by Maya Angelou
The streets?
Climb into the streets man, like you climb
into the ass end of a lion.
Then it’s fine.
It’s a bug-a-loo and a shing-a-ling,
African dreams on a buck-and-a-wing and a prayer.
That’s the streets man,
Nothing happening.
Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett and Other Latter-Day Saints
Novitiates sing Ave
Before the whipping posts,
Criss-crossing their breasts and
tear-stained robes
in the yielding dark.
Animated by the human sacrifice
(Golgotha in black-face)
Priests glow purely white on the
bar-relief of a plantation shrine.
(O Sing)
You are gone but not forgotten
Hail, Scarlett. Requiescat in pace.
God-Makers smear brushes in
blood/gall
to etch frescoes on your
ceilinged tomb.
(O Sing)
Hosanna, King Kotton.
Shadowed couplings of infidels
tempt stigmata from the nipples
of your true-believers.
(Chant Maternoster)
Hallowed Little Eva.
Ministers make novena with the
charred bones of four
very small
very black
very young children
(Intone DIXIE)
And guard the relics
of your intact hymen
daily putting to death,
into eternity,
The stud, his seed,
His seed
His seed.
(O Sing)
Hallelujah, pure Scarlett
Blessed Rhett, the Martyr.
Times-Square-Shoeshine-Composition
I’m the best that ever done it
(pow pow)
that’s my title and I won it
(pow pow)
I ain’t lying, I’m the best
(pow pow)
Come and put me to the test
(pow pow)
I’ll clean ’em til they squeak
(pow pow)
In the middle of next week,
(pow pow)
I’ll shine ’em til they whine
(pow pow)
Till they call me master mine
(pow pow)
For a quarter and a dime
(pow pow)
You can get the dee luxe shine
(pow pow)
Say you wanta pay a quarter?
(pow pow)
Then you give that to your daughter
(pow pow)
I ain’t playing dozens mister
(pow pow)
You can give it to your sister
(pow pow)
Any way you want to read it
(pow pow)
Maybe it’s your momma need it.
(pow pow)
Say I’m like a greedy bigot,
(pow pow)
I’m a cap’tilist, can you dig it?
(pow pow)
Faces
Faces and more remember
then reject
the brown caramel days of youth
Reject the sun-sucked tit of
childhood mornings.
Poke a muzzle of war in the trust frozen eyes
of a favored doll
Breathe, Brother
and displace a moment’s hate with organized love.
A poet screams “CHRIST WAITS AT THE SUBWAY!”
But who sees?
To a Freedom Fighter
You drink a bitter draught.
I sip the tears your eyes fight to hold
A cup of lees, of henbane steeped in chaff.
Your breast is hot,
Your anger black and cold,
Through evening’s rest, you dream
I hear the moans, you die a thousands’ death.
When cane straps flog the body
dark and lean, you feel the blow,
I hear it in your breath.
Riot: 60’s
Our
YOUR FRIEND CHARLIE pawnshop
was a glorious blaze
I heard the flames lick
then eat the trays
of zircons
mounted in red gold alloys
Easter clothes and stolen furs
burned in the attic
radios and teevees
crackled with static
plugged in
only to a racial outlet
Some
thought the FRIENDLY FINANCE FURNITURE CO.
burned higher
When a leopard print sofa with gold legs
(which makes into a bed)
caught fire
an admiring groan from the waiting horde
“Absentee landlord
you got that shit”
Lighting: a hundred Watts
Detroit, Newark and New York
Screeching nerves, exploding minds
lives tied to
a policeman’s whistle
a welfare worker’s doorbell
finger.
Hospitality, southern-style
corn pone grits and you-all smile
whole blocks novae
brand new stars
policemen caught in their
brand new cars
Chugga chugga chigga
git me one nigga
lootin’ n burnin’
he wont git far
Watermelons, summer ripe
grey neck bones and boiling tripe
supermarket roastin like the
noon-day sun
national guard nervous with his shiny gun
goose the motor quicker
here’s my nigga picka
shoot him in the belly
shoot him while he run.
We Saw Beyond Our Seeming
We saw beyond our seeming
These days of bloodied screaming
Of children dying bloated
Out where the lilies floated
Of men all noosed and dangling
Within the temples strangling
Our guilt grey fungus growing
We knew and lied our knowing
Deafened and unwilling
We aided in the killing
And now our souls lie broken
Dry tablets without token.
Black Ode
Your beauty is a thunder
and I am set a wandering—a wandering
Deafened
Down twilight tin-can alleys
And moist sounds
“OOo wee Baby, Look what you could get if your name
was Willie”
Oh, to dip your words like snuff.
A laughter, black and streaming
And I am come a being—a being
Rounded
Up Baptist, aisles, so moaning
And moist sounds
“Bless her heart. Take your bed and walk.
You been heavy burdened”
Oh, to lick your love like tears.
No No No No
No
the two legg’d beasts
that walk like men
play stink finger in their crusty asses
while crackling babies
in napalm coats
stretch mouths to receive
burning tears
on splitting tongues
JUST GIVE ME A COOL DRINK OF WATER ’FORE I DIIIE
No
the gap legg’d whore
of the eastern shore
enticing Europe to COME
in her
and turns her pigeon shit back to me
to me
Who stoked the coal that drove the ships
which brought her over the sinuous cemetery
Of my many brothers
No
t
he cocktailed after noons
of what can I do.
In my white layed pink world
I’ve let your men cram my mouth
with their black throbbing hate
and I swallowed after
I’ve let your mammies
steal from my kitchens
(I was always half-amused)
I’ve chuckled the chins of
your topsy-haired pickaninnies.
What more can I do?
I’ll never be black like you.
(HALLELUJAH)
No
the red-shoed priests riding
palanquined
in barefoot children country.
the plastered saints gazing down
beneficently
on kneeling mothers
picking undigested beans
from yesterday’s shit.
I have waited
toes curled, hat rolled
heart and genitals
in hand
on the back porches
of forever
in the kitchens and fields
of rejections
on the cold marble steps
of America’s White Out-House
in the drop seats of buses
and the open flies of war
No more
the dream that you
will cease haunting me
down in fetid swamps of fear
and will turn to embrace your own
humanity
which I AM
No more
The hope that
the razored insults
which mercury slide over your tongue
will be forgotten
and you will learn the words of love
Mother Brother Father Sister Lover Friend
My hopes
dying slowly
rose petals falling
beneath an autumn red moon
will not adorn your unmarked graves
My dreams
lying quietly
a dark pool under the trees
will not carry your name
to a forgetful shore
And what a pity
What a pity
That pity has folded in upon itself
an old man’s mouth
whose teeth are gone
and I have no pity.
My Guilt
My guilt is “slavery’s chains,” too long
the clang of iron falls down the years.
This brother’s sold. This sister’s gone
is bitter wax, lining my ears.
My guilt made music with the tears.
My crime is “heroes, dead and gone”
dead Vesey, Turner, Gabriel,
dead Malcolm, Marcus, Martin King.
They fought too hard, they loved too well.
My crime is I’m alive to tell.
My sin is “hanging from a tree”
I do not scream, it makes me proud.
I take to dying like a man.
I do it to impress the crowd.
My sin lies in not screaming loud.
The Calling of Names
He went to being called a Colored man
after answering to “hey nigger,”
Now that’s a big jump,
anyway you figger,
Hey, Baby, Watch my smoke.
From colored man to Negro
With the N in caps,
was like saying Japanese
instead of saying Japs.
I mean, during the war.
The next big step
was a change for true,
From Negro in caps
to being a Jew.
Now, Sing Yiddish Mama.
Light, Yellow, Brown
and Dark brown skin,
were o.k. colors to
describe him then,
He was a Bouquet of Roses.
He changed his seasons
like an almanac,
Now you’ll get hurt
if you don’t call him “Black.”
Nigguh, I ain’t playin’ this time.
On Working White Liberals
I don’t ask the Foreign Legion
Or anyone to win my freedom
Or to fight my battle better than I can,
Though there’s one thing that I cry for
I believe enough to die for
That is every man’s responsibility to man.
I’m afraid they’ll have to prove first
that they’ll watch the Black man move first
Then follow him with faith to kingdom come,
This rocky road is not paved for us,
So, I’ll believe in Liberal’s aid for us
When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.
Sepia Fashion Show
Their hair, pomaded, faces jaded
bones protruding, hip-wise,
The models strutted, backed and butted,
Then stuck their mouths out, lip-wise.
They’d nasty manners, held like banners,
while they looked down their nose-wise,
I’d see ’em in hell, before they’d sell
me one thing they’re wearing, clothes-wise.
The Black Bourgeois, who all say “yah”
When yeah is what they’re meaning
Should look around, both up and down
before they set out preening.
“Indeed” they swear, “that’s what I’ll wear
When I go country-clubbing,”
I’d remind them please, look at those knees
you got a Miss Ann’s scrubbing.
The Thirteens (Black)
Your Momma took to shouting
Your Poppa’s gone to war,
Your sister’s in the streets
Your brother’s in the bar,
The thirteens. Right On.
Your cousin’s taking smack
Your Uncle’s in the joint,
Your buddy’s in the gutter
Shooting for his point
The thirteens. Right on.
And you, you make me sorry
You out here by yourself,
I’d call you something dirty,
But there just ain’t nothing left,
cept
The thirteens. Right On.
The Thirteens (White)
Your Momma kissed the chauffeur,
Your Poppa balled the cook,
Your sister did the dirty,
in the middle of the book,
The thirteens. Right On.
Your daughter wears a jock strap,
Your son he wears a bra
Your brother jonesed your cousin
in the back seat of the car.
The thirteens. Right On.
Your money thinks you’re something
But if I’d learned to curse,
I’d tell you what your name is
But there just ain’t nothing worse
than
The thirteens. Right On.
Harlem Hopscotch
One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.
Good things for the ones that’s got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don’t stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That’s what hopping’s all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
Also by Maya Angelou
And Still I Rise
Gather Together in My Name
The Heart of a Woman
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well
Singin’ a
nd Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas
Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
I Shall Not Be Moved
On the Pulse of Morning
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
A Brave and Startling Truth
About the Author
Maya Angelou, author of the best-selling I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, and The Heart of a Woman, has also written five collections of poetry: Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie; Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well; And Still I Rise; Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?; and I Shall Not Be Moved; as well as On the Pulse of Morning, which was read by her at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton on January 20, 1993. In theater, she produced, directed, and starred in Cabaret for Freedom in collaboration with Godfrey Cambridge at New York’s Village Gate, starred in Genet’s The Blacks at the St. Mark’s Playhouse, and adapted Sophocles ’ Ajax, which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1974. She wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia and wrote and produced a ten-part TV series on African traditions in American life. In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and in 1975 she received the Ladies’ Home Journal Woman of the Year Award in communications. She has received numerous honorary degrees and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year and by President Gerald R. Ford to the American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council. She is on the board of trustees of the American Film Institute. One of the few female members of the Directors Guild, Angelou is the author of the television screenplays I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Sisters. Most recently, she wrote the lyrics for the musical King: Drum Major for Love and was both host and writer for the series of documentaries Maya Angelou’s America: A Journey of the Heart, along with Guy Johnson. Angelou is currently Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
