This blog's title is a quote from a poem called:
Confluence
I’ve been here before, dreaming myself
backwards, among grappling hooks of light.
True to the seasons, I’ve lived every word
spoken. Did I walk into someone’s nightmare?
Hunger quivers on a fleshly string
at the crossroad. So deep is the lore,
there’s only tomorrow today where darkness
splinters & wounds the bird of paradise.
On paths that plunge into primordial
green, Echo’s laughter finds us together.
In the sweatshops of desire men think
if they don’t die the moon won’t rise.
All the dead-end streets run into one
moment of bliss & sleight of hand.
Beside the Euphrates, past the Tigris,
up the Mississippi. Bloodline & clockwork.
The X drawn where we stand. Trains
follow rivers that curve around us.
The distant night opens like a pearl
fan, a skirt, a heart, a drop of salt.
When we embrace, we are not an island
beyond fables & the blue exhaust of commerce.
When the sounds of River Styx punish
trees, my effigy speaks to the night owl.
Our voices break open the pink magnolia
where struggle is home to the beast in us.
All the senses tuned for the Hawkesbury,
labyrinths turning into lowland fog.
Hand in hand, feeling good, we walk
phantoms from the floating machine.
When a drowning man calls out,
his voice follows him downstream.
Speech to the Young:
Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
Blackness
is a title,
is a preoccupation,
is a commitment Blacks
are to comprehend --
and in which you are
to perceive your Glory.
The conscious shout
of all that is white is
“It’s Great to be white.”
The conscious shout
of the slack in Black is
'It's Great to be white.'
Thus all that is white
has white strength and yours.
The word Black
has geographic power,
pulls everybody in:
Blacks here --
Blacks there --
Blacks wherever they may be.
And remember, you Blacks, what they told you --
remember your Education:
“one Drop - one Drop
maketh a brand new Black.”
Oh mighty Drop.
______ And because they have given us kindly
so many more of our people
Blackness
stretches over the land.
Blackness --
the Black of it,
the rust-red of it,
the milk and cream of it,
the tan and yellow-tan of it,
the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,
the “olive” and ochre of it --
Blackness
marches on.
The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride
is to Comprehend,
to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,
which is our “ultimate Reality,”
which is the lone ground
from which our meaningful metamorphosis,
from which our prosperous staccato,
group or individual, can rise.
Self-shriveled Blacks.
Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:
YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.
All of you --
you COLORED ones,
you NEGRO ones,
those of you who proudly cry
“I’m half INDian” --
those of you who proudly screech
“I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”
ALL of you --
you proper Blacks,
you half-Blacks,
you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,
Niggeroes and Niggerenes.
You.
Speech to the Young:
Speech to the Progress-Towards
Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.
Primer For Blacks
Blackness
is a title,
is a preoccupation,
is a commitment Blacks
are to comprehend --
and in which you are
to perceive your Glory.
The conscious shout
of all that is white is
“It’s Great to be white.”
The conscious shout
of the slack in Black is
'It's Great to be white.'
Thus all that is white
has white strength and yours.
The word Black
has geographic power,
pulls everybody in:
Blacks here --
Blacks there --
Blacks wherever they may be.
And remember, you Blacks, what they told you --
remember your Education:
“one Drop - one Drop
maketh a brand new Black.”
Oh mighty Drop.
______ And because they have given us kindly
so many more of our people
Blackness
stretches over the land.
Blackness --
the Black of it,
the rust-red of it,
the milk and cream of it,
the tan and yellow-tan of it,
the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,
the “olive” and ochre of it --
Blackness
marches on.
The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride
is to Comprehend,
to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,
which is our “ultimate Reality,”
which is the lone ground
from which our meaningful metamorphosis,
from which our prosperous staccato,
group or individual, can rise.
Self-shriveled Blacks.
Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:
YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.
All of you --
you COLORED ones,
you NEGRO ones,
those of you who proudly cry
“I’m half INDian” --
those of you who proudly screech
“I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”
ALL of you --
you proper Blacks,
you half-Blacks,
you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,
Niggeroes and Niggerenes.
You.
a song in the front yard
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.
Kitchenette Building
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong
Like "rent", "feeding a wife", "satisfying a man".
But could a dream sent up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,
Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.
