Amiri Baraka

Sad. And it comes tomorrow. Again, gray, the streaks of work shredding the stone of the pavement, dissolving with the idea of singular endeavor.  Herds, the herds of suffering intelligences bunched, and out of hearing. Though the day come to us in waves, sun, air, the beat of the clock. Though I stare at the radical world, wishing it would stand still. Tell me, and I gain at the telling. Of the lie, and the waking against the heavy breathing of new light, dawn, shattering the naive cluck of feeling. What is tomorrow that it cannot come today?

Where ever something breathes Heart beating the rise and fall Of mountains, the waves upon the sky Of seas, the terror is our ignorance, that’s Why it is named after our home, earth Where art is locked between Gone and Destination The destiny of some other where and feeling The ape knew this, when his old lady pulled him up Off the ground. Was he grateful, ask him he’s still sitting up there Watching the sky’s adventures, leaving two holes for his own. Oh sing Gigantic burp past the insects, swifter than the ugly Stanleys on the ground Catching monkey meat for Hyenagators, absolute boss of what does not Arrive in time to say anything. We hear that eating, that doo dooing, that Burping, we had a nigro mayor used to burp like poison zapalote Waddled into the cave of his lust. We got a Spring Jasper now, if you don’t like that woid, what about courtesan, dreamed out his own replacement sprawled Across the velvet cash register of belching and farting, his knick names when they let him be played with. Some call him Puck, was love, we thought, now a rubber Flat blackie banged across the ice, to get past our Goli, the Africannibus of memory. Here. We have so many wedged between death and passivity. Like eyes that collide With reality and cannot see anything but the inner abstraction of flatus, a biography, a car, a walk to the guillotine, James the First, Giuliani the Second When he tries to go national, senators will stab him, Ides of March or Not. Maybe Both will die, James 1 and Caesar 2, as they did in the past, where we can read about The justness of their assassinations As we swig a little brew and laugh at the perseverance Of disease at higher and higher levels of its elimination. We could see anything we wanted to. Be anything we knew how to be. Build anything we needed. Arrive anywhere we should have to go. But time is as stubborn as space, and they compose us with definition, time place and 
condition. The howlees the yowlees the yankees the super left streamlined post racial ideational chauvinists creeep at the mouth of the venal cava. They are protesting 
fire and Looking askance at the giblets we have learned to eat. “It’s nobody’s heart,” they say, and we agree. It’s the rest of some thing’s insides. Along with the flowers, the grass, the tubers, the river, pieces of the sky, earth, our seasoning, baked throughout. What do you call that the anarchist of comfort asks, Food, we say, making it up as we chew. Yesterday we explained language.

A political art, let it be tenderness, low strings the fingers touch, or the width of autumn climbing wider avenues, among the virtue and dignity of knowing what city you’re in, who to talk to, what clothes —even what buttons—to wear. I address / the society the image, of common utopia. / The perversity of separation, isolation, after so many years of trying to enter their kingdoms, now they suffer in tears, these others, saxophones whining through the wooden doors of their less than gracious homes. The poor have become our creators. The black. The thoroughly ignorant. Let the combination of morality and inhumanity begin. 2. Is power, the enemy? (Destroyer of dawns, cool flesh of valentines, among the radios, pauses, drunks of the 19th century. I see it, as any man's single history. All the possible heroes dead from heat exhaustion at the beach or hiding for years from cameras only to die cheaply in the pages of our daily lie. One hero has pretensions toward literature one toward the cultivation of errors, arrogance, and constantly changing disguises, as trucker, boxer, valet, barkeep, in the aging taverns of memory. Making love to those speedy heroines of masturbation or kicking literal evil continually down filmy public stairs. A compromise would be silence. To shut up, even such risk as the proper placement of verbs and nouns. To freeze the spit in mid-air, as it aims itself at some valiant intellectual's face. There would be someone

for Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959 Lately, I've become accustomed to the way The ground opens up and envelopes me Each time I go out to walk the dog. Or the broad edged silly music the wind Makes when I run for a bus... Things have come to that. And now, each night I count the stars, And each night I get the same number. And when they will not come to be counted, I count the holes they leave. Nobody sings anymore. And then last night, I tiptoed up To my daughter's room and heard her Talking to someone, and when I opened The door, there was no one there... Only she on her knees, peeking into Her own clasped hands.

She stands beside me, stands away, the vague indifference of her dreams. Dreaming, to go on, and go on there, like animals fleeing the rise of the earth. But standing intangible, my lust a worked anger a sweating close covering, for the crudely salty soul. Then back off, and where you go? Box of words and pictures. Steel balloons tied to our mouths. The room fills up, and the house. Street tilts. City slides, and buildings slide into the river. What is there left, to destroy? That is not close, or closer. Leaning away in the angle of language. Pumping and pumping, all our eyes criss cross and flash. It is the lovers pulling down empty structures. They wait and touch and watch their dreams eat the morning.

(For Blues People) In the south, sleeping against the drugstore, growling under the trucks and stoves, stumbling through and over the cluttered eyes of early mysterious night. Frowning drunk waving moving a hand or lash. Dancing kneeling reaching out, letting a hand rest in shadows. Squatting to drink or pee. Stretching to climb pulling themselves onto horses near where there was sea (the old songs lead you to believe). Riding out from this town, to another, where it is also black. Down a road where people are asleep. Towards the moon or the shadows of houses. Towards the songs’ pretended sea.

He came back and shot. He shot him. When he came back, he shot, and he fell, stumbling, past the shadow wood, down, shot, dying, dead, to full halt. At the bottom, bleeding, shot dead. He died then, there after the fall, the speeding bullet, tore his face and blood sprayed fine over the killer and the grey light. Pictures of the dead man, are everywhere. And his spirit sucks up the light. But he died in darkness darker than his soul and everything tumbled blindly with him dying down the stairs. We have no word on the killer, except he came back, from somewhere to do what he did. And shot only once into his victim's stare, and left him quickly when the blood ran out. We know the killer was skillful, quick, and silent, and that the victim probably knew him. Other than that, aside from the caked sourness of the dead man's expression, and the cool surprise in the fixture of his hands and fingers, we know nothing.

uuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuu   uuu   ray light morning fire lynch yet uuuuuuu, yester-pain in dreams comes again. race-pain, people our people our people everywhere . . . yeh . . . uuuuu, yeh uuuuu. yeh our people yes people every people most people uuuuuu, yeh uuuuu, most people in pain yester-pain, and pain today (Screams) ooowow!      ooowow! It must be the devil (jumps up like a claw stuck him) oooo wow! oooowow! (screams) It must be the devil It must be the devil it must be the devil (shakes like evangelical sanctify shakes tambourine like evangelical sanctify in heat) ooowow! ooowow! yeh, devil, yeh, devil ooowow! Must be the devil must be the devil (waves plate like collection) mus is mus is mus is mus is be the devil, cain be rockefeller (eyes roll up batting, and jumping all the way around to face the other direction) caint be him, no lawd aint be dupont, no lawd, cain be, no lawd, no way noway, naw saw, no way jose — cain be them rich folks theys good to us theys good to us theys good to us theys good to us theys good to us, i know, the massa tolt me so, i seed it on channel 7, i seed it on channel 9 i seed it on channel 4 and 2 and 5. Rich folks good to us poor folks aint shit, hallelujah, hallelujah, ooowow! oowow! must be the devil, going to heaven after i die, after we die everything going to be different, after we die we aint gon be hungry, ain gon be pain, ain gon be sufferin wont go thru this again, after we die, after we die owooo! owowoooo! after we die, its all gonna be good, have all the money we need after we die, have all the food we need after we die have a nice house like the rich folks, after we die, after we die, after we die, we can live like rev ike, after we die, hallelujah, hallelujah, must be the devil, it ain capitalism, it aint capitalism, it aint capitalism, naw it aint that, jimmy carter wdnt lie, “lifes unfair” but it aint capitalism must be the devil, owow! it ain the police, jimmy carter wdnt lie, you know rosalynn wdnt not lillian, his drunken racist brother aint no reflection on jimmy, must be the devil got in im, i tell you, the devil killed malcolm and dr king too, even killed both kennedies, and pablo neruda and overthrew allende’s govt. killed lumumba, and is negotiating with step and fetchit, sleep n eat and birmingham, over there in “Rhodesia”, goin’ under the name ian smith, must be the devil, caint be vortser, caint be apartheid, caint be imperialism, jimmy carter wdnt lie, didnt you hear him say in his state of the union message, i swear on rosalynn’s face-lifted catatonia, i wdnt lie nixon lied, haldeman lied, dean lied, hoover lied hoover sucked (dicks) too but jimmy dont, jimmy wdnt jimmy aint lying, must be the devil, put yr money on the plate, must be the devil, in heaven we’all all be straight cain be rockefeller, he gave amos pootbootie a scholarship to Behavior Modification Univ, and Genevieve Almoswhite works for his foundation Must be niggers! Cain be Mellon, he gave Winky Suckass, a fellowship in his bank put him in charge of closing out mortgages in the lowlife Pittsburgh Hill nigger section, caint be him. (Goes on babbling, and wailing, jerking in pathocrazy grin stupor) Yessuh, yessuh, yessuh, yessuh, yessuh, yes- suh, yessuh, yessuh, yessuh, yessuh, put yr money in the plate, dont be late, dont have to wait, you gonna be in heaven after you die, you gon get all you need once you gone, yessuh, i heard it on thejeffersons, i heard it on therookies, I swallowed it whole on roots: wasn’t it nice slavery was so cool and all you had to do was wear derbies and vests and train chickens and buy your way free if you had a mind to, must be the devil, wasnt no white folks, lazy niggers chained theyselves and threw they own black asses in the bottom of the boats, [(well now that you mention it King Assblackuwasi helped throw yr ass in the bottom of the boat, yo mamma, wife, and you never seed em no more)] must a been the devil, gimme your money put your money on this plate, heaven be here soon, just got to die, just got to stop living, close yr eyes stop breathin and bammm-O heaven be here, you have all a what you need, Bam-O all a sudden, heaven be here, you have all you need, that assembly line you work on will dissolve in thin air owowoo! owowoo! Just gotta die just gotta die, this ol world aint nuthin, must be the devil got you thinkin so, it cain be rockefeller, it cain be mor- gan, it caint be capitalism it caint be national oppression owow! No Way! Now go back to work and cool it, go back to work and lay back, just a little while longer till you pass its all gonna be alright once you gone. gimme that last bitta silver you got stashed there sister, gimme that dust now broth- er man, itll be ok on the other side, yo soul be clean be washed pure white. yes. yes. yes. owow. now go back to work, go to sleep, yes, go to sleep, go back to work, yes owow. owow. uuuuuuuuuu, uuuuuuuuuuu, uuuuuuuuuuu. yes, uuuuuuu. yes. uuuuuuuuuu. a men.

The gaunt thing with no organs creeps along the streets of Europe, she will commute, in her feathered bat stomach-gown with no organs with sores on her insides even her head a vast puschamber of pus(sy) memories with no organs nothing to make babies she will be the great witch of euro-american legend who sucked the life from some unknown nigger whose name will be known but whose substance will not ever not even by him who is dead in a pile of dopeskin This bitch killed a friend of mine named Bob Thompson a black painter, a giant, once, she reduced to a pitiful imitation faggot full of American holes and a monkey on his back slapped airplanes from the empire state building May this bitch and her sisters, all of them, receive my words in all their orifices like lye mixed with cocola and alaga syrup feel this shit, bitches, feel it, now laugh your hysterectic laughs while your flesh burns and your eyes peel to red mud

I am inside someone who hates me. I look out from his eyes. Smell what fouled tunes come in to his breath. Love his wretched women. Slits in the metal, for sun. Where my eyes sit turning, at the cool air the glance of light, or hard flesh rubbed against me, a woman, a man, without shadow, or voice, or meaning. This is the enclosure (flesh, where innocence is a weapon. An abstraction. Touch. (Not mine. Or yours, if you are the soul I had and abandoned when I was blind and had my enemies carry me as a dead man (if he is beautiful, or pitied. It can be pain. (As now, as all his flesh hurts me.) It can be that. Or pain. As when she ran from me into that forest. Or pain, the mind silver spiraled whirled against the sun, higher than even old men thought God would be. Or pain. And the other. The yes. (Inside his books, his fingers. They are withered yellow flowers and were never beautiful.) The yes. You will, lost soul, say ‘beauty.’ Beauty, practiced, as the tree. The slow river. A white sun in its wet sentences. Or, the cold men in their gale. Ecstasy. Flesh or soul. The yes. (Their robes blown. Their bowls empty. They chant at my heels, not at yours.) Flesh or soul, as corrupt. Where the answer moves too quickly. Where the God is a self, after all.) Cold air blown through narrow blind eyes. Flesh, white hot metal. Glows as the day with its sun. It is a human love, I live inside. A bony skeleton you recognize as words or simple feeling. But it has no feeling. As the metal, is hot, it is not, given to love. It burns the thing inside it. And that thing screams.