Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie Read online

  The streets?

  Climb into the streets man, like you climb

  into the ass end of a lion.

  Then it’s fine.

  It’s a bug-a-loo and a shing-a-ling,

  African dreams on a buck-and-a-wing and a prayer.

  That’s the streets man,

  Nothing happening.

  Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett and Other Latter-Day Saints

  Novitiates sing Ave

  Before the whipping posts,

  Criss-crossing their breasts and

  tear-stained robes

  in the yielding dark.

  Animated by the human sacrifice

  (Golgotha in black-face)

  Priests glow purely white on the

  bar-relief of a plantation shrine.

  (O Sing)

  You are gone but not forgotten

  Hail, Scarlett. Requiescat in pace.

  God-Makers smear brushes in

  blood/gall

  to etch frescoes on your

  ceilinged tomb.

  (O Sing)

  Hosanna, King Kotton.

  Shadowed couplings of infidels

  tempt stigmata from the nipples

  of your true-believers.

  (Chant Maternoster)

  Hallowed Little Eva.

  Ministers make novena with the

  charred bones of four

  very small

  very black

  very young children

  (Intone DIXIE)

  And guard the relics

  of your intact hymen

  daily putting to death,

  into eternity,

  The stud, his seed,

  His seed

  His seed.

  (O Sing)

  Hallelujah, pure Scarlett

  Blessed Rhett, the Martyr.

  Times-Square-Shoeshine-Composition

  I’m the best that ever done it

  (pow pow)

  that’s my title and I won it

  (pow pow)

  I ain’t lying, I’m the best

  (pow pow)

  Come and put me to the test

  (pow pow)

  I’ll clean ’em til they squeak

  (pow pow)

  In the middle of next week,

  (pow pow)

  I’ll shine ’em til they whine

  (pow pow)

  Till they call me master mine

  (pow pow)

  For a quarter and a dime

  (pow pow)

  You can get the dee luxe shine

  (pow pow)

  Say you wanta pay a quarter?

  (pow pow)

  Then you give that to your daughter

  (pow pow)

  I ain’t playing dozens mister

  (pow pow)

  You can give it to your sister

  (pow pow)

  Any way you want to read it

  (pow pow)

  Maybe it’s your momma need it.

  (pow pow)

  Say I’m like a greedy bigot,

  (pow pow)

  I’m a cap’tilist, can you dig it?

  (pow pow)

  Faces

  Faces and more remember

  then reject

  the brown caramel days of youth

  Reject the sun-sucked tit of

  childhood mornings.

  Poke a muzzle of war in the trust frozen eyes

  of a favored doll

  Breathe, Brother

  and displace a moment’s hate with organized love.

  A poet screams “CHRIST WAITS AT THE SUBWAY!”

  But who sees?

  To a Freedom Fighter

  You drink a bitter draught.

  I sip the tears your eyes fight to hold

  A cup of lees, of henbane steeped in chaff.

  Your breast is hot,

  Your anger black and cold,

  Through evening’s rest, you dream

  I hear the moans, you die a thousands’ death.

  When cane straps flog the body

  dark and lean, you feel the blow,

  I hear it in your breath.

  Riot: 60’s

  Our

  YOUR FRIEND CHARLIE pawnshop

  was a glorious blaze

  I heard the flames lick

  then eat the trays

  of zircons

  mounted in red gold alloys

  Easter clothes and stolen furs

  burned in the attic

  radios and teevees

  crackled with static

  plugged in

  only to a racial outlet

  Some

  thought the FRIENDLY FINANCE FURNITURE CO.

  burned higher

  When a leopard print sofa with gold legs

  (which makes into a bed)

  caught fire

  an admiring groan from the waiting horde

  “Absentee landlord

  you got that shit”

  Lighting: a hundred Watts

  Detroit, Newark and New York

  Screeching nerves, exploding minds

  lives tied to

  a policeman’s whistle

  a welfare worker’s doorbell

  finger.

  Hospitality, southern-style

  corn pone grits and you-all smile

  whole blocks novae

  brand new stars

  policemen caught in their

  brand new cars

  Chugga chugga chigga

  git me one nigga

  lootin’ n burnin’

  he wont git far

  Watermelons, summer ripe

  grey neck bones and boiling tripe

  supermarket roastin like the

  noon-day sun

  national guard nervous with his shiny gun

  goose the motor quicker

  here’s my nigga picka

  shoot him in the belly

  shoot him while he run.

  We Saw Beyond Our Seeming

  We saw beyond our seeming

  These days of bloodied screaming

  Of children dying bloated

  Out where the lilies floated

  Of men all noosed and dangling

  Within the temples strangling

  Our guilt grey fungus growing

  We knew and lied our knowing

  Deafened and unwilling

  We aided in the killing

  And now our souls lie broken

  Dry tablets without token.

  Black Ode

  Your beauty is a thunder

  and I am set a wandering—a wandering

  Deafened

  Down twilight tin-can alleys

  And moist sounds

  “OOo wee Baby, Look what you could get if your name

  was Willie”

  Oh, to dip your words like snuff.

  A laughter, black and streaming

  And I am come a being—a being

  Rounded

  Up Baptist, aisles, so moaning

  And moist sounds

  “Bless her heart. Take your bed and walk.

  You been heavy burdened”

  Oh, to lick your love like tears.

  No No No No

  No

  the two legg’d beasts

  that walk like men

  play stink finger in their crusty asses

  while crackling babies

  in napalm coats

  stretch mouths to receive

  burning tears

  on splitting tongues

  JUST GIVE ME A COOL DRINK OF WATER ’FORE I DIIIE

  No

  the gap legg’d whore

  of the eastern shore

  enticing Europe to COME

  in her

  and turns her pigeon shit back to me

  to me

  Who stoked the coal that drove the ships

  which brought her over the sinuous cemetery

  Of my many brothers

  No

  t
he cocktailed after noons

  of what can I do.

  In my white layed pink world

  I’ve let your men cram my mouth

  with their black throbbing hate

  and I swallowed after

  I’ve let your mammies

  steal from my kitchens

  (I was always half-amused)

  I’ve chuckled the chins of

  your topsy-haired pickaninnies.

  What more can I do?

  I’ll never be black like you.

  (HALLELUJAH)

  No

  the red-shoed priests riding

  palanquined

  in barefoot children country.

  the plastered saints gazing down

  beneficently

  on kneeling mothers

  picking undigested beans

  from yesterday’s shit.

  I have waited

  toes curled, hat rolled

  heart and genitals

  in hand

  on the back porches

  of forever

  in the kitchens and fields

  of rejections

  on the cold marble steps

  of America’s White Out-House

  in the drop seats of buses

  and the open flies of war

  No more

  the dream that you

  will cease haunting me

  down in fetid swamps of fear

  and will turn to embrace your own

  humanity

  which I AM

  No more

  The hope that

  the razored insults

  which mercury slide over your tongue

  will be forgotten

  and you will learn the words of love

  Mother Brother Father Sister Lover Friend

  My hopes

  dying slowly

  rose petals falling

  beneath an autumn red moon

  will not adorn your unmarked graves

  My dreams

  lying quietly

  a dark pool under the trees

  will not carry your name

  to a forgetful shore

  And what a pity

  What a pity

  That pity has folded in upon itself

  an old man’s mouth

  whose teeth are gone

  and I have no pity.

  My Guilt

  My guilt is “slavery’s chains,” too long

  the clang of iron falls down the years.

  This brother’s sold. This sister’s gone

  is bitter wax, lining my ears.

  My guilt made music with the tears.

  My crime is “heroes, dead and gone”

  dead Vesey, Turner, Gabriel,

  dead Malcolm, Marcus, Martin King.

  They fought too hard, they loved too well.

  My crime is I’m alive to tell.

  My sin is “hanging from a tree”

  I do not scream, it makes me proud.

  I take to dying like a man.

  I do it to impress the crowd.

  My sin lies in not screaming loud.

  The Calling of Names

  He went to being called a Colored man

  after answering to “hey nigger,”

  Now that’s a big jump,

  anyway you figger,

  Hey, Baby, Watch my smoke.

  From colored man to Negro

  With the N in caps,

  was like saying Japanese

  instead of saying Japs.

  I mean, during the war.

  The next big step

  was a change for true,

  From Negro in caps

  to being a Jew.

  Now, Sing Yiddish Mama.

  Light, Yellow, Brown

  and Dark brown skin,

  were o.k. colors to

  describe him then,

  He was a Bouquet of Roses.

  He changed his seasons

  like an almanac,

  Now you’ll get hurt

  if you don’t call him “Black.”

  Nigguh, I ain’t playin’ this time.

  On Working White Liberals

  I don’t ask the Foreign Legion

  Or anyone to win my freedom

  Or to fight my battle better than I can,

  Though there’s one thing that I cry for

  I believe enough to die for

  That is every man’s responsibility to man.

  I’m afraid they’ll have to prove first

  that they’ll watch the Black man move first

  Then follow him with faith to kingdom come,

  This rocky road is not paved for us,

  So, I’ll believe in Liberal’s aid for us

  When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.

  Sepia Fashion Show

  Their hair, pomaded, faces jaded

  bones protruding, hip-wise,

  The models strutted, backed and butted,

  Then stuck their mouths out, lip-wise.

  They’d nasty manners, held like banners,

  while they looked down their nose-wise,

  I’d see ’em in hell, before they’d sell

  me one thing they’re wearing, clothes-wise.

  The Black Bourgeois, who all say “yah”

  When yeah is what they’re meaning

  Should look around, both up and down

  before they set out preening.

  “Indeed” they swear, “that’s what I’ll wear

  When I go country-clubbing,”

  I’d remind them please, look at those knees

  you got a Miss Ann’s scrubbing.

  The Thirteens (Black)

  Your Momma took to shouting

  Your Poppa’s gone to war,

  Your sister’s in the streets

  Your brother’s in the bar,

  The thirteens. Right On.

  Your cousin’s taking smack

  Your Uncle’s in the joint,

  Your buddy’s in the gutter

  Shooting for his point

  The thirteens. Right on.

  And you, you make me sorry

  You out here by yourself,

  I’d call you something dirty,

  But there just ain’t nothing left,

  cept

  The thirteens. Right On.

  The Thirteens (White)

  Your Momma kissed the chauffeur,

  Your Poppa balled the cook,

  Your sister did the dirty,

  in the middle of the book,

  The thirteens. Right On.

  Your daughter wears a jock strap,

  Your son he wears a bra

  Your brother jonesed your cousin

  in the back seat of the car.

  The thirteens. Right On.

  Your money thinks you’re something

  But if I’d learned to curse,

  I’d tell you what your name is

  But there just ain’t nothing worse

  than

  The thirteens. Right On.

  Harlem Hopscotch

  One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.

  Good things for the ones that’s got.

  Another jump, now to the left.

  Everybody for hisself.

  In the air, now both feet down.

  Since you black, don’t stick around.

  Food is gone, the rent is due,

  Curse and cry and then jump two.

  All the people out of work,

  Hold for three, then twist and jerk.

  Cross the line, they count you out.

  That’s what hopping’s all about.

  Both feet flat, the game is done.

  They think I lost. I think I won.

  Also by Maya Angelou

  And Still I Rise

  Gather Together in My Name

  The Heart of a Woman

  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

  Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well

  Singin’ a
nd Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas

  Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?

  All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes

  I Shall Not Be Moved

  On the Pulse of Morning

  Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

  The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou

  Phenomenal Woman

  A Brave and Startling Truth

  About the Author

  Maya Angelou, author of the best-selling I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, and The Heart of a Woman, has also written five collections of poetry: Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie; Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well; And Still I Rise; Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?; and I Shall Not Be Moved; as well as On the Pulse of Morning, which was read by her at the inauguration of President William Jefferson Clinton on January 20, 1993. In theater, she produced, directed, and starred in Cabaret for Freedom in collaboration with Godfrey Cambridge at New York’s Village Gate, starred in Genet’s The Blacks at the St. Mark’s Playhouse, and adapted Sophocles ’ Ajax, which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1974. She wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia and wrote and produced a ten-part TV series on African traditions in American life. In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and in 1975 she received the Ladies’ Home Journal Woman of the Year Award in communications. She has received numerous honorary degrees and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year and by President Gerald R. Ford to the American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council. She is on the board of trustees of the American Film Institute. One of the few female members of the Directors Guild, Angelou is the author of the television screenplays I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Sisters. Most recently, she wrote the lyrics for the musical King: Drum Major for Love and was both host and writer for the series of documentaries Maya Angelou’s America: A Journey of the Heart, along with Guy Johnson. Angelou is currently Reynolds Professor at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.