My story ain't news and it ain't all sad.

  There's plenty worse off than me.

  Yet the only thing I really don't need

  is strangers’ sympathy.

  That's someone else's word for

  caring.

  Changing

  It occurs to me now,

  I never see you smiling

  anymore. Friends

  praise your

  humor rich, your phrases

  turning on a thin

  dime. For me your wit is honed

  to killing sharpness.

  But I never catch

  you simply smiling, anymore.

  Born That Way

  As far as possible, she strove

  for them all. Arching her small

  frame and grunting

  prettily, her

  fingers counting the roses

  in the wallpaper.

  Childhood whoring fitted her

  for deceit. Daddy had been a

  fondler. Soft lipped mouthings,

  soft lapped rubbings.

  A smile for pretty shoes,

  a kiss could earn a dress.

  And a private telephone

  was worth the biggest old caress.

  The neighbors and family friends

  whispered she was seen

  walking up and down the streets

  when she was seventeen.

  No one asked her reasons.

  She couldn't even say.

  She just took for granted

  she was born that way.

  As far as possible, she strove

  for them all. Arching her small

  frame and grunting prettily, her

  fingers counting the roses

  in the wallpaper.

  Televised

  Televised news turns

  a half-used day into

  a waste of desolation.

  If nothing wondrous preceded

  the catastrophic announcements,

  certainly nothing will follow, save

  the sad-eyed faces of

  bony children,

  distended bellies making

  mock at their starvation.

  Why are they always

  Black?

  Whom do they await?

  The lamb-chop flesh

  reeks and cannot be

  eaten. Even the

  green peas roll on my plate

  unmolested. Their innocence

  matched by the helpless

  hope in the children's faces.

  Why do Black children

  hope? Who will bring

  them peas and lamb chops

  and one more morning?

  Nothing Much

  But of course you were

  always nothing. No thing.

  A red-hot rocket, patriotically

  bursting in my

  veins. Showers of stars—cascading stars

  behind closed eyelids. A

  searing brand across my

  forehead. Nothing of importance.

  A four-letter word stenciled

  on the flesh of my inner

  thigh.

  Stomping through my brain's

  mush valleys. Strewing a

  halt of new loyalties.

  My life, so I say

  nothing much.

  Glory Falls

  Glory falls around us

  as we sob

  a dirge of

  desolation on the Cross

  and hatred is the ballast of

  the rock

  which lies upon our necks

  and underfoot.

  We have woven

  robes of silk

  and clothed our nakedness

  with tapestry.

  From crawling on this

  murky planet's floor

  we soar beyond the

  birds and

  through the clouds

  and edge our way from hate

  and blind despair and

  bring honor

  to our brothers, and to our sisters cheer.

  We grow despite the

  horror that we feed

  upon our own

  tomorrow.

  We grow.

  London

  If I remember correctly,

  London is a very queer place.

  Mighty queer.

  A million miles from

  jungle, and the British

  lion roars in the stone of

  Trafalgar Square.

  Mighty queer.

  At least a condition

  removed from Calcutta,

  but old men in Islington and in

  too-large sweaters dream

  of the sunrise days

  of the British Raj.

  Awfully queer.

  Centuries of hate divide St. George's

  channel and the Gaels,

  but plum-cheeked English boys drink

  sweet tea and grow to fight

  for their Queen.

  Mighty queer.

  Savior

  Petulant priests, greedy

  centurions, and one million

  incensed gestures stand

  between your love and me.

  Your agape sacrifice

  is reduced to colored glass,

  vapid penance, and the

  tedium of ritual.

  Your footprints yet

  mark the crest of

  billowing seas but

  your joy

  fades upon the tablets

  of ordained prophets.

  Visit us again, Savior.

  Your children, burdened with

  disbelief, blinded by a patina

  of wisdom,

  carom down this vale of

  fear. We cry for you

  although we have lost

  your name.

  Many and More

  There are many and more

  who would kiss my hand,

  taste my lips,

  to my loneliness lend

  their bodies’ warmth.

  I have want of a friend.

  There are few, some few,

  who would give their names

  and fortunes rich

  or send first sons

  to my ailing bed.

  I have need of a friend.

  There is one and only one

  who will give the air

  from his failing lungs

  for my body's mend.

  And that one is my love.

  The New House

  What words

  have smashed against

  these walls,

  crashed up and down these

  halls,

  lain mute and then drained

  their meanings out and into

  these floors?

  What feelings, long since

  dead,

  streamed vague yearnings

  below this ceiling

  light?

  In some dimension,

  which I cannot know,

  the shadows of

  another still exist. I bring my

  memories, held too long in check,

  to let them here shoulder

  space and place to be.

  And when I leave to

  find another house,

  I wonder, what among

  these shades will be

  left of me.

  Our Grandmothers

  She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,

  the canebrake rustling

  with the whispers of leaves, and

  loud longing of hounds and

  the ransack of hunters crackling the near branches.

  She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward freedom,

  I shall not, I shall not be moved.

  She gathered her babies,

  their tears slick as oil on black faces,

  their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.

  Momma, is Master going to sell you

  from us tomo
rrow?

  Yes.

  Unless you keep walking more

  and talking less.

  Yes.

  Unless the keeper of our lives

  releases me from all commandments.

  Yes.

  And your lives,

  never mine to live,

  will be executed upon the killing floor of innocents.

  Unless you match my heart and words,

  saying with me,

  I shall not be moved. In Virginia tobacco fields,

  leaning into the curve

  of Steinway

  pianos, along Arkansas roads,

  in the red hills of Georgia,

  into the palms of her chained hands, she

  cried against calamity,

  You have tried to destroy me

  and though I perish daily,

  I shall not be moved.

  Her universe, often

  summarized into one black body

  falling finally from the tree to her feet,

  made her cry each time in a new voice,

  All my past hastens to defeat,

  and strangers claim the glory of my love,

  Iniquity has bound me to his bed,

  yet, I must not be moved.

  She heard the names,

  swirling ribbons in the wind of history:

  igger, nigger bitch, heifer,

  mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,

  whore, hot tail, thing, it.

  She said, But my description cannot

  fit your tongue, for

  I have a certain way of being in this world,

  and I shall not, I shall not be moved.

  No angel stretched protecting wings

  above the heads of her children,

  fluttering and urging the winds of reason into the confusion of their lives.

  They sprouted like young weeds,

  but she could not shield their growth

  from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor

  shape them into symbolic topiaries.

  She sent them away,

  underground, overland, in coaches and

  shoeless.

  When you learn, teach.

  When you get, give.

  As for me,

  I shall not be moved.

  She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.

  She searched God's face.

  Assured,

  she placed her fire of service

  on the altar, and though

  clothed in the finery of faith,

  when she appeared at the temple door,

  no sign welcomed

  Black Grandmother. Enter here.

  Into the crashing sound,

  into wickedness, she cried,

  No one, no, nor no one million

  ones dare deny me God. I go forth

  alone, and stand as ten thousand.

  The Divine upon my right

  impels me to pull forever

  at the latch on Freedom's gate.

  The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my

  feet without ceasing into the camp of the

  righteous and into the tents of the free.

  These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple, honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted down a pyramid of years. She is Sheba and Sojourner, Harriet and Zora, Mary Bethune and Angela, Annie to Zenobia.

  She stands

  before the abortion clinic,

  confounded by the lack of choices.

  In the Welfare line,

  reduced to the pity of handouts.

  Ordained in the pulpit, shielded

  by the mysteries.

  In the operating room,

  husbanding life.

  In the choir loft,

  holding God in her throat.

  On lonely street corners,

  hawking her body.

  In the classroom, loving the

  children to understanding.

  Centered on the world's stage,

  she sings to her loves and beloveds,

  to her foes and detractors:

  However I am perceived and deceived,

  however my ignorance and conceits,

  lay aside your fears that I will be undone,

  for I shall not be moved.

  Preacher, Don't Send Me

  Preacher, don't send me

  when I die

  to some big ghetto

  in the sky

  where rats eat cats

  of the leopard type

  and Sunday brunch

  is grits and tripe.

  I've known those rats

  I've seen them kill

  and gritsI've had

  would make a hill,

  or maybe a mountain,

  so what I need

  from you on Sunday

  is a different creed.

  Preacher, please don't promise me streets of gold and milk for free.

  I stopped all milk at four years old and once I'm dead I won't need gold.

  I'd call a place

  pure paradise

  where families are loyal

  and strangers are nice,

  where the music is jazz

  and the season is fall.

  Promise me that

  or nothing at all.

  Fightin’ Was Natural

  Fightin’ was natural,

  hurtin’ was real,

  and the leather like lead

  on the end of my arm

  was a ticket to ride

  to the top of the hill.Fightin’ was real.

  The sting of the ointment

  and scream of the crowd

  for blood in the ring,

  and the clangin’ bell cuttin’

  clean through the

  cloud in my ears.

  Boxin’ was real.

  The rope at my back

  and the pad on the floor,

  the smack of four hammers,

  new bones in my jaw,

  the guard in my mouth,

  my tongue startin’ to swell.

  Fightin’ was livin'.

  Boxin’ was real.

  Fightin’ was real.

  Livin’ was … hell.

  Loss of Love

  The loss of love and youth

  and fire came raiding, riding,

  a horde of plunderers

  on one caparisoned steed,

  sucking up the sun drops,

  trampling the green shoots

  of my carefully planted years.

  The evidence: thickened waist and

  leathery thighs, which triumph

  over my fallen insouciance.

  After fifty-five

  the arena has changed.

  I must enlist new warriors.

  My resistance,

  once natural as raised voices,

  importunes in the dark.

  Is this battle worth the candle?

  Is this war worth the wage?

  May I not greet age

  without a grouse, allowing

  the truly young to own

  the stage?

  Seven Women's Blessed Assurance

  1

  One thing about me,

  I'm little and low,

  find me a man

  wherever I go.

  2

  They call me string bean

  ‘cause I'm so tall.

  Men see me,

  they ready to fall.

  3

  I'm young as morning

  and fresh as dew.

  Everybody loves me

  and so do you.

  4

  I'm fat as butter

  and sweet as cake.

  Men start to tremble

  each time I shake.

  5

  I'm little and lean,

  sweet to the bone.

  They like to pick me up

  and carry me home.

  6

  When I passed forty

  I dropped pretens
e,

  ‘cause men like women

  who got some sense.

  7

  Fifty-five is perfect,

  so is fifty-nine,

  ‘cause every man needs

  to rest sometime.

  In My Missouri

  In my Missouri

  I had known a mean man

  A hard man

  A cold man

  Gutting me and killing me

  Was an Ice man

  A tough man

  A man.

  So I thought I'd never meet a sweet man

  A kind man

  A true man

  One who in darkness you can feel secure man

  A sure man

  A man.

  But Jackson, Mississippi, has some fine men

  Some strong men

  Some black men

  Walking like an army were the sweet men

  The brown men

  The men.

  In Oberlin, Ohio, there were nice men

  Just men

  And fair men

  Reaching out and healing were the warm men

  Were good men

  The men.

  Now I know that there are good and bad men

  Some true men

  Some rough men

  Women, keep on searching for your own man

  The best man

  For you man

  The man.

  They Ask Why

  A certain person wondered why

  a big strong girl like me

  wouldn't keep a job

  which paid a normal salary.

  I took my time to lead her

  and to read her every page.

  Even minimal people

  can't survive on minimal wage.

  A certain person wondered why

  I wait all week for you.

  I didn't have the words

  to describe just what you do.

  I said you had the motion

  of the ocean in your walk,