most faces are made up
before the public is faced
whether male female or child
it’s always so appropriate
don’tcha know
to put a little mascara
around the eyes
we make up fantasies
to face life
we need to believe
we are good on the job
or at least in the bed
we make up lies
to impress people
who are making up lies
to impress us
and if either took all
the make up off
life would not be
worth living
we make up excuses
to say i’m sorry that
forgive me because
and after all didn’t i tell you why
and i make up with you
because you aren’t strong
enough to reach out
to say
come home i need you
Winter
Frogs burrow the mud
snails bury themselves
and I air my quilts
preparing for the cold
Dogs grow more hair
mothers make oatmeal
and little boys and girls
take Father John’s Medicine
Bears store fat
chipmunks gather nuts
and I collect books
For the coming winter
You Are There
i shall save my poems
for the winter of my dreams
i look forward to huddling
in my rocker with my life
i wonder what i’ll contemplate
lovers—certainly those
i can remember
and knowing my life
you’ll be there
you’ll be there in the cold
like a Siamese on my knee
proud purring when you let me stroke you
you’ll be there in the rain
like an umbrella over my head
sheltering me from the damp mist
you’ll be there in the dark
like a lighthouse in the fog
seeing me through troubled waters
you’ll be there in the sun
like coconut oil on my back
to keep me from burning
i shall save a special poem
for you to say
you always made me smile
and even though i cried sometimes
you said i will not let you
down
my rocker and i on winter’s porch
will never be sad if you’re gone
the winter’s cold has been stored
against
you will always be
there
A Statement on Conservation
Scarcity in oil and gas
Can bring about a cold spell
No one cares if you conserve
As long as you can pay well
Cash is not the only tool
To purchase what we need
Dollar bills and jingling change
Are very cheap indeed
Buying power in our world
Speaks to white illusion
Understanding what I need
I’ve come to this conclusion
Love is in short supply
Like leaves on a winter vine
Whether it’s right or whether it’s wrong
I’ll pay the price for mine
Spring is late and summer soon
Will come in with its heat wave
We will all need energy
Unless we have a cool cave
I don’t mind the cold or heat
And I’ve got a reason
Love when it’s spread all around
Can tackle any season
Turning
(I need a better title)
she often wondered why people spoke
of gaining years as turning
when she celebrated her thirtieth birthday she knew
she had turned though
she hadn’t gained
the rain turned on her windowsill
and it didn’t gain
and he like her face gaining
wrinkles
turned indifferent
she became happier without
the big apartment
the stereo components
and the ten pounds she shed
while adjusting to the loss
of his love
her fault lay
in her honesty
it was always his sexiness
that held her not
his arms
it was his lovemaking not
his love she missed
she compacted her
life into one
tiny room with kitchen bed and roaches
in the four corners which contained nothing
that couldn’t be stolen
or left in case
she had to run
for her sanity
so she turned thirty-one
with all
the introspections that nothing
not even them was meant
not to turn
and from that understanding
she gained
knowledge
A Response
(to the rock group Foreigner)
you say i’m as cold
as ice
but ice is good
for a burn
if you were a woman
you would have known that
and rubbed me
the right way
to let me cool
your passion
A Poem of Friendship
We are not lovers
because of the love
we make
but the love
we have
We are not friends
because of the laughs
we spend
but the tears
we save
I don’t want to be near you
for the thoughts we share
but the words we never have
to speak
I will never miss you
because of what we do
but what we are
together
Being and Nothingness
(to quote a philosopher)
i haven’t done anything
meaningful in so long
it’s almost meaningful
to do nothing
i suppose i could fall in love
or at least in line
since i’m so discontented
but that takes effort
and i don’t want to exert anything
neither my energy nor my emotions
i’ve always prided myself
on being a child of the sixties
and we are all finished
so that makes being
nothing
The Moon Shines Down
the moon shines down
on new york city
while i smile over
at you
the moon is still
against the night
and i am still
against you
surely you must sometimes wonder
won’t i ever go home
surely you must sometimes say
poet please leave me alone
but my bad rhyme
and love of night
retain me here with you
and though it’s so sad to admit
without you what would i do
of course you are no panacea
for my lack of friends
but if i were a hallmark card
here’s where we’d begin
the moon shines down
on new york city
while i smile over
at you
That Day
if you’ve got the k
ey
then i’ve got the door
let’s do what we did
when we did it before
if you’ve got the time
i’ve got the way
let’s do what we did
when we did it all day
you get the glass
i’ve got the wine
we’ll do what we did
when we did it overtime
if you’ve got the dough
then i’ve got the heat
we can use my oven
til it’s warm and sweet
i know i’m bold
coming on like this
but the good things in life
are too good to be missed
now time is money
and money is sweet
if you’re busy baby
we can do it on our feet
we can do it on the floor
we can do it on the stair
we can do it on the couch
we can do it in the air
we can do it in the grass
and in case we get an itch
i can scratch it with my left hand
cause i’m really quite a witch
if we do it once a month
we can do it in time
if we do it once a week
we can do it in rhyme
if we do it every day
we can do it everyway
we can do it like we did it
when we did it
that day
Those Who Ride the Night Winds
1983
Charting the Night Winds
The first poem…ever written…was probably carved…on a cold damp cave…by a physically unendowed cave man…who wanted to make a good impression…on a physically endowed…cave woman…But maybe not…Maybe it was she…trying to gain the notice…of a hunk…who was in demand…Or perhaps…it was simply someone…who admired the motion…of a sabertooth tiger…and wanting to capture the beauty…picked up a sharpened rock…to draw…We know so very little…about the origin of the written word…let alone the language…that all conjecture deserves some consideration…
The fears…of the human race…are legion…Perhaps our size…strength…and speed…coupled with our ability…to see our weakness…have made us an anxious species…There are smaller mammals…There are more vulnerable life-forms…Yet we alone can give vent to our understanding…of the tenuousness of Life…
Nature is a patient teacher…She slowly changes…winter to summer…by proper use…of spring and fall…That’s kind…of nature…Humans fear…sudden change…Hurricanes…Volcanoes…Earthquakes…Tornadoes…all are generally perceived…as aberrant…Blizzards…in winter…Electrical storms…in summer…are a part of the season…But change…both gradual…and violent…is a necessary ingredient…with Life…
Art…and by necessity…artists…are on the cutting edge…of change…The very fact…that something has been done…over and over again…is one reason…to change…Everything…must change…If only through perception…Honor thy Father and Mother…does not change…though the understanding of long life has…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…has not changed…though the application must move from the individual to the nation…What goes up must come down…will not change…though our rock stars and superathletes seem impervious…to the lessons of Telstar…There is…in reality…very little that is new…under the yellow sun…We have only rearranged the matter…and reconceptualized the thought…Greed…is a terrible thing…Envy…is not an acceptable emotion…Jealousy…is dangerous to your emotional life…and the physical and mental well-being…of your loved one…Though people say…they cannot change…change we do…in our abilities…desires…understanding…The need to force…humans to change…may be one reason we all grow…older…though there is no corresponding gene…to make us grow…wiser…
In the written arts…language has opened…becoming more accessible…more responsive…to what people really think…and say…We are now free…to use any profane word…or express any profound thought…we may wish…Sexuality…once a great taboo in language…and act…is fully explored…through fiction…and nonfiction…through poetry…and plays…Different and same gender…different and same age…different and same race…religion…or creed…all take their places…on the bookshelves…Ideas that once allowed the State to poison Socrates…Ideas that once allowed the Church to force Copernicus to recant…Ideas that once encouraged McCarthy to destroy the lives of men and women…are now as acceptable as a stop-and-go light…or at least as well understood…as fluoride…While there is surely much…to be done…some change has rent…its ways…I changed…I chart the night winds…glide with me…I am the walrus…the time has come…to speak of many things…
Lorraine Hansberry:
An Emotional View
It’s intriguing to me that “bookmaker” is a gambling…an underworld…term somehow associated with that which is both illegal…and dirty…Bookmakers…and those who play with them…are dreamers…are betting on a break…a lucky streak…that something will come…their way—something good…something clean…something wonderful…We who make books…we who write our dreams…confess our fears…and witness our times are not so far…from the underworld…are not so far…from illegality…are not so far from the root…the dirt…the heart of the matter.
Writers…I think…live on that fine line between insanity and genius…Either scaling the mountains…or skirting the valleys…Riding that lonely train of truth…with just enough of the player in us…to continue to hope…for the species…Writers are…perhaps…congenital hypocrites…I don’t think preachers…priests…rabbis…and ayatollahs are hypocritical…because they have tubular vision…are indeed…myopic…They know the answer…before you ask the question…But the writer…the painter…the sculptor…the creator…those who work…with both the mind…and the heart of mankind…have no reason…to be hopeful…We have…in fact…no right to write the happy ending…or the love poem…no reason…to sculpt David…or paint…like Charles White…We who have seen…all sides of the coin…the front…the back…and the ribbed edge…know what the ending…will surely be…Yet we speak…to and of…courage…love…hope…something better…in mankind…When we are perfectly honest…with ourselves…we cannot justify…our faith…Yet faith we do have…and continue to share.
Bookmaking is shooting craps…with the white boys…downtown on the stock exchange…is betting a dime you can win…a hundred…Making books is shooting craps…with God…is wandering into a casino where you don’t even know the language…let alone the rules of the game…And that’s proper…that’s as it should be…If you wanted to be safe…you would have walked into the Post Office…or taken a graduate degree in Educational Administration…If you want to share…a vision…or tell the truth…you pick up…your pen…And take your chances…This is not…after all…tennis…where sets can be measured by points…or football…where games run on time…or baseball…where innings structure the play…It is life…open-ended…And once the play has begun…the book made…time…is the only judge.
Time…to the Black American…has always been…a burden…from 1619 to now…we have played out our drama…before a reluctant time…We were either too late…or too early…No people on Earth…in all her history…has ever produced so many people…so generally considered…“ahead of their time.”…From the revolts in Africa…to our kidnapping…to the martyrs of freedom today…our people have been burdened…by someone else’s sense…of the appropriate…There are…of course…all the jokes…aboutC. P. time…and there are the reminders…by the keepers of our souls…that God “is never late…but He always comes…on time.”…To be Black…in America…is to not at all understand…time…Little Linda Brown was told…her school would be desegregated…“with all deliberate speed”…and twenty-five years later…this is still…untrue…Dr. King was told…in Montgomery…he was pushing too hard…going too fas
t…expecting too much…I wish we had been enslaved…at the same rate we are being set…free…It would be…an entirely different story…I wish the battleships…had sailed down the Mississippi River…when Emmett Till was lynched…at the same speed they sped to Cuba…during the missile crisis…I wish food…had been airlifted…to the sharecroppers in Tennessee…when they were pushed off the land…for exercising their right to vote…at the same speed…it was airlifted…to West Berlin…at the ending of World War II…But I’m only a colored poet…and my wishes…no matter which star I choose…do not come true…But I’m also a writer…and I know…that the Europeans aren’t the only ones…who keep time…some of the time is going…to be my time…too…
Life teaches us not to regret…not to spend too much time on what might have been…It is neither emotionally…nor intellectually possible…for me to dwell on might-have-been…I have a great love of history and antiques…the past is there to instruct us…I am socially retarded…so I hold on…to old friends…I like to be surrounded…by that which is warm and familiar…yet I’m sorry…I never met Lorraine Hansberry…I vividly understand that a writer is not the book she made…any more than a child is the print of his parents…Many of us are personally paranoid…generally uncommunicative…and basically unnice…just like most people…But I think Lorraine must have been one…of those wonderful humans who…seeing both sides of the dilemma…and all sides of the coin…still called “Heads”…when she tossed…And in her gamble…never came up snake eyes…It’s not that she wrote…beautifully…and truthfully…though she did…It’s not just that she anticipated…our people and their reactions…though she did…She also…when reading through…and between the lines…possessed that quality of courage…to say what had to be said…to those who needed to hear it…If writers are visionary…her ministry was successful…She made it…possible for all of us…to look…a little…deeper.
The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni Page 18