i am the darker brother.

a collection of poetry from the genius of the african diaspora.

[black-poetry]

Open our ears to spirit sounds Open your ears to secret words Open your mind to spirit songs Open your soul to receive Spirits of your family Spirits of your kind Spirits of yourself Sounds of the secret places Songs of the invisible spaces Come sing the warm songs sung in the inner self come sing the warm songs sung int he inner self come sing the warm songs sung in the inner self Oh… help me lawd… sing the warm songs sung in the inner self in the inner self in the inner self yas… indeed…

stanley crouch, spirit enchantment.

[black-poetry]

The rings of summer are passing into the autumn dusk; faint wings beat on windows; there is a rustling under the bricks. The last light is snaking along the damn clay; in its mouth are pomegranates; its tail is a whip. Wet night is varnished hell in this strange town; Door jambs sprout like trophies; gargoyles hang from the bricks. Across the walls of day, night death has swelled. As curious as a spectator, it could not keep away.

d.l.w. smith, new town.

[black-poetry]

I who would love and be loved Am hated. I am the victim And the guilty; The savage And the trapped. I am the angry And the ill-at-ease. Oh God! If I were free In life And as I die, I would neither be Ghettoed, Lynched Nor ambushed. i would find a better way For existing And ceasing to exist. Release me now From my soul-binding cage Wherein I touch But never hold, Taste But never savor, Join But never belong.

mary coleman jackson, on being asked to pray.

[black-poetry]

One by one prosaic blackmen into renown Not by the manner of their lives But by the matter of their deaths. And as their murders lie safe with pale white wives The black men become songs and poems and speeches. They become bold red letters on placards. They become the names of streets Running through ghettos. They become a part of the earth And a part of the air. These black men wield great power from their graves. They prove how ugly hate is And how guilty many are. They cause hearts to swell with pulsing sorrow Until surrounding flesh erupts. Eyes glaze. Mouths curse. And the heart belches out, Hot, gory and useless, To cool in the gutter among spittle and shattered glass.

unknown, after the eleven o'clock news.

[black-poetry]

The night rains hot tar into my throat, the taste is good to my heart's tongue, into my heart the night pours down its moon like a yellow molten residue of dung: the night pours down the sea into my throat my heart drains off its blood in love and pain: the night pours a Negro song into my throat, bloodred is the color of this rain: like a bowstring of song across my throat, the wind through the pine-trees behind the shack, the loneliness i wear like a torn coat, the ghetto-terror kneeling thief-like on my back, the scream of a black man being burned alive, a black woman raped, blood trickling down her thigh, the anguish of her children, their anger to survive, the coal dust in their veins to come to fire before they die!

lance jeffers, the night rains hot tar.

[black-poetry]

Shook it down Like lace stepped out of, Climbed on hesitations Bunching high, And floating floating fell. Quickie globes of breath Flung up twin fringes Filling, swinging Rounding rhythms Melting winding springs. Slowdown was a tease Of circle generating circles Fluttering again to one, Running wingward like a ribbon, Covering none.

james a. emanuel, the burlesque queen.

[black-poetry]

"The Leopard is a symbol of Authority" AFRICA, THE ART OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE But, if restricted kittens of African descent grow into fierce cats, (like this exquisitely carved-from-ivory- leopard) and chase all who bar their pedigree, and/or cannot see that they too are true cats. They chase their detractors into hot drop spots or make present plots too hot for all and fry them They lash out at those who care to cross a color line They slash out at those who deny them space everyplace. They rush out, hissing against their cages. They define. Tearing tissues over issues and ideologies, and stare with eyes where glare has replaced benign limpidity; letting rages that have piled against their restrictors, through the ages, explode over any in the way, even blistering blasts at those who are of them and love them They add their brand of smog to the polluted atmosphere and tears and dread and pain, instead of lilting laughter, reign.

margaret danner, the jewel-studded, carved-from-ivory, leopard (sequel to abyssinian kitten).

[black-poetry]

Woman with hoe in hand, and baby on your back, Sorrow-sated and tired to apathy, My sister: I oil your skin, manicure your feet, take hookworm from you Children, You man takes back his spear. I turn your sweat into perfume and your breasts into onyx-tipped Fruit. I erase the erosions of childbearing from your stomach And the robbers of your teeth have replaced them with pearls And the scent of honeysuckle. I give desire again, when your man comes And if immortality slips, screaming, from your loins, I give you joy to replace despair. The river gives its many-tongued kisses as you bathe; It does not hide the crucified body of your brother. It does not hold the dead and blackened fruit, that once was Your neighbor. The fire warms your home and the bones of your old: It does not roast your screaming son under the sign of Jesus. I give you handmaidens, not a boss lady; Bodyguards, not the Klan I give you a castle, with peacocks in the garden: You will never know of shacks with flies or tenements with rats. I give you incense, hummingbird tongues in honey, Sandals of beaten gold and bracelets of ivory. I give you jewels and crowns for your velurial hair And rings for your ebon hands. I give you the Kings of Benin at your feet And lands to the rim of the world. Woman with hoe in hand, and baby on your back., Sorrow-sated and tired to apathy, My sister: I oil your skin, manicure your feet, take hook worm from your Children, Your man takes back his spear.

alice h. jones, for sapphire, my sister.

[black-poetry]

The piano hums again the clear story of our coming, enchained, severed, our tongues gone, herds the quiet musings of ten million years blackening the earth with blood and our moon women, children we loved, the jungle swept up in our rhapsodic song giving back banana leaves and the incessant beating of our tom-tom hearts We have sung a long time here with the cross and the cotton field. Those white faces turned away from their mythical beginnings are no art but that of violence— the kiss of death. Somewhere on the inside of those faces are the real muscles of the world; the ones strengthened in experience and pain, the ones wished for in one's lover or the mirror near the eyes that record this lost, dogged data and is pure, new, even lovely and is you.

michael s. harper, effendi (for mccoy tyner).

[black-poetry]

When you enter Strange cities Be silent In the streets But speak With all You meet And you will see As the people see The poor people Are very rich. When you enter Their homes Eat with them Or they will hate you But eat not That which will kill you Even if they insist For you have been taught By the Great Teacher And they know Him not May even mock Him To your face But cool your voice They will submit When they meet Him When they see Him In you. When you love Peoples of the world Rivers are nothing Between you And strange tongues A soulful tune Salaam, salaam…

marvin x, al fitnah muhajir.

[black-poetry]

One black brother with good intentions and nappy hair and brown sandals and a cloth sack of black books which added weight to a heavy gun on his half-healed shoulder of his arm of his hand which he used to use to smooth his natural when times got hot and hair got kinky at brutal battles at conference tables in days of old. SO One black brother with good intentions and nappy hair and brown sandals took 3 seconds to shift the weight to raise the hand to smooth the natural to square the shoulders while whitey saw him and slew him as in the days of old.

tena l. lockett, the almost revolutionist.

[black-poetry]

The shouts shrink to a tense silence. Trembling tongues of fire turn to ashes. The invisible blood burning in our black faces—we huddle bitterly at bay in this hovel— cops clutching their stiff rifles—eager to kill. This baptism with fire, people, is our redemption—our kindled candle. Our dreams have long ago drowned in the guts of the sea. We leap blindly at dragons—our bloody bones bolting through the skins edge.

xavier nichols, the baptism with fire…

[black-poetry]

I see them move, The black men there, With shells for shoes And sea for air. They're bound in lines. Their dragging chains Once held anchors— Now like trains. Their crops are mire. With broken knees They plow the floors Of restless seas. Horrible is it, What's to be— Black human miles Inside the sea. With mighty toil Their burst hands drop. They move on past The shattered ships. It's west they move, And north to land, They never sit, They barely stand! Their teeth strain on, They have not stopped. They knew the goal 'Fore they were dropped. O northwest lands, See what's in store, As deathless men Stride up your shore!

carl gardner, the middle passage.

[black-poetry]

Pigmentation A mirror image of black on black; a preference that leans away from fading colors and imitation whites. Posture An on-your-toes approach to the mazeway of the real world; a shoulder squared against what's happening—the man, the hawk, bad luck, blues. A motion, a dance, a gesture, a cool stance; a walking that walk, talking that talk that is "now," Man. Position Apartness, uniqueness a separatism permitting cutting through white irrelevancies to confront basic issues; a revolutionary zeal to overthrow oppressive might, a moral obligation to change a wrong to a right. Perspective A clear black eye that peers through the midnight muck of man; a deniggerized aspect and value; a defiant trust to wipe out white wash; positives of assertive acts, affirmations a strong "Yes," not negatives, invisibility non entity. Pride People power People magic- Soul An exuberance of existence; an escalation of self awareness and appreciation. Gut knowing buried deep in the womb of oppression turning stone to bone, to flesh and blood, and tears and smiles, to love, to life; pulling pulling a magnet pulling you all the way back home into a thing that is BLACK

sarah webster fabio, black is.

[black-poetry]

America Is a fairytale fraud Where democracy is pronounced, Dippity-Do Ten times on a T.V. commercial— Insulting my Black mother, My black sister, My black wife, My black self.

bobb hamilton, america.

[black-poetry]

I LOVE old faces mellow wise, That smile; their young-old laughing eyes Undimmed, still view, in sheer pretense Of youth, their own sweet innocence. I love old hands that trembling bless Youth's wild impetuous duress; That find in childhood's tangled cares, Life's answers to unuttered prayers. Old things to me are dear and best: Old faith—that after life is rest; That somehow, from above our will, God works His gracious marvels still.

charles bertram johnson, old things.

[black-poetry]

WRENCHED from the hold of a deep delvèd tomb, Where slept the ancient king Tut-Ankh-Amen, Raised from the dust of earth's secreting womb Egypt's long vanished glory lives again. Art's matchless treasures hid in ages past Yield to the march of Science and of Time Which brings to light new spoils and trophies vast And bares a craft both startling and sublime. From out the Nile's rich bed and sleeping sand Within the slumbering Valley of the Kings,— Beneath the stroke of an enchanter's wand The fount of immemorial culture springs, The while a gasping world in wonder stares To view the greatest marvel of the years.

george reginald margetson, resurrection (on the discovery of pharaoh's tomb. february 1923)