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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
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Make Up
we make up our faces
for lots of reasons
to go to the movies
or some junior prom
to see ice hockey
or watch the Dodgers come home again
defeated
going to the grocery store
only requires lipstick
while a bridge game
can mean a quick trip
to the hairdresser for a touch up
i clean my make up
before going to bed
alone
and if my mood is foul
i spray the sheets
with Ultra Ban
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
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Choices
if i can’t do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don’t want
to do
it’s not the same thing
but it’s the best i can
do
if i can’t have
what i want then
my job is to want
what i’ve got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more
to want
since i can’t go
where i need
to go then i must go
where the signs point
though always understanding
parallel movement
isn’t lateral
when i can’t express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that’s why mankind
alone among the mammals
learns to cry
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Life Cycles
she realized
she wasn’t one
of life’s winners
when she wasn’t sure
life to her was some dark
dirty secret that
like some unwanted child
too late for an abortion
was to be borne
alone
she had so many private habits
she would masturbate sometimes
she always picked her nose when upset
she liked to sit with silence
in the dark
sadness is not an unusual state
for the black woman
or writers
she took to sneaking drinks
a habit which displeased her
both for its effects
and taste
yet eventually sleep
would wrestle her in triumph
onto the bed
she was nervous
when he was there
and anxious
when he wasn’t
life to her
was a crude cruel joke
played on the livers
she boxed her life
like a special private seed
planting it in her emotional garden
to see what weeds
would rise
to strangle
her
From the volume of poetry “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day,” published in 1978. Inspired by an accident that happened on a rainy day while at the Cincinnati zoo with her nephew. The vendor didn’t want to sell cotton candy, because the rain would make it melt.
Cotton Candy On a Rainy Day
Don’t look now
I’m fading away
Into the gray of my mornings
Or the blues of every night
Is it that my nails
keep breaking
Or maybe the corn
on my second little piggy
Things keep popping out
on my face
or
of my life
It seems no matter how
I try I become more difficult
to hold
I am not an easy woman
to want
The had asked
the psychiatrists psychologists politicians and
social workers
What this decade will be
known for
There is no doubt it is
loneliness
If loneliness were a grape
the wine would be vintage
If it were a wood
the furniture would be mahogany
But since it is life it is
Cotton Candy
on a rainy day
The sweet soft essence
of possibility
Never quite maturing
I have prided myself
On being in that great tradition
Albeit circus
That the show must go on
Though in my community the vernacular is
One Monkey Don’t Stop the Show
We all line up
at some midway point
To thread our way through
the boredom and futility
Looking for the blue ribbon and gold medal
Mostly these are seen as food labels
we are consumed by people who sing
the same old song Stay:
as sweet as you are
in my corner
Or perhaps just a little bit longer
But whatever you do don’t change baby baby don’t
change
Something needs to change
Everything some say will change
I need a change
of pace face attitude and life
Though I long for my loneliness
I know I need something
Or someone
Or……
I strangle my words as easily as I do my tears
I stifle my screams as frequently as I flash my smile
it means nothing
I am cotton candy on a rainy day
the unrealized dream of an idea unborn
I share with the painters the desire
To put a three-dimensional picture
On a one-dimensional surface
What Poetry Is
Who Poets Are
From Nikki Giovanni’s volume of poetry “The Women and the Men.” Which features Nineteen new poems and many poems from “Re: Creation.” Which was published by Broadside Press.
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 poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform than 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
From Nikki Giovanni’s fourth volume of poetry “My House.” Different from her first three published volumes. It was a departure from writing Black Revolutionary poems.
My House
i only want to
be there to kiss you
as you want to be kissed
when you need to be kissed
where i want to kiss you
cause it’s my house
and i plan to live in it
i really need to hug you
when i want to hug you
as you like to hug me
does this sound like a silly poem
i mean it’s my house
and i want to fry pork chops
and bake sweet potatoes
and call them yams
cause i run the kitchen
and i can stand the heat
i spent all winter in
carpet stores gathering
patches so i could make
a quilt
does this really sound
like a silly poem
i mean i want to keep you
warm
and my windows might be dirty
but it’s my house
and if i can’t see out sometimes
they can’t see in either
english isn’t a good language
to express emotion through
mostly i imagine because people
try to speak english instead
of trying to speak through it
i don’t know maybe it is
a silly poem
i’m saying it’s my house
and I’ll make fudge and call
it love and touch my lips
to the chocolate warmth
and smile at old men and call
that revolution cause what’s real
is really real
and I like men in tight
pants cause everybody has some
thing to give and more
important needs something to take
and this is my house and you make me
happy
so this is your poem
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From Nikki Giovanni's fourth volume of poetry “My House,” published in 1972.
We
we stood there waiting
on the corners
in the bars
on the stoops
in the pews
by the cadillacs
for buses
wanting for love
watching to see if hope would come by
we stood there hearing
the sound of police sirens
and fire engines
the explosions
and babies crying
the gas escaping
and the roaches breeding
the garbage cans falling
and the stairways creaking
we listened
to the books opening
and hearts shutting
the hands rubbing
the bodies sweating
we were seeing the revolution screeeeeeeeeeeching
to a halt
trying to find a clever way
to be empty
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How Do You Write
A Poem?
how do you write a poem
about someone so close
to you that when you say ahhhhh
they say chuuuu
what can they ask you to put
on paper that isn’t already written
on your face
and does the paper make it
any more real
that without them
life would be not
impossible but certainly
more difficult
and why would someone need
a poem to say when i come
home if you’re not there
i search the air
for your scent
would i search any less
if i told the world
i don’t care at all
and love is so complete
that touch or not we blend
to each other the things
that matter aren’t all about
baaaanging (i can be baaaanged all
day long) but finding a spot
where i can be free
of all the physical
and emotional bullshit
and simply sit with a cup
of coffee and say to you
“i’m tired” don’t you know
those are my love words
and say to you “how was your
day” doesn’t that show
i care or say to you “we lost
a friend” and not want to share
that loss with strangers
don’t you already know
what i feel and if
you don’t maybe
i should check my feelings
I feel this poem, the pain. The baddest poetry written was in the 60s and 70s. By the late 70s some poets changed their style of poetry. They moved away from writing Black Revolutionary poetry. Was it a change of an era, ideologies, or the infiltration of a Party? They do not poet like this anymore.
Yeah...But...
i don’t want you to think
that i don’t know the pain
when you say sister diana don’t sing
like she used to
cause i heard dionne making way for just like me
and i remembered the expectation
and the little surprises her albums
used to bring
the little love notes that told someone
what i felt and the ultimate surprise
when she didn’t sing for me and my love
no more and the pain was deep
cause the pleasure had been so complete
and i can dig when you say sing
like you used to but maybe we can
remember
we don’t poet like that
no more either
Bad
Beautiful
A Black woman’s rendition of Genesis
Ego Tripping
(there may be a reason why)
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
our the sahara desert
with a packet of goat’s meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can’t catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother’s day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
From Nikki Giovanni’s “Re: Creation.” Her last volume of Black Revolutionary Poetry.
Kidnap Poem
ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i’d kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i’d kid
nap you
From Nikki Giovanni’s third volume of poems “Re: Creation,” published by Broadside Press in 1970.
Broadside Press was one of the biggest Black publishing companies in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A Major publisher of the poetry of BAM (Black Arts Movement).
No Reservations
(for Art Jones)
there are no reservations
for the revolution
no polite little clerk
to send notice
to your room
saying you are WANTED
on the battlefield
there are no banners
to wave you forward
no blaring trumpets
not even a blues note
moaning wailing lone blue note
to the yoruba drums saying
strike now shoot
strike now fire
strike now run
there will be no grand
parade
and a lot thrown around
your neck
people won’t look up and say
“why he used to live next to me
isn’t it nice
it’s his turn now”
there will be no recruitment
station
where you can give
the most convenient hours
“monday wednesday i play ball
friday night i play cards
any other time i’m free”
there will be no reserve
of energy
no slacking off till next time
“let’s see—i can come back
next week
better not wear myself out
this time”
there will be reservations
only
if we fail
