Julia de Burgos

 

Ay ay ay, que soy grifa y pura negra

grifería en mi pelo, cafrería en mis labios;
y mi chata nariz mozambiquea.
Negra de intacto tinte, lloro y río
la vibración de ser estatua negra;
de ser trozo de noche,
en que mis blancos dientes relampaguean;
y ser negro bejuco
que a lo negro se enreda
y comba el negro nido
en que el cuervo se acuesta.
Negro trozo de negro en que me esculpo,
ay ay ay, que mi estatua es toda negra.
Dícenme que mi abuelo fue el esclavo
por quien el amo dio treinta monedas.
Ay ay ay, que el esclavo fue mi abuelo
es mi pena, es mi pena.
Si hubiera sido el amo,
sería mi vergüenza;
que en los hombres, igual que en las naciones,
si el ser el siervo es no tener derechos,
el ser el amo es no tener conciencia.
Ay ay ay, los pecados del rey blanco
lávelos en perdón la reina negra.
Ay ay ay, que la raza se me fuga
y hacia la raza blanca zumba y vuela
hundirse en su agua clara;
tal vez si la blanca se ensombrará en la negra.
Ay ay ay, que mi negra raza huye
y con la blanca corre a ser trigueña;
¡a ser la del futuro,
fraternidad de América! 
Ay ay ay de la grifa negra 

Ay, ay, ay, that am kinky-haired and pure black
kinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips; 
and my flat nose Mozambiques. 
Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh
the vibration of being a black statue; 
a chunk of night, in which my white 
teeth are lightning; 
and to be a black vine
which entwines in the black
and curves the black nest 
in which the raven lies. 
Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself, 
ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black. 
They tell me that my grandfather was the slave
for whom the master paid thirty coins. 
Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather
is my sadness, is my sadness. 
If he had been the master
it would be my shame: 
that in men, as in nations, 
if being the slave is having no rights
being the master is having no conscience. 
Ay, ay, ay wash the sins of the white King
in forgiveness black Queen. 
Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes me
and buzzes and flies toward the white race, 
to sink in its clear water; 
or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black. 
Ay, ay, ay my black race flees
and with the white runs to become bronzed; 
to be one for the future, 
fraternity of America! 

Frank O'Hara

TO THE POEM 

Let us do something grand 

just this once          Something 

small and important and 
unAmerican          Some fine thing 

will resemble a human hand 
and really be merely a thing 

Not needing a military band 
nor an elegant forthcoming 

to tease spotlights or a hand 
from the public’s thinking 

But be          In a defiant land 
of its own a real right thing 

Lucille Clifton

 today i mourn my coat.

my old potato.
my yellow mother.
my horse with buttons.
my rind.
today she split her skin
like a snake,
refusing to excuse my back
for being big
for being old
for reaching toward other
cuffs and sleeves.
she cracked like a whip and
fell apart,
my terrible teacher to the end;
to hell with the arms you want
she hissed,
be glad when you’re cold
for the arms you have.

Toi Derricotte

 

Joy is an act of resistance

                    Why would a black woman                                need a fish                  to love? Why did she need a

                    flash of red, living, in thecorner of her eye? As if she could love nothing                    up close, but had to step

                        away from it, come                    back to drop a few seeds                          & let it grab

                    on to her, as if it caught                                          her                  on some hook that couldn't

                hurt. Why did she need a fish                            to write of, a red              thorn or, among the thorns, that

        flower? What does her love have to do                  with five hundred years of            sorrow, then joy coming up like a

                            small breath, a            bubble? What does it have to do                  with the graveyards of the

                Atlantic, in her mother's                                        heart? 

Sonia Sanchez

Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman

Picture a woman

riding thunder on

the legs of slavery    ...    

2

Picture her kissing

our spines saying no to

the eyes of slavery    ...    

3

Picture her rotating

the earth into a shape

of lives becoming    ...    

4

Picture her leaning

into the eyes of our

birth clouds    ...    

5

Picture this woman

saying no to the constant

yes of slavery    ...    

6

Picture a woman

jumping rivers her

legs inhaling moons    ...    

7

Picture her ripe

with seasons of

legs    ...   running    ...    

8

Picture her tasting

the secret corners

of woods    ...   

9

Picture her saying:

You have within you the strength,

the patience, and the passion

to reach for the stars,

to change the world    ...    

10

Imagine her words:

Every great dream begins

with a dreamer    ...    

11

Imagine her saying:

I freed a thousand slaves,

could have freed

a thousand more if they

only knew they were slaves    ...    

12

Imagine her humming:

How many days we got

fore we taste freedom    ...    

13

Imagine a woman

asking: How many workers

for this freedom quilt    ...    

14

Picture her saying:

A live runaway could do

great harm by going back

but a dead runaway

could tell no secrets    ...    

15

Picture the daylight

bringing her to woods

full of birth moons    ...    

16

Picture John Brown

shaking her hands three times saying:

General Tubman. General Tubman. General Tubman.

17

Picture her words:

There’s two things I got a

right to: death or liberty    ...    

18

Picture her saying no

to a play called Uncle Tom’s Cabin:

I am the real thing    ...    

19

Picture a Black woman:

could not read or write

trailing freedom refrains    ...    

20

Picture her face

turning southward walking

down a Southern road    ...    

21

Picture this woman

freedom bound    ...    tasting a

people’s preserved breath    ...    

22

Picture this woman

of royalty    ...    wearing a crown

of morning air    ...    

23

Picture her walking,

running, reviving

a country’s breath    ...    

24

Picture black voices

leaving behind

lost tongues   ...

Audre Lorde

But What Can You Teach My Daughter

What do you mean

no no no no

you don’t have the right

to know

how often

have we built each other

as shelters

against the cold

and even my daughter knows

what you know

can hurt you

she says her nos

and it hurts

she says

when she talks of liberation

she means freedom

from that pain

she knows

what you know

can hurt

but what you do 

not know

can kill.

Audre Lorde

Who Said It Was Simple

There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as ***

and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.

Lucille Clifton

homage to my hips

these hips are big hips

they need space to

move around in.

they don't fit into little

petty places. these hips

are free hips.

they don't like to be held back.

these hips have never been enslaved,   

they go where they want to go

they do what they want to do.

these hips are mighty hips.

these hips are magic hips.

i have known them

to put a spell on a man and

spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton

blessing the boats

 (at St. Mary's)

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back     may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Alok V. Menon

the deepest breath

on the other side of now
when this is all over
i want to attend a funeral every day.

i will sit at the back,
silently crying.

when they ask how I knew her?
i will smile through the tears.
"i didn't."

but.
i loved her.
because once upon a time
she breathed. which means that the particles that touched
the deepest parts of her, she exhaled them
& somehow they found their way to me.

i am the product of everything that is & was
all that has lived &
all that has died on this earth.

i am sorry that it took a virus help me remember
that simple fact --
that we breathe the same air.

Derek Walcott

Love After Love

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

Billy Collins

LITANY

You are the bread and the knife,
          The crystal goblet and the wine...
                -Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Eileen Myles

THE SADNESS OF LEAVING 

Everything’s
   so far away—
my jacket’s
   over there. I’m terrified
      to go & you
won’t miss me
      I’m terrified by the
bright blues of
         the subway
      other days I’m
        so happy &
prepared to believe
      that everyone walking
down the street is
         someone I know.
The oldness of Macy’s
      impresses me. The
      wooden escalators
              as you get
higher up to the furniture,
     credit, lampshades—
      You shopped here
        as a kid. Oh,
    you deserve me! In
      a movie called
        Close Up—once in
a while the wiggly
bars, notice
    the wiggly blue
      bars of
        subway entrances,
the grainy beauty,
    the smudge. I won’t
kill myself today. It’s
    too beautiful. My heart
      breaking down 23rd
  St. To share this
     with you, the
     sweetness of the
           frame. My body
     in perfect shape
       for nothing but
         death. I want
    to show you this.
          On St. Mark’s Place
             a madman screams:
    my footsteps, the
        drumbeats of Armageddon.
          Oh yes bring me
          closer to you Lord.
    I want to die
          Close Up. A handful
    of bouncing yellow
          tulips for David.     I
        admit I love tulips
             because they
          die so beautifully.
                                        I
        see salvation in
  their hanging heads.
A beautiful exit. How do
        they get to
              feel so free? I am
        trapped by love—
               over french fries
          my eyes wander to
               The Hue Bar. A blue
          sign. Across the
      life. On my way to
         making a point,
              to making
               logic, to not
      falling in love to-
                night and
          let my pain remain
          unwrapped—to push
the machine—Paul’s
      staying in touch, but
  oh remember Jessica
      Lange, she looked so
               beautiful all
           doped up, on her
      way to meet King
        Kong. I sit
     on my little red
         couch in February
     how do they get
          to feel so free
 1,000,000 women
          not me moving through
the street tonight
   of this filmy
     city & I
       crown myself
     again & again
         and there
      can’t be
         two kings.