To Langston Hughes I’ve also known rivers. I’ve known rivers trapped between cliff tops and rotting land – Black as the midnight’s reflection. I’ve known rivers beat by the Mississippi sun. I’ve watched rivers struggle to survive under Mississippi’s sons. My people are like rivers. Crashing against free […]
Tag Archives: black poetry
as dark as the clouds may get, it will never know what it feels like to black – to be black is to have the shades of africa sown into the creases of your hands like mount kilimanjaro was at your fingertips. like our arms were the bridges over troubled seas – we were troubled […]
they treat me like crap. and i don’t know if it’s because my hair isn’t straight enough for them. or maybe it’s because my skin is too brown. one time, i thought it was because the circumference of my lips were too big. i talked different, too. let the “er” of my words slide off […]
i know what it feels like to be haunted. to have your heart beat to the rhythm of death – like death was the only tune my fingers knew how to play. gunshots chained my freedom like fatherless men behind steel bars. it seems like niggas would rather split souls than spit bars – like […]
Dear Dad, Your love is like second hand smoke, making it’s way into the chambers of my body, your touch is indirect. When I hear your voice, it’s like cigarettes are burning through the atmosphere, something like pollution. My fingers begin turning black from the constant let downs, I want you to hug me. Cover […]
Hey! I know I haven’t been writing poetry as much, but let me tell you guys why. That’s right.. I am reading The Big Sea by Langston Hughes. And normally, when I read a book I don’t like to write too much of anything, because I am afraid to start writing like them. (However, being […]
if i knew being black was a crime, i would have bleached my skin with ignorance. decolored every ounce of my ancestors painted across my face – i’d bury them deep beneath my white bones like i was saving them for when winter passes – when winter passes i’ll know what it feels like to […]
Langston Hughes reciting “I, too” and sharing his thoughts on “the issue.” I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, […]
My Black is as beautiful as the midnight sky on a summer evening. Subtle clouds overhead, slowly admiring the way my chocolate skin layers my bones. Counting the constellations shifting on my forehead, shooting down to the craters under my feet. And I am floating. My Black is as mysterious as the dark moon on […]
Those four black girls blown up in that Alabama church remind me of five hundred middle passage blacks, in a net, under water in Charelston harbor so redcoats wouldn’t find them. Can’t find what you can’t see can you? – american history by michael s. harper
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