Best Negroes Poems
Mentors like priests preparing me for holy rite
Institutional slaves to a false trinity
Subduing adventure, exploration and discovery to classroom rigor
Eternal stairway ... moonbeams to the golden dream
Dismatling who I am so I become who you want me to be
Urges denied constructing scaffolds, setting beam
Castling on beam, I climb like Jack the ogre tree
Ability acquiring arrows for what's embattling me
Tensions beyond the classroom, teacher grading my
Intelligence as if it were a canvas to her eye
Opportunity has too narrow a door for all our differences
Nestled in her pocket, I see the ogre search in vain.
Offering us like children to the fires of Molech
Frantic prayers sibilant in flickering tongues of despair
Teeming the locus of the African nightmare
Husked of gold, silver, uranium, copper and diamond skies
Each one scrambles up the vine compassless of self
Nations fall - without the eyes of love we are blind
Emerging people shaken out in global disarray
Groaning for nothing from classroom to classroom
Refer to their budgets and see what is prioritize
Oysters get their pearls from pain, I know, yet
Errors must be corrected, education must mean more, we
Substance truth only by the purge of a regulated history.
The Fifties were really and truly not all that square
Though that dullard Dwight D. sat in the Executive Chair
And his frumpy wife Mamie had really bad hair
Matching those dowdy, plain dresses she'd wear ...
While husbands toiled in obscurity for large corporations
The "Ugly Americans," reviled by most other nations
Their stay-at-home wives feeling mostly frustration
Downing "happing pills" daily instead of real medication
Their sons sporting letter sweaters, obedient jocks,
Their daughters in plaid skirts and white bobby socks
Penny loafers and saddle shoes were in for ten years
Along with white levis and coca-cola -- never rum, never beer
Yet how about Krushchev's dust-ups with Tricky Dick Nixon
What about Sputnik 1 and the panic it put us in
And remember George Wallace and old Lester Maddux
Hosing down *******, echoes of Crispus Attucks ...
The rise of brutal pro football threatened apple pie and baseball
Heralding the next decade's premiere spectator sport, i.e., 'spaceball'
Joe McCarthy dug up the dirt of a "red scare's" nitty gritty
In the work of the House un-American Activities Committee
Then there was Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus
Championing the yearning for justice in so many of us
And the music, the music, so outrageously wild
Chuck Berry, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper -- that overgrown child
Yes, the Fifties were really and truly not all that square
Though we shan't heed the call of those who'd return us to there
On thy breast I suck
On thy belly I walk
On thy hand I cluck
On thy nose I cock
On thy orders I talk
With your knuckles I knock
With your brain I fork
With your tears I shock
With your mouth I pork
In your warmth I rock
In your agony I sock
In your sweat I work
In your strength I pluck
Mama Africa I know you sleep not
Your sleeplessness has watered the African root
You have suffered for all that is black in colour
You have laboured for the Negritude race
You have toiled for the Black *******
You remain our source of inspiration
You remain our point of innovation
You remain our fountain of knowledge
Your innate unique creativity remains our pride
Even if today is stormy and stuffy
Yesterday bouncy and bumpy
Tomorrow will be juicy and yummy
Mama Africa,
Sprinkle on us ceaselessly the water of life.
Form:
ain't it a shame
when hate lynches
a 14 year old Colored boy
in 1955 Mississippi
and blows away the dreams of
four innocent little ***** girls
in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama
yeah
bus that to your segregated thoughts
as I interracially walk you
through Little Rock, Arkansas
with Daisy Bates & nine Black Children
to march along side the National Guard
on their way to a lily white school
as the message of this
un-segregates & untangles
the history of hate
attackin’ ******* in 1957
whose only desire was to be educated
and schooled too
racism & hate
doesn’t try to guide
the white citizen council back
to their good senses
‘cause racism
don’t care ‘bout nobody
being Jewish or Colored
when it needs to
fire-bomb
***** churches with ******* in them
or feels the need to hang someone
from a tree out of existence
racism even devours its own kkklan
as the innocent
pay the ultimate price
racism doesn’t care
if your church is the 16th Street Baptist
and 14 yr. old Addie Mae Collins
is one of the four black Alabama children
killed in attendance
racism ain’t concerned about
you being white either
or your last name being
White
Black
Brown
Till
Schwerner
Evers
Liuzzo
Mandela
Martin or Rodney King
and so many other names
that we’ll never know of
that racism wounded or buried six feet
under hate
racism doesn’t care about
what kinda NAACP dream
you’re having
or concerned about your last name
being "Parks" in 1955
when it attempts to guide you back
to the "Colored" section of the bus
where you know your
civil-rights will be denied
every time you allow
" segregation & discrimination"
to collects its fare
racism & its hateful followers
have no regard at all
for one’s race / religion
or sexual persuasion
especially when racism peers
into its discriminating mirror
century after century
time after time
day after day
and tells itself in 2006
"it’s better than you"
because you’re "cultured" different
from them"
yeah
racism stirs an ugly pot of soup
that no one should ever have to taste.
Justice delayed from fringed time frazzled cry
Until the DREAM can heal itself and broken trust
******* shackled minds in the velvet shadows try
Evolving with a nation drunken in bloody lust
Trapped in tragedy of a blurred emancipation line
Edged to the margin of Reconstruction, it tells
Empty enactment lagging that Constitutional hell
Nattering historic lies, blood and tongue dispels
Truth against the moral lie, all brotherhood a shell
Heaven's rich cause stumble in raged hearts to fill.
This will all end
As Jane Kenyon said, “Let evening come”
Let it come to unite some
The evening when racism will end
It’s so much better when the two blend
Martin Luther king, Rosa Parks
This is how it all starts
Segregation, discrimination, unfair education
And yet, I thought we were one nation
“They’re colored, them *******” they declared
While sitting in their living rooms with stories they shared
They don’t know what they really meant
Or how “them *******” truly felt
Oh them *******, they will dream
About how someday, they will be free
Harriet Tubman was the one
Who helped the slaves that were on the run
Harriet held her head up high
Helping helpless slaves survive
While guided by the Northern Star
Their freedom awaits them afar
They whip their lashes, but I aint afraid
‘Cause he had a dream that one day
We will be united with no shame
‘Cause blacks and whites are all the same
Letting light skins lead the way
Leaving lonely blacks gone astray
They’re free here, they’re suffering there
Let’s come together, everyone, everywhere
Let freedom ring, let the caged bird sing
Our journey together will begin
Let’s wake up, let’s not pretend
And let’s not worry, this will all end
I’ve wrestled with devil in blue grass.
That college that picks pockets
and helps itself to damsels’ purses
fixed nooses just off seventy-five south,
over Clay-way Bailey.
The viaduct that divides two states
divides thieves from Potter Stewart’s Court House.
I refused to march the underground rail road;
a black man rules the white house.
The dean,
like Mathilda’s Trunchbull,
is as mean as salt on back of barn toad;
she lifted con from condescending.
I relished reflection of her
standing stiff like light pole,
frozen by the return from her calling the school “the company”
They were to give me what I pay for,
but madam flying high on stilettos
was too uppity to climb down and meet me.
Requests made were called controversies,
but to me it was freedom,
and I (pusher of this pen) was on battlefield
with Jamaican fire.
A competent crook cover ass with alibis,
and you should never be seen as obstacles …
If you are ***** and alone walk with caution,
but not so with me;
I should live Luther’s dream,
‘cause I own college road.
It was my journey.
I stood stout,
like Michael,
to cast the devil out.
With Obama fueling *******,
I wonder why Sam is blind
to the now white-collar crime?
I sure hope there are copycats up college road.
"*******" and pork pie hats
white shirts, black ties
sweat stains under their arms,
even wetter, the pressed handkerchiefs that wipe faces and necks.
Father Abraham looks down upon his children
and sees the words "I am a man" over and over again.
It is hot, and white girls with beehives and Peter Pan collars
cool their heels in the reflecting pool. Images of a monument to a slaveowner look up at them.
Somewhere a song plays
on a transistor:
"I Can't Stay Mad at You"
shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo wop.
A dream is young at 50 -- compared to the kingdoms of Europe, that wall in China.
A dream at 50 won't die. Even now, it haunts the sleepless, promising a new birth of freedom -- to let men grow old together, hand in hand,
to let immigrants walk the hot streets of Arizona, work their lawn service jobs
and not fear being sent away.
Today, in the global freedom capital, tourists stroll clipped lawns and snap pictures of order and majesty, of white, doric columns, Greek temples.
They email the images back to starved souls in Odessa and Beijing.
That Skeeter Davis song still plays. You can hear it in the molecules of the air, the bits of history that have attached themselves to His marble feet, refusing to evaporate.
The wind carries a tiny echo about a dream and freedom
and America living up to its promise.
The hope of the world?
History is sticky, heavy ... like the sultry air of summer.
It won't go;
It lives.
It makes our hearts heavy
and haunts our minds.
I’m from the hood where the politicians don’t do squat for the poor/
I represent the modern day Black man/
The Black educated politician and activist that care about only one Damn
thing when the stuff hit the fan!
“They Damn Self!”
It’s like a wise man once said “Never let the left hand know what the right
hand do” meaning keep all of the right hands right and all of the left hands
left/
Ever since then the tradition has been eating off the next mans death/
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder whether I should go buy
books or go buy a T.V,/Then again I wonder what’s wrong with these rap artists calling us
window
shoppers like we nothing!
Then them same rap artist turn around and beg us to go buy they C.D/
“Buy Black Owned!!”
“Keep the Money in the Hood!”
That’s all you hear/
We tried and it went/
Now at the same time I’m behind in my rent/
I hate the usage of the word *******!
But when I look at these new condos being built all around Harlem/
I realize ******* got a problem/ The rent not affordable/
They go do what they wanna do/ just to get ******* out of Harlem/
What happened to all the great MALCOLMS, MARTINS, and MARCUS/
Cause all we got now is a bunch of fake FARRAKHANS, SHARPTONS
and BARRAKAS!/ nah just kidding!Hopefully not my last hope BARAK
OBAMA! But I wonder when it’s all go stop!/
Cause when I look at my peoples now a days/
All I see is
“I see DISASTER!!
And realize “Yeah we still SLAVES”/
But the sad part is
WE THE MASTER!! (“let’s stop enslaving our selves”)
By Lester Marrow
Form:
Sobre pressão do hip-hop
estou aqui para declarar
a primeira guerra mundial
do amor
o amor que carrego dentro de mim
o amor que vossos barcos de escravatura
partilharam com os meus ancestors
chorando lágrimas de tristeza,
sobre pressão do hip-hop
faço rimas diabólicas
que atormentam vossos nossos corações
carregando dentro de mim
abuses de raiva
que nem um cão raivoso
ladrando
“Mawe Africa, yaye mother land”
pai meu que estais no céu
santificado são as suas boas obras
que seus herdeiros a destruirão
construindo a torre babilónia
a torre das desgraças tribais
shangweni kalishi shoye, mepya yankweni kutoolamo omatanga.
Ye
ongame ngu omensageiro da verdade
escrevendo
que nem um hip-hop
about the black history
my history
your story
the ******* history
that does not have his own mind
his own country
but deep down under my soul
I have my own mind,
my own culture
and
my own country
sobre pressão do hip-hop
sacrificando a minha caneta
sangrando this sheet mother f… want me dead
ondaninga hano shike ndimone iihuna ngawo
ongame ngu omuthigwa
ndathigwa
procurando por um bem estar
e não um bem ser
sobre pressão do hip-hop
faço rimas nojentas
rebentando vossos estômagos
criando digestão
nem se quer podes dar um passo em falso
kabwalala será o seu sofrimento
enquanto estiveres a ler esta plurificação tribal
ngasakidila kabwalala
por teres dado cabo do mulungo
mal dizendo
de um brain washed
that does not believe in one love,
let it be his historical death
let him desaparecer
but before let me say one love one world one destiny
ndishi ndya ngongo let me smoke you
como se foces o cachimbo da paz
o cachimbo da plurificação
que seus consumidores a desrespeitaram,
sobre pressão do hip-hop
kwaku ni
kwaku
usukula.
He came on the brink of the ******* ascent to the White House;
A slave of an unusual sort.
He peered,
From the tiny window in the quarter,
At the snow
Smothering life,
And felt his predecessors’ woe.
Many, like Stella,
Came to find a groove
But purchased with perjury
Men with desires to excel;
To escape the clutch of privation
And scorn.
Ambitious to become house-wives
With uneducated spouses
And the need for the goodlife.
The unscrupulous requests grow intolerable
And recentments fester and prosper,
While the innocent observe
And absorb this lie.
Words cut like razor
And provoked the unthinkable;
Children, like chains,
And immigration shackles
Derailed the contemplations
Of living again.
Incense clings in the air
great clouds
stealing into dark corners
of stained wood and cold marble floors.
I watch the casket roll by
and memories take me.
Unwilling.
Here I knelt on red velvet cushions and confessed my darkest sins.
Mortal an venial.
Hats, white gloves strewn on benches -- hard as the dogma they taught.
My summer uniform
a red bow tie, seersucker pants, white bucks.
Why was Christ always in agony?
After we begged him for love, back at the apartment above Auburndale Plumbing Supply, a stream of aunts would come, hover around the stove, basting the roast, mashing potatoes.
They sang Irish ballads and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."
The talk was of Jack and Jackie, American saints.
A Catholic in the White House ... finally.
My uncles downed red and white colored cans of Rheingold ...
talked of fishing trips,
concrete and drywall,
the ******* down South.
"Jesus. They're making trouble."
Uncle Dennis clipped open his silver lighter and lit a Lucky Strike.
We hushed when he spoke of the Battle of the Bulge ... Cuba ... Russia.
I fought off his embrace ... the smell of smoke and whiskey.
On the living room wall, the Sacred Heart dripped blood ... and made me wonder.
All these years in heaven, and Jesus was still looked sad.
RAPE ON SONGHAI
Washington, Washington, their Washington
With a great hot flaming phallus in hand
Griped so tight, knuckles turn pale
You shield it up with the hood of this new religion
And thrust hard, deep, tearing Songhai’s hymen
This rape of dignity and pride, she breeds
You told Africa; Man, I come to circumcise
He closed his eyes to the pain, you castrate him
The hurtful ******* baptism of allegiance
Now, his sex starved Nimpho wives turn whores for you
Him no more but a Eunuch attending your models
Yet, you come back to a breeding Songhai
Have you no shame left in your dangling scrotum
Or you are again moved by your evil lustful greed?
Clam your laps and cover your thicket thighs
Use these black shrubs and hide your nudity
This Washington Devil has gone nuts with lust
Take your shame and cover your bare ****
He is cunning, will even pluck your ****
His phallus is hot with flames, can only sheathe
Thro’ your valley of juices, block your pots
Washington, please, hook your religion between your laps
Can’t you see she is in pains of your civilization
And breeding from the wounds your democracy inflicts
When your huge phallus tore her vagina walls?
White Knights,
Aryan brothers
Sons of the Confederacy
loyal to the Cause
Black lives don’t matter much ...
******* are zeroes
in our Fourth Reich beer halls
White Knights,
Aryan sisters
Daughters of the Confederacy
trumpet the Cause
Picaninnies picking cotton
is the only thing tar babies
are good for at all
Lets make America great again
like it was way back when
Dixie slavery songs was the sounds of the South
at the opening and closing of the plantation gates
Squashing Antebellum rebellion with a good castration ...
lynching was the strange fruit we Union haters ate
And seeing them KKK days again is gonna be great
White Knights,
Aryan brothers
Sons of the Confederacy
loyal to the Cause
So evil strong and abiding is our hate ...
We’re gonna turn back the clock,
and abolish those civil right reprobates
We’re gonna once again make America great
We are true neo-Nazi believers
who slave hard
at making our backward racial beliefs a sinister reality
Fourth Reich of July burning cross White Night
will be the darkest Independence Day in American history
Mirror Mirror, they're
always claiming 'bout thou.
They pronounce that
you're unfair to them,
because you don't
change anything faces
thou.
You're not the only
one that reflects,
they've forgotten
how water shows
and gleams to what
confronts it. But bother
not, because apparently
the way they make
hates on you is likely
how they enmited it.
Mirror Mirror, sometimes
it takes you an australopithecus
to declare illusions and
ramshackles.
Even though you mimiced
such, it's nineties time of
your brainy obstacles.
Those skeptics to you
will remain as how they
believedout in you.
They spend hundreds
decades but still discover
themselves as how
they left you.
I can remember reputely
the time those with red
ears used to visit *******
and deceit them by giving
them your parts like
mendaciouses.
Your hierarchy is more
further distanced from other inventiouses.
Many definations are synonymize
you with your demeanors.
I venerate you with all my
hearty ardors.