The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

by Nikki Giovanni

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.