Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

Under Old West guitar and Jazz band trumpet,
where the riverboat steam horn blares,
you order a corn dog.

Beignets and étouffée
are down the way, cowboy,
you don’t have to put up with that.

But the sun dips into everybody’s eyes,
strollers full of screams rock by
and you

start searching, at the popcorn cart and in your life,
for something more
than everything

you’ve been settling
for.

(To Robert Gould Shaw )

Flushed with the hope of high desire,
    He buckled on his sword,
To dare the rampart ranged with fire,
    Or where the thunder roared;
Into the smoke and flame he went,
    For God’s great cause to die—
A youth of heaven’s element,
    The flower of chivalry.

This was the gallant faith, I trow,
    Of which the sages tell;
On such devotion long ago
    The benediction fell;
And never nobler martyr burned,
    Or braver hero died,
Than he who worldly honor spurned
    To serve the Crucified.

And Lancelot and Sir Bedivere
    May pass beyond the pale,
And wander over moor and mere
    To find the Holy Grail;
But ever yet the prize forsooth
    My hero holds in fee;
And he is Blameless Knight in truth,
    And Galahad to me.

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
   My people.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies' maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Rounders,
Number writers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses—
Dream-singers all,—
   My people.
Story-tellers all,—
My people.
   Dancers—
God! What dancers!
   Singers—
God! What singers!
Singers and dancers
Dancers and laughers.
   Laughers?
Yes, laughers . . . laughers . . . laughers—
Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands
   Of Fate.

^{(written in her fifteenth year)}

Life is but a troubled ocean, 
     Hope a meteor, love a flower
Which blossoms in the morning beam, 
     And whithers with the evening hour. 

Ambition is a dizzy height, 
     And glory, but a lightning gleam; 
Fame is a bubble, dazzling bright, 
    Which fairest shines in fortune’s beam. 

When clouds and darkness veil the skies, 
    And sorrow’s blast blows loud and chill, 
Friendship shall like a rainbow rise, 
    And softly whisper—peace, be still.

If he hits the curve before you do, all is lost
is all I remember when the coach yelled out
to start, to kick it down the short straightaway

into the curve, the curve a devil’s handiwork,
with Worsenski ahead of me, two hundred sixty
pounds, one hundred pounds more than me,

and all I could see were the Converse soles
of a boy I dusted in my dreams on the bus
out here to make the track team, letters

for my sweater, girls going goo-goo over me,
coaches from big-league schools with papers
to say I was headed for glory, my unkempt

disappointment in me now sealed by winged
feet beating me in the curve, Worsenski as big
as the USS Enterprise sliding through Pacific

waters, parting the air in front of him that
sucked back behind just to hold me in my grip
of deep shame until I wished I were not there.

I wanted more than being human, a warrior
of field and track would be bursting out now
ripping open my chest with masculinity

to make Jesse Owens proud or jealous,
or inspired or something other than me
the pulling-up caboose slower than mud

running like an old man really walking,
all the most valuable parts of me inside
my brain in wishes, in dreams, in things

not yet born into the world, in calculations
of beauty, in yearning for love, for the word
of love, for some adoration from Wanda,

the most beautiful girl in the whole block,
black like me and wondering just what
life had to give those of us who can fly.

Each time the carpenter with a sharp rap sets a nail
then whangs it head and shaft into the tan flesh of the wood
and slips the hammer back into the leather belt,

I think of Achilles casting his spear so fast
it pinned the Amazon queen and her horse together
“as a man might impale some innards on a spit.”

Each time he sinks a nail he says below his breath,
“mmn-hmn,” as if to say, “Yes, that will do,”
then sets and sinks the next. Yes, he’s my brother,

but it’s enough to make me want to whack him one
as I jag my cuts, and ding the wood,
and warp the nail, and skew the screw.

His rhythmic hammerings make perfect stress,
tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, but half my mind’s
trying to write a poem, so my hammering’s a mess,

like the failed lines I mouth below my breath
––until a hopeful phrase sends me scrabbling
for the flat, fat-tipped carpenter’s pencil and a square of plywood,

something about swimming at Spy Lake after work,
white flashes diving from the canoe
and concentric moonlight like rippled music,

the lake water turned to black vinyl and my body
the needle that moves within the groove.
I wanted to write something about the shout

ripped out of the mouth by joy, the strangeness of being
a being channeled through time,  
pierced by the needle of right now, and the way 

I kill my life by living it, and the song of 
all I was unraveling behind me, the song that plays 
as a record spins to its end, and the sorrow 

of that, and how I still sing in the shower.
That’s the poem that I wanted to write
but that was twenty years ago,

and every line I wrote that summer
went into the scrap and sawdust pile,
and all that sun-moist morning I hoisted

the pickaxe and made it sing on asphalt,
sank post holes, fucked up cuts with the SkilSaw,
thought literary thoughts, and screwed up.

And since I was more a poet than a man,
my brother sent me to buy studs at the yard
ten blocks off, and when I got lost in Boston

and hours later dragged in like a bedraggled sailor,
the crew just laughed and went back to their tasks.
And it’s time to tell the truth:

that was thirty years ago and I’ve gone on
to other crafts, the way today I take the pen shaft
in my hand and cast my mind into the void

and with each line I give a little “huh!” of joy.
And you don’t have to tell me how after he bragged
about his feat Achilles removed the queen’s helmet

and her blonde hair spilled free in strands of light,
and her goddess face shone, and, pierced himself,
he fell to his knees and mourned

the beauty he’d killed with his great shaft.
I know it’s not heroic to fix my mind to the page
in lines like a butterfly pinned and dried,

and I know just this of carpentry:
once the house is built the rot sets in.
But since making is what I have,

I make what I can out of this long unmaking
with what tools I have at hand
now that my power tools are powered down

and crusted with a powder of old sawdust,
now that my yellow leather carpenter’s belt has stiffened,
its pockets stuffed with nails long turned to rust.

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

An eye from the Creator,
a fire, bright, setting slowly
over the cusp of the “new world,”

kissing the Old World, softly
to sleep, it is the kissing that is soft,
not the sleeping.

Under the light of that unwanted dawn there is
a warrior still left standing, we
war-journey them

          to the battle and back,
                     to the battle and back,
                                to the battle and back,

radiance, felt through the
water that flows blue but runs red,
around and around

that quickly setting sun,

around and around
a circle, there are
songs for the way our warriors
used to honorably drift away

We used to die in battle
but today they ring out
— “whatchu tryna tell me?”
while we slosh a bottle around,
we laugh about how we are singing

Songs from the wrong eagles,
our war journey is through the hills
with the windows down

In a red ford with
the tribal tag torn
and a car battery in the front seat

We are nurtured,
Remembered,
by the birds who fly
around and around

while we hit our hands
on the hoods of clunkers
and when it stops being sacred,

We laugh,
We funk #49,
here we live,
here we are live.

We laugh,
my warrior, we aren’t
the warriors, of anything
like that, anymore.

the unholy trinity of suburban late-night salvation
barring seemingly endless options of worship

bean burrito breadsticks and mashed potatoes
or a soft taco pan pizza and a buttered biscuit

an unimaginable combination of food flavors
for people not ready to go home to their parents

and yet none of the options feel quite right
so maybe I should call it Self-Portrait as idling

in a drive-thru with your friends crammed
across the sunken bench seats avoiding

the glow of the check engine light with black tape
pressed with a precision unseen anywhere else

in their lives as a fractured voice says don’t worry
take your time and order whenever you’re ready

from behind a menu backlit like the window
inside of a confessional booth as the hands

of the driver open up like a collection basket
for the wadded-up bills and loose change

that slowly stack up as the years go by
and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be

in this analogy but I know about masking
warning signs and hearing out of tune

voices scream WE’RE THE KIDS WHO FEEL
LIKE DEAD ENDS so instead I’ll call it Self-

Portrait as From Under the Cork Tree
or maybe even Self-Portrait as whatever

album people listen to when they love
their friends and still want to feel connected

to the grass walls of a teenage wasteland
that they can’t help but run away from

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
   The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.

(It is a little-known fact that 200,000 Negroes fought
for freedom in the Union Army during the Civil War.)

In this green month when resurrected flowers,
Like laughing children ignorant of death,
Brighten the couch of those who wake no more,
Love and remembrance blossom in our hearts
For you who bore the extreme sharp pang for us,
And bought our freedom with your lives.

                                                           And now,
Honoring your memory, with love we bring
These fiery roses, white-hot cotton flowers
And violets bluer than cool northern skies
You dreamed of stooped in burning prison fields
When liberty was only a faint north star,
Not a bright flower planted by your hands
Reaching up hardy nourished with your blood.

Fit gravefellows you are for Douglass, Brown,
Turner and Truth and Tubman . . . whose rapt eyes
Fashioned a new world in this wilderness.

American earth is richer for your bones:
Our hearts beat prouder for the blood we inherit.

i stand before you to say 
that today i walked home
& caught the light through
the fence & it was so golden
i wanted to cry & i lifted 
my right hand to say thank
you god for the sun thank 
you god for a chain link fence
& all the shoes that fit into
the chain link fence so that
we might get lifted god thank
you & i just wanted to dance
& it feels good to have food
in your belly & it feels good
to be home even when home
is the space between metal
shapes & still we are golden
& a man who wore the walk
of hard grounds & lost days
came toward me in the street
& said ‘girl what a beautiful 
day’ & i said yes, testify
& i walked on & from some
place a horn rose, an organ,
a voice, a chorus, here to tell
you that we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead we are not dead we are
not dead we are not dead 
we are not dead we are not
dead 
yet

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

we let our hair down.  It wasn't so much that we 
worried about what people thought or about keeping it real 
but that we knew this was our moment. We knew we'd blow our cool
 
sooner or later.  Probably sooner.  Probably even before we 
got too far out of Westmont High and had kids of our own who left
home wearing clothes we didn't think belonged in school.

Like Mrs. C. whose nearly unrecognizably pretty senior photo we  
passed every day on the way to Gym, we'd get old.   Or like Mr. Lurk 
who told us all the time how it's never too late

to throw a Hail Mary like he did his junior year and how we
could win everything for the team and hear the band strike 
up a tune so the cheer squad could sing our name, too. Straight

out of a Hallmark movie, Mr. Lurk's hero turned teacher story.  We
had heard it a million times. Sometimes he'd ask us to sing
with him, T-O-N-Y-L-U-R-K Tony Tony Lurk Lurk Lurk. Sin

ironia, con sentimiento, por favor, and then we
would get back to our Spanish lessons, opening our thin
textbooks, until the bell rang and we went on to the cotton gin

in History. Really, this had nothing to do with being cool. We
only wanted to have a moment to ourselves, a moment before Jazz
Band and after Gym when we could look in the mirror and like it. June

and Tiffany and Janet all told me I looked pretty. We
took turns saying nice things, though we might just as likely say, Die
and go to hell.  Beauty or hell. No difference. The bell would ring soon.





With thanks to "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 

                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.