The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

by Nikki Giovanni

  Hands: For Mother’s Day

  I think hands must be very important…Hands: plait hair…knead bread…spank bottoms…wring in anguish…shake the air in exasperation…wipe tears, sweat, and pain from faces…are at the end of arms which hold…Yes hands…Let’s start with the hands…

  My grandmother washed on Mondays…every Monday…If you were a visiting grandchild or a resident daughter…every Monday morning at 6:00 A.M…. mostly in the dark…frequently in the cold…certainly alone…you heard her on the back porch starting to hum…as Black Christian ladies are prone to do…at threshold…some plea to higher beings for forgiveness and the power to forgive…

  I saw a photograph once of the mother of Emmett Till…a slight, brown woman with pillbox hat…white gloves…eyes dark beyond pain…incomprehensibly looking at a world that never intended to see her son be a man…That same look is created each year…without the hat and gloves, for mother seals are not chic…at the Arctic Circle…That same look is in vogue in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Buffalo…for much the same reason…During one brief moment, for one passing wrinkle in time, Nancy Reagan wore that look…sharing a bond, as yet unconsummated…with Betty Shabazz, Jacqueline Kennedy, Coretta King, Ethel Kennedy…The wives and mothers are not so radically different…It is the hands of the women which massage the balm…the ointments…the lotions into the bodies for burial…It is our hands which: cover the eyes of small children…soothe the longing of the brothers…make the beds…set the tables…wipe away our own grief…to give comfort to those beyond comfort…

  I yield from women whose hands are Black and rough…The women who produced me are in defiance of Porcelana and Jergens lotion…are ignorant of Madge’s need to soak their fingernails in Palmolive dishwashing liquid…My women look at cracked…jagged fingernails that will never be adequately disguised by Revlon’s new spring reds…We of the unacceptably strong take pride in the strength of our hands…

  Some people think a quilt is a blanket stretched across a Lincoln bed…or from frames on a wall…a quaint museum piece to be purchased on Bloomingdale’s 30-day same-as-cash plan…Quilts are our mosaics…Michelle-Angelo’s contribution to beauty…We weave a quilt with dry, rough hands…Quilts are the way our lives are lived…We survive on patches…scraps…the leftovers from a materially richer culture…the throwaways from those with emotional options…We do the far more difficult job of taking that which nobody wants and not only loving it…not only seeing its worth…but making it lovable…and intrinsically worthwhile…

  Though trite…it’s nonetheless true…that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing…Perhaps pitiful thing would be more accurate…though that too is not profound…The more we experience the human drama…the more we are to understand…that whatever is not quite well about us will also not quite go away…

  Sometimes…when it’s something like Mother’s Day…you really do wish you were smart enough to make the pain stop…to make the little hurts quit throbbing…to share with Star Trek’s Spock the ability to touch your fingertips to the temples and make all the dumb…ugly…sad things of this world ease from memory…It’s not at all that we fail to forgive others for the hurts we have received…we cannot forgive ourselves for the hurts we have meted…So…of course…we use our hands to push away rather than to pull closer…

  We look…in vain…for an image of mothers…for an analogy for families…for a reason to continue…We live…mostly because we don’t know any better…as best we can…Some of us are lucky…we learn to like ourselves…to forgive ourselves…to care about others…Some of us…on special occasions…watch the ladies in the purple velvet house slippers with the long black dresses come in from Sunday worship and we realize man never stood up to catch and kill prey…man never reared up on his hind legs to free his front parts to hold weapons…WOMAN stood to free her hands…to hold her young…to embrace her sons and lovers…WOMAN stood to applaud and cheer a delicate mate who needs her approval…WOMAN stood to wipe the tears and sweat…to touch the eyes and lips…that woman stood to free the arms which hold the hands…which hold.

  This Is Not for John Lennon

  (and this is not a poem)

  Not more than we can bear…more than we should have to…Those of us lacking the grace to kill ourselves take it in the gut…from a gun or gossip…what’s the difference…Anything in the name of the Lord…or Freud…and don’t forget the book contracts and possible made-for-TV-movies starring that cute little buttoned-down guy who you recently saw making some sort of deal with a game show host…It’s bad form to point out that Jesus didn’t wear no shoes nor carry any guns and wasn’t even known to have a choice on the presidential preference poll (though His father was quoted a lot)…He has been seen however a lot at football games cheering the Catholic teams on to victory…let us all be born just one more time…we may yet get it…right…

  Something’s wrong and this is not a poem…the main difference being that you didn’t think it was…Unlike those who profess to be caring and Christian I didn’t fool you…it’s not about John Lennon either…he’s dead…And the man who killed him is cutting a deal…with doctors whose only operations are with lawyers over how to split the money and the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol so solemnly promised…What a pitiful country this is…Our beloved mayor who prefers capital punishment to Jesus as a foolish belief all of a sudden defends the violence of New York by saying, “But golly gee fellows there is violence in England too”…Yes indeedy folks it’s not the gun but the man…Maybe the New Right is finally right about something…Let’s ban the men…Let’s make them justify their existence and their right to survival…Let us set up a board…a bureaucracy even…where each one must come in and fill out in triplicate the reasons why he should be allowed to live…All potential suicides need not bother to apply…They can save us all grief by killing them real selves instead of they play selves…Strange isn’t it if you try to live by getting a job or creating one there is no help…If you try to die by drugs or pills or slicing your wrists you become very very significant…No…Not more than we can bear…more than we ought to…

  But those who ride the night winds must learn to love the stars…those who live on the edge must get used to the cuts…We are told if we live in glass houses to neither throw nor stow the stones…We are warned of bric-a-brac that easily breaks…IF YOU BREAK IT YOU BOUGHT IT…the store sign says…science being such a tenuous commodity we can only half believe for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction…But if Newton was as correct about apples as the snake we are at the beginning not the end…Those who have nothing to offer take something away…Don’t cry for John Lennon cry for ourselves…He was an astronaut of inner space…He celebrated happiness…soothed the lonely…braced the weary…gave word to the deaf…vision to the insensitive…sang a long low note when he reached the edge of this universe and saw the Blackness…Poetry…like photography…functions best not only in the available light but in the timeliness of the subject…There are always those painters who think the only proper subjects are those who can rent the galleries…Others know we who cut stone must envision cathedrals…I don’t believe you know someone just because you like what they do for a living…or the product of it…You don’t feel you know David Rockefeller and you all like money…or what it can buy…You don’t feel you know or want to know Jerry Falwell and you all want to go to heaven…or so you say…No this is not about John Lennon…He only wrote and sang some songs…So did Chuck Willis…Johnny Ace…Sam Cooke…Otis Redding…The blood on city streets and backcountry roads isn’t new…but now we can call this game exactly what it is…This isn’t about somebody who killed…either…It’s always a nut though isn’t it…cashew…peanut…walnut…pistachio…yeah…a real pissedaschio nut…But take comfort music lovers…Reagan supports gun control…ling freaks…And those who ride the night winds do learn to love the stars…even while crying in the darkness…The whole may be greater than the sum of its parts…we’ll never know now…one
part is missing. No this is not about John Lennon…It’s about us…And the night winds…Anybody want a ticket to ride?

  Mirrors

  (for Billie Jean King)

  The face in the window…is not the face in the mirror…Mirrors aren’t for windows…they would block the light…Mirrors are for bedroom walls…or closet doors…Windows show who we hope to be…Mirrors reflect who we are…Mirrors…like religious fervors…are private…and actually uninteresting to those not involved…Windows open up…bring a fresh view…windows make us vulnerable

  The French teach us in love…there is always one who kisses…and one who offers…the cheek…There is many a slip…’twixt the cup and the lip…that’s the reason…napkins were born…In love…there is always the hurt…and the hurter…even when the hurter doesn’t want…to hurt…the hurtee selfishly strikes

  Lips…like brownish gray gulls infested by contact with polluted waters circling a new jersey garbage heap…flap in anticipation

  Lips…like an old pot-bellied unshaven voyeur with the grease of his speciality packed under his dirty ragged fingernails…move with the glee of getting a good lick in

  Lips…like a blind man describing an elephant by touch…give inadequate information

  There are things…that we know…yet don’t want to see…NOT THINGS…like abused children…that is public pain…and light must be focused…to bring the healing heat…NOT THINGS…like battered wives…that is public policy…if we allow silence to cover the cries…NOR THINGS…like the emotionally troubled…only Dick and Jane…or Ozzie and Harriet…are always smiling…NOT THINGS…like people in wheelchairs…who need sidewalk access…NOR THINGS…like the unsighted…who need braille in public elevators…BUT THINGS…like love…and promises made after midnight…the rituals and responsibilities of courtship…have no place…in the court yard…are not a part of the public see…Pillow Talk is only a movie starring Doris Day or a song by Sylvia…something delightful if you’re lucky…or necessary if you’re needy…but always private…since you’re human

  The hands of children break…drinking glasses…dinner plates…wooden buses…dolls with long blond hair…Lego structures…down…While playing blind man’s bluff…flower heads and beds suffer little gym-toed carelessness…When playing kickball…baseball…football…soccer…windows unshuttered shatter…it’s only natural…they are children…Childish adults want to break mirrors…want to shatter lives…While eating and playing paraphernalia are easily replaced…toys forgotten…flowers regrown…windows quickly repaired…sometimes with a scolding/sometimes with a shrug…mirrors broken…promise seven years…bad luck…Like Humpty Dumpty…lives…once exposed to great heights…seem destined…for great falls…and are seldom properly repaired

  Some people choose heroes…because they kiss a horse…and ride…alone…into the sunset…Some choose a hero…because he robbed the rich…and gave to the poor…Some want to emulate lives…that discovered cures for exotic diseases…or made a lot of money off foolish endeavors…One of my heroes…is a tennis player…who has the courage of her game…and her life…“It Was A Mistake” for sure…if courtship turns to courts…if letters written to share a feeling come back…to testify against you…“It Was A Mistake” to choose the myopic…selfish…greedy as a repository of a feeling…“It Was A Mistake” to want that which does not want you but what you can do…but It Cannot Be A Mistake to have cared…It Cannot Be An Error to have tried…It Cannot Be Incorrect to have loved

  It is illogical to spit…upon a face you once kissed

  It is mean…to blacken eyes…which once beheld you

  It is wrong…to punish the best…within

  One of my heroes embraced…Medusa…but the mirror will not break…it only shattered…The window did not crack…it only opened…I am not ashamed…only sad…not for my hero…but for those who fail to see…the true championship…match

  Linkage

  (for Phillis Wheatley)

  What would a little girl think…boarding a big…at least to her…ship…setting sail on a big…to everybody…ocean…Perhaps seeing her first…iceberg…or whale…or shark…Watching the blue water kiss…the blue sky…and blow white clouds…to the horizon…My mother…caused awe…in me for blowing…smoke rings…What would a little girl think…leaving Senegal…for that which had no name…and when one was obtained…no place for her…

  You see them now…though they were always…there…the children of Hester Prynne…walking the streets…needing a place…to eat…sleep…Be…warm…loved…alone…together…complete…The block…that little Black girls…stood upon…is the same block…they now walk…with little white boys and girls…selling themselves…to the adequate…bidder…

  Hagar was a little Black girl…chosen by Sarah and Abraham…looked like a breeder…they said…Phillis…a little Black girl…chosen by Wheatley…looked intelligent…make a cute pet…for the children…Old men…sweat curling round their collars…choose a body and act…on the wait…through the tunnel to Jersey…Looked like fun…they say…Family members…and family friends…inhale to intoxication…the allure of the youths…destroying in conception…that which has never been…born…

  Eyes…they say…are the mirror…of the soul…a reflection…of the spirit…an informer…to reality…What do you see…if you are a little Black girl…standing on a stage…waiting to be purchased…Is there kindness…concern…compassion…in the faces examining you…Do your eyes show…or other eyes acknowledge…that you…dusky…naked of clothes and tongue…stripped of the protection of Gods…and countrymen…are Human…Do you see those who purchase…or those who sold…Do you see those who grab at you…or those who refused to shield you…Are you grateful to be bought…or sold…What would you think…of a people…who allowed…nay encouraged…abetted…regaled…in your chains…Hands…that handle heavy objects…develop callouses…Feet in shoes too tight…develop corns…Minds that cannot comprehend…like lovers separated too long…develop an affinity for what is…and an indifference…if not hostility…to that which has been denied…Little white boys…stalking Park Avenue…little white girls…on the Minnesota Strip…are also slaves…to the uncaring…of a nation…

  It cannot be unusual…that the gene remembers…It divides…and redivides…and subdivides…again and again and again…to make the eyes brown…the fingers long…the hair coarse…the nose broad…the pigment Black…the mind intelligent…It cannot be unusual…that one gene…from all the billions upon billions…remembered clitorectomies…infibulations…women beaten…children hungry…garbage heaping…open sewers…men laughing…at it all…It cannot be unusual…that the dark…dusky…murky world…of druggery…drums…witch doctors…incantations…MAGIC…was willingly shed…for the Enlightenment…At least man…was considered rational…At least books…dispensed knowledge…At least God…though still angry and jealous…was reachable through prayer and action…if those are not redundant…terms…We cannot be surprised that young Phillis chose poetry…as others choose prostitution…to express her dismay…

  The critics…from a safe seat in the balcony…disdain her performance…reject her reality…ignore her truths…How could she…they ask…thank God she was brought…and bought…in this Land…How dare she…they decried…cheer George Washington his victory…Why couldn’t she…they want to know…be more like…more like…more like…The record sticks…Phillis was her own precedent…her own image…her only ancestor…She wasn’t like Harriet Tubman because she is Tubman…with Pen…rather than body…Leading herself…and therefore her people…from bondage…not like Sojourner Truth…she was Truth…using words on paper…to make the case…that slavery is people…and wrong to do…We know nothing of the Life…we who judge others…of the conditions…we create…and expect others to live with…or beyond…broken spirits…broken hearts…misplaced love…fruitless endeavor…Women…are considered complete…when they marry…We have done…it is considered…our duty…when we safely deliver a perso
n from the bondage of Father…to the bondage of duty…and husband…from house slaves who read and write…to housewives who have time for neither…We are happy…when their own race is chosen…their own class reaffirmed…their own desire submerged…into food…dishes…laundry…babies…no dreams this week thank you I haven’t the time…Like overripe fruit in an orchard embraced by frost…the will to live turns rotten…feckless…feculent…

  What is a woman…to think…when all she hears…are words that exclude her…all she feels…are emotions that deceive…What do the children think…in their evening quest…of those who from platform and pulpit…deride their condition…yet purchase their service…What must life be…to any young captive…of its time…Do we send them back…home to the remembered horrors…Do we allow them their elsewheres…to parade their talents…Do we pretend that all is well…that Ends…

  Charles White

  The art of Charles White is like making love