Poems for Competition

8/2/2019 Poems for Competition

1/21

Where Have You Gone

by Mari Evans

Where have you gone

with your confident walkwith your crooked smile

why did you leave me

when you took your laughterand departed

are you aware

that with you

went the sun all light

and what few stars there were?

where have you gonewith your confident walk

your crooked smilethe rent money

in one pocket

and my heart in another . . .


2/21

IS TRUTH LIBERATING?

by Haki R. Madhubuti

if it is truth that binds

why are there so many liesbetween lovers?

if it is truth that is liberating

why are people told:they look good when they don't

they are loved when they aren't

everything is fine when it ain't

glad you're back when you're not.

Black people in america

may not be made for the truthwe wrap our lives in disco

and sunday sermonswhile selling false dreams

to our children.

lies are refundable,

can be bought

on our revolving charge cards

as we all catch truth

on the next go roundif it doesn't hurt.


3/21

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

(For Kellie Jones, Born 16 May 1959)

by Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka

Lately, I've become accustomed to the wayThe ground opens up and envelops me

Each time I go out to walk the dog.

Or the broad-edged silly music the winMakes when I run for the bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,

And each night I get the same number.

And when they will not come to be counted,

I count the holes they leave.Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed upTo my daughter's room and heard her

Talking to someone, and when I opened

The door, there was no one there...

Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.


4/21

Nobody Riding the Roads Today

by June Jordan

Nobody riding the roads today

But I hear the living rushfar away from my heart

Nobody meeting on the streets

But I rage from the crowdedovertones of emptiness

Nobody sleeping in my bed

But I breathe like windows

broken by emergencies

Nobody laughing anymore

But I see the world splitand twisted up like open stone

Nobody riding the roads todayBut I hear the living rush

far away from my heart


5/21

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,then with cracked hands that ached from labor

in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze.

No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he'd call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?


6/21

I Said to Poetry

by Alice Walker

I said to Poetry:"I'm finished

with you."Having to almost die

before some wierd light

comes creeping throughis no fun.

"No thank you, Creation,

no muse need apply.

Im out for good times--

at the very least,

some painless convention."Poetry laid back

and played deaduntil this morning.

I wasn't sad or anything,

only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember

the desert, and how glad you were

that you have an eye

to see it with? You rememberthat, if ever so slightly?"I said: "I didn't hear that. Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.

I'm not getting up

in the dark to talk to you."

Poetry said: "But think about the time

you saw the moon

over that small canyon

that you liked so much better

than the grand one--and how suprised you werethat the moonlight was green

and you still had

one good eye

to see it with

Think of that!"


7/21

"I'll join the church!" I said,

huffily, turning my face to the wall.

"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.

"When you pray, what do you thinkyou'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paperin this room," I said.

"And that new pen I bought

makes a funny noise."

"Bullshit," said Poetry.

"Bullshit," said I.


8/21

We Real Cool

by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Player.

Seven at the Golden Shovel.We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. WeStrike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.


9/21

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?Out of the huts of history's shame I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.


10/21

A City's Death by Fire

by Derek Walcott

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,

I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears,

I Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.

All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;

Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales

Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.

By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, why

Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?

In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath

Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.


11/21

Homage to My Hips

by Lucille Clifton Read

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 spellon a man and spin him like a top!


12/21

CONJUGAL VISITS

by Al Young

By noon we'll be deep into it --

up reading out loud in bed.Or in between our making love

I'll paint my toenails red.

Reece say he got to changehis name from Maurice to Malik.

He think I need to change mine too.

Conversion, so to speak.

"I ain't no Muslim yet," I say.

"Besides, I like my name.

Kamisha still sounds good to me.I'll let you play that game."

"I'd rather play with you," he say,"than trip back to the Sixties."

"The Sixties, eh?" I'm on his case.

"Then I won't do my striptease."

This brother look at me and laugh;

he know I love him bad and,

worse, he know exactly how much

loving I ain't had.He grab me by my puffed up waistand pull me to him close.

He say, "I want you in my face .

Or on my face, Miss Toes."

What can I say? I'd lie for Reece,

but I'm not quitting school.

Four mouths to feed, not counting mine.

Let Urban Studies rule!

I met him in the want ads,we fell in love by mail.

I say, when people bring this up,

"Wasn't no one up for sale."

All these Black men crammed up in jail,

all this I.Q. on ice,


13/21

while governments, bank presidents,

the Mafia don't think twice.

They fly in dope and make real sure

they hands stay nice and clean.

The chump-change Reece made on the street --what's that supposed to mean?

"For what it cost the State

to keep you locked down, clothed and fed,you could be learning Harvard stuff,

and brilliant skills," I said.

Reece say, "Just kiss me one more time,

then let's get down, make love.

Then let's devour that special meal

I wish they'd serve more of."They say the third time out's a charm;

I kinda think they're right.My first, he was the Ace of Swords,

which didn't make him no knight.

He gave me Zeus and Brittany;

my second left me twins.

This third one ain't about no luck;

we're honeymooners. Friends.

I go see Maurice once a monthwhile Moms looks after things.We be so glad to touch again,

I dance, he grins, he sings.

When I get back home to my kids,

schoolwork, The Copy Shop,

ain't no way Reece can mess with me.

They got his ass locked up.


14/21

A MOTHER SPEAKS:

THE ALGIERS MOTEL INCIDENT, DETROIT

by Michael Harper

It's too dark to see blackin the windows of

Woodward or Virginia Park.

The undertaker pushed his bodyback into place with plastic and gum

but it wouldn't hold water.

When I looked for marks or lineament or fine stitching

I was led away without seeing

this plastic face they'd built

that was not my son's.They tied the eye torn out

by shotgun into placeand his shattered arm cut away

with his buttocks that remained.

My son's gone by white hands

though he said to his last word--

"Oh I'm so sorry, officer,

I broke your gun."


15/21

Heroes

by Rita Dove

A flower in a weedy field

make it a poppy. You pick it.Because it begins to wilt

you run to the nearest house

to ask for a jar of water.The woman on the porch starts

screaming: you've picked the last poppy

in her miserable garden, the one

that gives her the strength every morning

to rise! It's too late for apologies

though you go through the motions, offeringtrinkets and a juicy spot in the written history

she wouldn't live to read, anywaySo you strike her, she hits

her head on a white boulder,

and there's nothing to be done

but break the stone into gravel

to prop up the flower in the stolen jar

you have to take along,

because you're a fugitive nowand you can't leave clues.Although the story's starting to unravel,

the villagers stirring as your heart

pounds into your throat. O why

did you pick that idiot flower?

Because it was the last one

and you knew it was going to die.


16/21

beware : do not read this poem

by Ishmael Reed

tonite, thriller was

abt an ol woman, so vain shesurrounded herself w /

many mirrors

it got so bad that finally shelocked herself indoors & her

whole life became the

mirrors

one day the villagers broke

into her house , but she was

too swift for them . she disappearedinto a mirror

each tenant who bought the houseafter that , lost a loved one to

the ol woman in the mirror :

first a little girl

then a young woman

then the young woman/s husband

the hunger of this poem is legendary

it has taken in many victimsback off from this poemit has drawn in yr feet

back off from this poem

it has drawn in yr legs

back off from this poem

it is a greedy mirror

you are into this poem . from

the waist down

nobody can hear you can they ?this poem has had you up to here

belch

this poem aint got no manners

you cant call out frm this poem

relax now & go w / this poem


17/21

move & roll on to this poem

do not resist this poem

this poem has yr eyes

this poem has his head

this poem has his armsthis poem has his fingers

this poem has his fingertips

this poem is the reader & thereader this poem

statistic : the us bureau of missing persons re-

ports that in 1968 over 100,000 people

disappeared leaving no solid clues

nor trace only

a space in the lives of their friends


18/21

Bedtime Story

by Wanda Coleman

bed calls. i sit in the dark in the living room

trying to ignore themin the morning, especially Sunday mornings

it will not let me up. you must sleep

longer, it saysfacing south

the bed makes me lay heavenward on my back

while i prefer a westerly fetal position

facing the wall

the bed sucks me sideways into it when i

sit down on it to put on my shoes. thispersistence on its part forces me to dress in

the bathroom where things are less subversivethe bed lumps up in anger springs popping out to

scratch my dusky thighs

my little office sits in the alcove adjacent to

the bed. it makes strange little sighs

which distract me from my work

sadistically i pull back the covers

put my typewriter on the sheet and turn it onthe bed complains that i'm difficult dutyits slats are collapsing. it bitches when i

blanket it with books and papers. it tells me it's made for blood and bone

lately spiders ants and roaches

have invaded it searching for food


19/21

Kissie Lee

by Margaret Walker

Toughest gal I ever did see

Was a gal by the name of Kissie Lee;The toughest gal God ever made

And she drew a dirty, wicked blade.

Now this here gal warn't always toughNobody dreamed she'd turn out rough

But her Grammaw Mamie had the name

Of being the town's sin and shame.

When Kissie Lee was young and good

Didn't nobody treeat her like they should

Allus gettin' beat by a no-good shineAn' allus quick to cry and whine.

Till her Grammaw said, "Now listen to me,I'm tiahed of yoah whinin', Kissie Lee.

People don't ever treat you right, A

n' you allus scrappin' or in a fight."

"Whin I was a gal

wasn't no soul

Could do me wrong an' still stay whole.

Ah got me a razor to talk for meAn' aftah that they let me be."Well Kissie Lee took her advice

And after that she didn't speak twice

'Cause when she learned to stab and run

She got herself a little gun.

And from that time that gal was mean,

Meanest mama you ever seen.

She could hold her likker and hold her man

And she went thoo life jus' raisin' san'.One night she walked in Jim's salloon

And seen a guy what spoke too soon;

He done her dirt long time ago

When she was good and feeling low.


20/21

Kissie bought her drink and she paid her dime

Watchin' this guy what beat her time

And he was making for the outside door

When Kissie shot him to the floor.

Not a word she spoke but she switched her bladeAnd flashing that lil ole baby paid:

Evvy livin' guy got out of her way

Because Kissie Lee was drawin' her pay.She could shoot glass offa the hinges,

She could take herself on the wildest binges.

And she died with her boots on switching blades

On Talladega Mountain in the likker raids.


21/21

Life is Fine

Langston Hughes

I went down to the river,

I set down on the bank.I tried to think but couldn't,

So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!I came up twice and cried!

If that water hadn't a-been so cold

I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator

Sixteen floors above the ground.I thought about my baby

And thought I would jump down.I stood there and I hollered!

I stood there and I cried!

If it hadn't a-been so high

I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',

I guess I will live on.I could've died for love--But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,

And you may see me cry--

I'll be dogged, sweet baby,

If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

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