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Why should I be eaten by love,
Eaten alive?
One should strike out, become
A "self," touch life
At its centermost spot

I can't escape my colour, impossible
To hide for a second, a moment,
Something forces it. Today, yesterday
The world "N" is G.d, is
Jesus, a white patriarch brought
To the New World on the backs
Of slaves. Oh G.d!

If you exist anywhere, anytime,
In some small corner of this existence,
You should rise up,
You should make us men again,
For the first time
Eat us within your love.

There is too much
Sadness to bear with,
This 300 year poem
To our suffering. For you, you this atheist.

*James A. Randall, Jr.

Don't Ask Me Who I Am

dont ask me who i am, i
wont tell you, cant
& don't put your goddamn con-
descending paws around
me for the sake of
"existential brotherhood"
no words mean, thats why. . .

no words mean standing on a corner
in another world

no words mean. . .
(someone falling
to his heart in filth)

or become because i wont become
(Rats rounding corners
like locomotives)
what you think i am

the only open door
is the door to man

* James A. Randall, Jr.

In the Silence

In the silence
of the city night
when the lonely
watch the sky
in yearning

I at rest
beside you
lie in peace

I searched
a thousand skies
before you came

And in the morning
when the world
is new,
the lonely turn
away

as I turn to
you beside
me

And in the quiet
of the afternoon
when the lonely
roam,

I turn inside
and you
are with me still

I roamed
a thousand miles
before you came.

*Stephany

Who Is Not a Stranger Still

Who is not a stranger still
even after making love,
or the morning after?

The interlude of sleep again divides
it is clear again where one body
ends and the next begins,

Think to think at each encounter,
we will be strangers still
even after making love
and long conversation,
even after meals and showers
together

and years of touching.
It is not often that the core
of what I am is lost in longing

and is less often filled.
I understand my clinging
to the thought of you.

*Stephany

Let Me Be Held When the Longing Comes

Let me be held when the longing comes
by you

yours the arms, yours the tender
breath.

Tumble down into the quiet dark
of this embrace
night is come again.

Stay a little longer,
for no other reason than it is
good not to be alone always
let there be a song of
remembering and not knowing
what is there except
a warmth and a blossom
of a feeling, sweetly,
gladly, home.


*Stephany

That We Head Towards

That we head towards
our separate End
and know it only
by the name of Death. . .

But makes this life
with you more dear.
And having known
this joy and you
so tender

without a fear
I face this life
so beautiful

and in the End
will with pain
surrender

the sight,
the touch,
or memory
of You.

*Stephany

I Am A Black Woman

I
am a black woman
tall as a cypress
strong
beyond all definition still
defying place
and time
and circumstance
assailed
impervious
indestructible
Look
on me and be
renewed

Poem written by Mari Evans

Black women whose ancestors were brought to the United States beginning in 1619 have lived through conditions of cruelties so horrible, so bizarre, the women had to reinvent themselves.

They had to find safety and sanctity inside themselves or they would not have been able to tolerate such torture. They had to learn quickly to be self-forgiving, for often their exterior actions were at odds with their interior beliefs. Still they had to survive as wholly and healthily as possible in an infectious and sick climate.

Lives lived in such cauldrons are either obliterated or forged into impenetrable alloys. Thus, early on and consciously, black women became realities only to themselves. To others they were mostly seen and described in the abstract, concrete in their labor but surreal in their humanness.

They knew the burden of feminine sensibilities suffocated by masculine responsibilities.

They wrestled with the inescapable horror of undergoing pregnancies that could only result in feeding more chattels into the rapacious maw of slavery.

They knew the grief of enforced separations from mates who were not theirs to claim, for the men themselves did not have legal possession of their own bodies.

excerpt take from: Even The stars Look Lonesome -- by Maya Angelou

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long.

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
You do not hear
My inner cry
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing
You do not know
I die.

*Langston Hughes

the slave auction

And men, whose sole crime was their hue,
the impress of their Maker's hand,
and frail and shrinking children too
were gathered in that mournful band.

*Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Heritage

What is Africa to me:

Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black

Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

Countee Cullen
written in 1926