George Elliott Clarke

I’m an ol’ king bee, honey, Buzzin’ from flower to flower. I’m an ol’ king bee, sweets, Hummin’ from flower to flower. Women got good pollen; I get some every hour. There’s Lily in the valley And sweet honeysuckle Rose too; There’s Lily in the valley And sweet honeysuckle Rose too. And there’s pretty black-eyed Susan, Perfect as the night is blue. You don’t have to trust A single, black word I say. You don’t have to trust A single, black word I say. But don’t be surprised If I sting your flower today.

for Kwame Dawes Your scuttled pays floats—fiery—in the ether; Blazing, it vomits smudge-smoke. Your mind chars Black because you yaw—moth-like—too near flames. You douse your dream-scorched brain with slave-sweat rum— The only gold you can own, corroding Your liver. Your anthem plays to gunfire. When you think about it (when you can breathe)— After all the lies that frame nostalgia, All the dead faces that occupy photographs, All the slain lovers pitched into ditches, Your eyes itch and ache with water, then dry— Curling like dead leaves, starving for gold fire.

Wipe away tears, Set free your fears: Everything is free. Only the lonely Need much money: Everything is free. Don’t try to bind The love you find: Everyone is free. Your lover’s yours — Surrender force: Everyone is free. The sun melts down, Spreads gold around: Everything is free. The rain is spent Lending flowers scent: Everything is free. The love you live, The life you give: Everything is free.

à Geeta The brown girl, golden, sable-eyed, flourishing yellow hibiscus, steps exuberant, august, into August— her lushly brocaded gold silk sari lavishing honey light at her auburn feet, sandalled, cedarly, with scent of sandalwood haloing her, her individualized, warm, light-dark body, her every glance a direction of the air, her look of mischievous—even tart—sweetness.... O has she...? She has come in from morning’s slight autumnal chill, her feet moistened with diamantine dew— how the sea summers in grass (that same grass that rears at the sun while butterflies mob frangipani...). Behold her smile declaring warm, sun-dyed, terracotta lips— that chance come home— and I answer, “You are light uplifting, liberating me from murk, from an inferno of squalor.” O! Let there be rum and molasses, rice and mackerel, O Muse, the Indian Ocean softening and sweetening the Atlantic, this august autumn. All these pleasures we will prove: lotus like slow-motion lightning, ivory gold fountaining from earth, like you, a fresh light, sprung from earth.

There’s a black wind howlin’ by Whylah Falls; There’s a mad rain hammerin’ the flowers; There’s a shotgunned man moulderin’ in petals; There’s a killer chucklin’ to himself; There’s a mother keenin’ her posied son; There’s a joker amblin’ over his bones. Go down to the Sixhiboux River, hear it cry, “Othello Clemence is dead and his murderer’s free!” O sang from Whylah Falls and lived by sweat, Walked that dark road between desire and regret. He pitched lumber, crushed rock, calloused his hands: He wasn’t a saint but he was a man. Scratch Seville shot him and emptied his skull, Tore a hole in his gut only Death could fill. Now his martyr-mother witnesses in cries Over his corpse cankered white by lilies. There’s a black wind snakin’ by Whylah Falls; There’s a river of blood in Jarvis County; There’s a government that don’t know how to weep; There’s a mother who can’t get no sleep. Go down to the Sixhiboux, hear it moan Like a childless mother far, far, from home, “There’s a change that’s gonna have to come, I said, a change that’s gonna have to come.”