The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou Read online

  the breast of morning,

  crooning, still sleep-besotted,

  of childish pranks with

  angels.

  The Last Decision

  The print is too small, distressing me.

  Wavering black things on the page.

  Wriggling polliwogs all about.

  I know it's my age.

  I'll have to give up reading.

  The food is too rich, revolting me.

  I swallow it hot or force it down cold,

  and wait all day as it sits in my throat.

  Tired as I am, I know I've grown old.

  I'll have to give up eating.

  My children's concerns are tiring me.

  They stand at my bed and move their lips,

  and I cannot hear one single word.

  I'd rather give up listening.

  Life is too busy, wearying me.

  Questions and answers and heavy thought.

  I've subtracted and added and multiplied,

  and all my figuring has come to naught.

  Today I'll give up living.

  Slave Cqffle

  Just Beyond my reaching,

  an itch away from fingers,

  was the river bed

  and the high road home.

  Now Beneath my walking,

  solid down to China,

  all the earth is horror

  and the dark night long.

  Then Before the dawning,

  bright as grinning demons,

  came the fearful knowledge

  that my life was gone.

  Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?

  Evicted from sleep's mute palace,

  I wait in silence

  for the bridal croon;

  your legs rubbing insistent

  rhythm against my thighs,

  your breath moaning

  a canticle in my hair.

  But the solemn moments,

  unuttering, pass in

  unaccompanied procession.

  You, whose chanteys hummed

  my life alive, have withdrawn

  your music and lean inaudibly

  on the quiet slope of memory.

  O Shaker, why don't you sing?

  In the night noisy with

  street cries and the triumph

  of amorous insects, I focus beyond

  those cacophonies for

  the anthem of your hands and swelling chest,

  for the perfect harmonies which are

  your lips. Yet darkness brings

  no syncopated promise. I rest somewhere

  between the unsung notes of night.

  Shaker, why don't you sing?

  My Life Has Turned to Blue

  Our summer's gone,

  the golden days are through.

  The rosy dawns I used to

  wake with you

  have turned to grey,

  my life has turned to blue.

  The once-green lawns

  glisten now with dew.

  Red robin's gone,

  down to the South he flew.

  Left here alone,

  my life has turned to blue.

  I've heard the news

  that winter too will pass,

  that spring's a sign

  that summer's due at last.

  But until I see you

  lying in green grass,

  my life has turned to blue.

  VIVIAN BAXTER

  MILDRED GARRIS TUTTLE

  Worker's Song

  Big ships shudder

  down to the sea

  because of me

  Railroads run

  on a twinness track

  'cause of my back

  Whoppa, Whoppa

  Whoppa, Whoppa

  Cars stretch to

  a super length

  'cause of my strength

  Planes fly high

  over seas and lands

  'cause of my hands

  Whoppa, Whoppa

  Whoppa, Whoppa

  I wake

  start the factory humming

  I work late

  keep the whole world running

  and I got something … something

  coming … coming….

  Whoppa

  Whoppa

  Whoppa

  Human Family

  I note the obvious differences

  in the human family.

  Some of us are serious,

  some thrive on comedy.

  Some declare their lives are lived

  as true profundity,

  and others claim they really live

  the real reality.

  The variety of our skin tones

  can confuse, bemuse, delight,

  brown and pink and beige and purple,

  tan and blue and white.

  I've sailed upon the seven seas

  and stopped in every land,

  I've seen the wonders of the world,

  not yet one common man.

  I know ten thousand women

  called Jane and Mary Jane,

  but I've not seen any two

  who really were the same.

  Mirror twins are different

  although their features jibe,

  and lovers think quite different thoughts

  while lying side by side.

  We love and lose in China,

  we weep on England's moors,

  and laugh and moan in Guinea,

  and thrive on Spanish shores.

  We seek success in Finland,

  are born and die in Maine.

  In minor ways we differ,

  in major we're the same.

  I note the obvious differences

  between each sort and type,

  but we are more alike, my friends,

  than we are unalike.

  We are more alike, my friends,

  than we are unalike.

  We are more alike, my friends,

  than we are unalike.

  Man Bigot

  The man who is a bigot

  is the worst thing God has got,

  except his match, his woman,

  who really is Ms. Begot.

  Old Folks Laugh

  They have spent their

  content of simpering,

  holding their lips this

  and that way, winding

  the lines between

  their brows. Old folks

  allow their bellies to jiggle like slow

  tamborines.

  The hollers

  rise up and spill

  over any way they want.

  When old folks laugh, they free the world.

  They turn slowly, slyly knowing

  the best and worst

  of remembering.

  Saliva glistens in

  the corners of their mouths,

  their heads wobble

  on brittle necks, but

  their laps

  are filled with memories.

  When old folks laugh, they consider the promise

  of dear painless death, and generously

  forgive life for happening

  to them.

  Is Love

  Midwives and winding sheets

  know birthing is hard

  and dying is mean

  and living's a trial in between.

  Why do we journey, muttering

  like rumors among the stars?

  Is a dimension lost?

  Is it love?

  Forgive

  Take me, Virginia,

  bind me close

  with Jamestown memories

  of camptown races and

  ships pregnant

  with certain cargo

  and Richmond riding high on greed

  and low on tedious tides

  of guilt.

  But take me on, Virginia,

  loose your turban of flowers

  that peach petals and

  dogwood bloom
may

  form epaulettes of white

  tenderness on my shoulders

  and round my

  head ringlets

  of forgiveness, poignant

  as rolled eyes, sad as summer

  parasols in a hurricane.

  Insignificant

  A series of small, on

  their own insignificant,

  occurrences. Salt lost half

  its savor. Two yellow-

  striped bumblebees got

  lost in my hair.

  When I freed them they droned

  away into the afternoon.

  At the clinic the nurse's

  face was half pity and part pride.

  I was not glad for the news.

  Then I thought I heard you

  call, and I, running

  like water, headed for

  the railroad track. It was only

  the Baltimore and the Atchison,

  Topeka, and the Santa Fe.

  Small insignificancies.

  Love Letter

  Listening winds

  overhear my privacies

  spoken aloud (in your

  absence, but for your sake).

  When you, mustachioed,

  nutmeg-brown lotus,

  sit beside the Oberlin shoji.

  My thoughts are particular:

  of your light lips and hungry

  hands writing Tai Chi urgencies

  into my body. I leap, float,

  run

  to spring cool springs into

  your embrace. Then we match grace.

  This girl, neither feather nor

  fan, drifted and tossed.

  Oh, but then I had power.

  Power.

  Equality

  You declare you see me dimly

  through a glass which will not shine,

  though I stand before you boldly,

  trim in rank and marking time.

  You do own to hear me faintly

  as a whisper out of range,

  while my drums beat out the message

  and the rhythms never change.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  You announce my ways are wanton,

  that I fly from man to man,

  but if I'm just a shadow to you,

  could you ever understand?

  We have lived a painful history,

  we know the shameful past,

  but I keep on marching forward,

  and you keep on coming last.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  Take the blinders from your vision,

  take the padding from your ears, and confess you've heard me crying,

  and admit you've seen my tears.

  Hear the tempo so compelling,

  hear the blood throb in my veins.

  Yes, my drums are beating nightly,

  and the rhythms never change.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  Equality, and I will be free.

  Coleridge Jackson

  Coleridge Jackson had nothing

  to fear. He weighed sixty pounds

  more than his sons and one

  hundred pounds more than his wife.

  His neighbors knew he wouldn't

  take tea for the fever.

  The gents at the poolroom

  walked gently in his presence.

  So everyone used

  to wonder why,

  when his puny boss, a little

  white bag of bones and

  squinty eyes, when he frowned

  at Coleridge, sneered at

  the way Coleridge shifted

  a ton of canned goods from

  the east wall of the warehouse

  all the way to the west,

  when that skimpy piece of

  man-meat called Coleridge

  a sorry nigger,

  Coleridge kept his lips closed,

  sealed, jammed tight.

  Wouldn't raise his eyes,

  held his head at a slant,

  looking way off somewhere

  else.

  Everybody in the neighborhood wondered

  why Coleridge would come home,

  pull off his jacket, take off

  his shoes, and beat the

  water and the will out of his puny

  little family.

  Everybody, even Coleridge, wondered

  (the next day, or even later that

  same night).

  Everybody. But the weasly little

  sack-of-bones boss with his

  envious little eyes,

  he knew. He always

  knew. And

  when people told him about

  Coleridge's family, about the

  black eyes and the bruised

  faces, the broken bones,

  Lord, how that scrawny man

  grinned.

  And the next

  day, for a few hours, he treated

  Coleridge nice. Like Coleridge

  had just done him the biggest

  old favor. Then, right

  after lunch, he'd start on

  Coleridge again.

  “Here, Sambo, come here.

  Can't you move any faster

  than that? Who on earth

  needs a lazy nigger?” And Coleridge would just

  stand there. His eyes sliding

  away, lurking at something else.

  Why Are They Happy People?

  Skin back your teeth, damn you,

  wiggle your ears,

  laugh while the years

  race

  down your face.

  Pull up your cheeks, black boy,

  wrinkle your nose,

  grin as your toes

  spade

  up your grave.

  Roll those big eyes, black gal,

  rubber your knees,

  smile when the trees

  bend

  with your kin.

  Son to Mother

  I start no

  wars, raining poison

  on cathedrals,

  melting Stars of David

  into golden faucets

  to be lighted by lamps

  shaded by human skin.

  I set no

  store on the strange lands,

  send no

  missionaries beyond my

  borders,

  to plunder secrets

  and barter souls.

  They

  say you took my manhood,

  Momma.

  Come sit on my lap

  and tell me,

  what do you want me to say

  to them, just

  before I annihilate

  their ignorance?

  Known to Eve and Me

  His tan and golden self,

  coiled in a threadbare carapace,

  beckoned to my sympathy.

  I hoisted him, shoulders above

  the crowded plaza, lifting

  his cool, slick body toward the altar of

  sunlight. He was guileless, and slid into my embrace.

  We shared seeded rolls and breakfast on the mountaintop.

  Love's warmth and Aton's sun

  disc caressed

  his skin, and once-dulled scales

  became sugared ginger, amber

  drops of beryl on the tongue.

  His lidless eye slid sideways,

  and he rose into my deepest

  yearning, bringing

  gifts of ready rhythms, and

  hourly wound around

  my chest,

  holding me fast in taut

  security.

  Then, glistening like

  diamonds strewn

  upon a black girl's belly,

  he left me. And nothing

  remains. Beneath my left

  breast, two perfect identical punctures,
/>   through which I claim the air I breathe and

  the slithering sound of my own skin

  moving in the dark.

  These Yet to Be United States

  Tremors of your network

  cause kings to disappear.

  Your open mouth in anger

  makes nations bow in fear.

  Your bombs can change the seasons,

  obliterate the spring.

  What more do you long for?

  Why are you suffering?

  You control the human lives

  in Rome and Timbuktu.

  Lonely nomads wandering

  owe Telstar to you.

  Seas shift at your bidding,

  your mushrooms fill the sky.

  Why are you unhappy?

  Why do your children cry?

  They kneel alone in terror

  with dread in every glance.

  Their nights are threatened daily

  by a grim inheritance.

  You dwell in whitened castles

  with deep and poisoned moats

  and cannot hear the curses

  which fill your children's throats.

  Me and My Work

  I got a piece of a job on the waterfront.

  Three days ain't hardly a grind.

  It buys some beans and collard greens

  and pays the rent on time.

  'Course the wife works too.

  Got three big children to keep in school,

  need clothes and shoes on their feet,

  give them enough of the things they want

  and keep them out of the street.

  They've always been good.