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The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

Page 14

by Nikki Giovanni


  into my dreams

  no longer caring

  either

  The Way I Feel

  i’ve noticed i’m happier

  when i make love

  with you

  and have enough left

  over to smile at my doorman

  i’ve realized i’m fulfilled

  like a big fat cow

  who has just picked

  for a carnation contentment

  when you kiss your special place

  right behind my knee

  i’m as glad as mortar

  on a brick that knows

  another brick is coming

  when you walk through

  my door

  most time when you’re around

  i feel like a note

  roberta flack is going to sing

  in my mind you’re a clock

  and i’m the second hand sweeping

  around you sixty times an hour

  twenty-four hours a day

  three hundred sixty-five days a year

  and an extra day

  in leap year

  cause that’s the way

  that’s the way

  that’s the way i feel

  about you

  Communication

  if music is the most universal language

  just think of me as one whole note

  if science has the most perfect language

  picture me as MC2

  since mathematics can speak to the infinite

  imagine me as 1 to the first power

  what i mean is one day

  i’m gonna grab your love

  and you’ll be

  satisfied

  Luxury

  i suppose living

  in a materialistic society

  luxury

  to some would be having

  more than what you need

  living in an electronic age seeing

  the whole world by pushing a button

  the nth degree might perhaps be

  adequately represented by having

  someone there to push

  the buttons for you

  i have thought if only

  i could become rich and famous i would

  live luxuriously in new york knowing

  famous people eating

  in expensive restaurants calling

  long distance anytime i want

  but you held me

  one evening and now i know

  the ultimate luxury

  of your love

  Poem

  like a will-o’-the-wisp in the night

  on a honeysuckle breeze

  a moment sticks

  us together

  like a dolphin being

  tickled on her stomach

  my sea of love flip-flops all

  over my face

  like the wind blowing

  across a field of wheat

  your smile whispers to my inner ear

  with the relief of recognition

  i bend to your eyes

  casually

  raping me

  Hampton, Virginia

  the birds flew south

  earlier this year

  and flowers wilted under the glare

  of frost

  nature puts her house in order

  the weather reports say this

  will be the coldest winter

  already the perch have burrowed

  deep into the lakes

  and the snails are six instead

  of three feet under

  i quilted myself

  one blanket and purchased five

  pounds of colored popcorn

  in corners i placed dried

  flowers and in my bathroom a jar

  of lavender smells

  my landlord stripped my windows

  and i cut all my old sox for feet pads

  they say you should fight the cold with the cold

  but since i never do anything right

  i called you

  Poetry Is a Trestle

  poetry is a trestle

  spanning the distance between

  what i feel

  and what i say

  like a locomotive

  i rush full speed ahead

  trusting your strength

  to carry me over

  sometimes we share a poem

  because people are near

  and they would notice me

  noticing you

  so i write X and you write O

  and we both win

  sometimes we share a poem

  because i’m washing the dishes

  and you’re looking at your news

  or sometimes we make a poem

  because it’s Sunday and you want

  ice cream while i want cookies

  but always we share a poem

  because belief predates action

  and i believe

  the most beautiful poem

  ever heard is your heart

  racing

  The Laws of Motion

  (for Harlem Magic)

  The laws of science teach us a pound of gold weighs as

  much as a pound of flour though if dropped from any

  undetermined height in their natural state one would

  xreach bottom and one would fly away

  Laws of motion tell us an inert object is more difficult to

  propel than an object heading in the wrong direction is to

  turn around. Motion being energy—inertia—apathy.

  Apathy equals hostility. Hostility—violence. Violence

  being energy is its own virtue. Laws of motion teach us

  Black people are no less confused because of our

  Blackness than we are diffused because of our

  powerlessness. Man we are told is the only animal who

  smiles with his lips. The eyes however are the mirror of

  the soul

  The problem with love is not what we feel but what we

  wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel

  something. Just as publicity is not production: seduction

  is not seductive

  If I could make a wish I’d wish for all the knowledge of all

  the world. Black may be beautiful Professor Micheau

  says but knowledge is power. Any desirable object is

  bought and sold—any neglected object declines in value.

  It is against man’s nature to be in either category

  If white defines Black and good defines evil then men

  define women or women scientifically speaking describe

  men. If sweet is the opposite of sour and heat the

  absence of cold then love is the contradiction of pain and

  beauty is in the eye of the beheld

  Sometimes I want to touch you and be touched in

  return. But you think I’m grabbing and I think you’re

  shirking and Mama always said to look out for men like

  you

  So I go to the streets with my lips painted red and my

  eyes carefully shielded to seduce the world my reluctant

  lover

  And you go to your men slapping fives feeling good

  posing as a man because you know as long as you sit

  very very still the laws of motion will be in effect

  Something to Be Said for Silence

  there is something

  to be said for silence

  it’s almost as sexual as moving

  your bowels

  i wanted to be in love

  when winter came

  like a groundhog i would burrow

  under the patchwork pieces

  of your love

  but the threads are slender

  and they are being stretched

  i guess it’s all right

  to want to feel

  though it’s better to really feel
>
  and sometimes i wonder

  did i ever love anyone

  i like my house my job i gave up

  my car

  but i bought a new coat

  and somewhere something is missing

  i do all the right things

  maybe i’m just tired

  maybe i’m just tired of being tired

  i feel sometimes so inert

  and laws of motion being what they are

  i feel we won’t feel again

  it’s all right with me

  if you want to love

  it’s all right with me if you don’t

  my silence is at least

  as sexy as your love

  and twice as easy

  to take

  Africa

  i am a teller of tales

  a dreamer of dreams

  shall i spin a poem around you

  human beings grope to strangers

  to share a smile

  complain to lovers of their woes

  and never touch

  those who need to be touched

  may i move on

  the african isn’t independent

  he’s emancipated

  and like the freedman he explores

  his freedom rather than exploits

  his nation

  worrying more about the condition

  of the women than his position in the world

  i am a dreamer of dreams

  in my fantasy i see a person

  not proud for pride is a collection of lions

  or a magazine in washington d.c.

  but a person who can be wrong and go on

  or a person who can be praised and still work

  but a person who can let a friend share a joy as easily

  as a friend shares a sorrow

  it’s odd that all welcome a tale of disappointment

  though few a note of satisfaction

  have none of us been happy

  i am a teller of tales

  i see kings and noblemen

  slaves and serfs all selling

  and being sold for what end

  to die for freedom or live for joy

  i am a teller of tales

  we must believe in each other’s dreams

  i’m told and i dream

  of me accepting you and you accepting yourself

  will that stroke the tension

  between blacks and africans

  i dream of truth lubricating our words

  will that ease three hundred years

  and i dream of black men and women walking

  together side by side into a new world

  described by love and bounded by difference

  for nothing is the same except oppression and shame

  may i spin a poem around you

  come let’s step into my web

  and dream of freedom together

  Swaziland

  i am old and need

  to remember

  you are young and need

  to learn

  if i forget the words

  will you remember the music

  i hear a drum speaking of a stream

  the path is crossing the stream

  the stream is crossing the path

  which came first the drums ask

  the music is with the river

  if we meet does it matter

  that i took the step toward you

  the words ask are you fertile

  the music says let’s dance

  i am old and need to remember

  you are young and want to learn

  let’s dance together

  let’s dance

  together

  let’s

  dance

  together

  A Very Simple Wish

  i want to write an image

  like a log-cabin quilt pattern

  and stretch it across all the lonely

  people who just don’t fit in

  we might make a world

  if i do that

  i want to boil a stew

  with all the leftover folk

  whose bodies are full

  of empty lives

  we might feed a world

  if i do that

  twice in our lives

  we need direction

  when we are young and innocent

  when we are old and cynical

  but since the old refused

  to discipline us

  we now refuse

  to discipline them

  which is a contemptuous way

  for us to respond

  to each other

  i’m always surprised

  that it’s easier to stick

  a gun in someone’s face

  or a knife in someone’s back

  than to touch skin to skin

  anyone whom we like

  i should imagine if nature holds true

  one day we will lose our hands

  since we do no work nor make

  any love

  if nature is true

  we shall all lose our eyes

  since we cannot even now distinguish

  the good from the evil

  i should imagine we shall lose our souls

  since we have so blatantly put them up

  for sale and glutted the marketplace

  thereby depressing the price

  i wonder why we don’t love

  not some people way on

  the other side of the world with strange

  customs and habits

  not some folk from whom we were sold

  hundreds of years ago

  but people who look like us

  who think like us

  who want to love us why

  don’t we love them

  i want to make a quilt

  of all the patches and find

  one long strong pole

  to lift it up

  i’ve a mind to build

  a new world

  want to play

  Night

  in africa night walks

  into day as quickly

  as a moth is extinguished

  by its desire for flame

  the clouds in the caribbean carry

  night like a young man

  with a proud erection dripping

  black dots across the blue sky

  the wind a mistress of the sun howls

  her displeasure at the involuntary

  fertilization

  but nights are white

  in new york

  the shrouds of displeasure

  mask our fear of facing

  ourselves between the lonely

  sheets

  Poetry

  poetry is motion graceful

  as a fawn

  gentle as a teardrop

  strong like the eye

  finding peace in a crowded room

  we poets tend to think

  our words are golden

  though emotion speaks too

  loudly to be defined

  by silence

  sometimes after midnight or just before

  the dawn

  we sit typewriter in hand

  pulling loneliness around us

  forgetting our lovers or children

  who are sleeping

  ignoring the weary wariness

  of our own logic

  to compose a poem

  no one understands it

  it never says “love me” for poets are

  beyond love

  it never says “accept me” for poems seek not

  acceptance but controversy

  it only says “i am” and therefore

  i concede that you are too

  a poem is pure energy

  horizontally contained

  between the mind

  of the poet and the ear of the reader

  if it does not sing discard the ear

  for poe
try is song

  if it does not delight discard

  the heart for poetry is joy

  if it does not inform then close

  off the brain for it is dead

  if it cannot heed the insistent message

  that life is precious

  which is all we poets

  wrapped in our loneliness

  are trying to say

  Always There Are the Children

  and always there are the children

  there will be children in the heat of day

  there will be children in the cold of winter

  children like a quilted blanket

  are welcomed in our old age

  children like a block of ice to a desert sheik

  are a sign of status in our youth

  we feed the children with our culture

  that they might understand our travail

  we nourish the children on our gods

  that they may understand respect

  we urge the children on the tracks

  that our race will not fall short

  but children are not ours

  nor we theirs they are future we are past

  how do we welcome the future

  not with the colonialism of the past

  for that is our problem

  not with the racism of the past

  for that is their problem

  not with the fears of our own status

  for history is lived not dictated

  we welcome the young of all groups

  as our own with the solid nourishment

  of food and warmth

  we prepare the way with the solid

 

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