “james brown” with reverence
they brought out their cameras and bought out africa’s drums
when they finally realized they are strangers all over
and love is only and always about the lover not the beloved
they marveled at the beauty of the people and the richness
of the land knowing they could never possess either
they clapped when they took off
for home despite the dead
dream they saw a free future
Poem
(For Anna Hedgeman and Alfreda Duster)
thinning hair
estee laudered
deliberate sentences
chubby hands
glasses resting atop ample softness
dresses too long
beaded down
elbow length gloves funny hats
ready smiles
diamond rings
hopeful questions
needing to be needed
my ladies over fifty
who birthed and nursed
my Blackness
Atrocities
in an age of napalmed children
with words like the enemy is whatever moves
as an excuse for killing vietnamese infants
at a time when one president one nobel prize winner
one president’s brother four to six white students
dozens of Black students and various hippies
would be corralled maimed and killed
in a day where the c.i.a. could hire Black hands to pull
the trigger on malcolm
during a decade that saw eight nurses in chicago
sixteen people at the university of texas along with
the boston strangler do a fantastic death
dance matched only by the murders of john coltrane
sonny liston jimi hendrixs and janis joplin
in a technological structure where featherstone
and che would be old-fashioned bombed
at a moment when agnew could define hard and soft
drugs on the basis of his daughter’s involvement
with them
in a nation where eugene robinson could testify
against his own panther recruits and eldridge cleaver
could expel a martyr from that martyr’s creation
where the president who at least knows
the law would say manson who at least tried
is guilty
it is only natural that joe frazier
would emerge
Nothing Makes Sense
a bright sun flower yellow tiger
was at my bedroom door teeth bared ready to pounce
when the child cried “the be
ar is gonna get me!”
and i completely understood cause i had to really
wake up fast to keep that tiger back
nothing is real especially
tones i heard
a rumbling and thought
the world was coming
to an end
and saw my body blown to bits and crushed under
the rubbish that had been the 100th street apartment
complex my guppies struggled for one last breath
and my turtle head hidden in his shell never
to fuss again at me for not cleaning him
the blinding light started in the 96th street subway
and quickly swept up to my house melting my flesh
into the cactus plant at my bedside and as my hand blended
into a thorn i wondered what it would be like to never
hold anyone again
what never was cannot be
though it engulfed me and i cried
“what always is is not the answer!”
they came from all over the world in planes
in boats and dirigibles
on kites and pollen seeds riding bikes
and horses bare back on electric roller skates
and lionel trains all carrying an instrument to play
or blow and bleat and the sound called all the carnivores
from all over the world the aardwolf and the puma playing
the talking drum even the snow leopard with a long thin
hollowed ice flute came from his himalayan retreat
and all the snakes over ten feet long slithered through
the heavy traffic to my house to play a mass
and through the altos and basses and your condescending
attitude aretha started a low moan
the outline of a face on a picture isn’t really
a face or an image of a face but the idea of an image
of a dream that once was dreamed by some artist
The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni Page 12