The Panther and the Lash Read online

  With his blood

  Is sealed.

  PEACE

  We passed their graves:

  The dead men there,

  Winners or losers,

  Did not care.

  In the dark

  They could not see

  Who had gained

  The victory.

  LAST PRINCE OF THE EAST

  Futile of me to offer you my hand,

  Last little brown prince

  Of Malaysia land.

  Your wall is too high

  And your moat is too wide—

  For the white world’s gunboats

  Are all on your side.

  So you lie in your cradle

  And shake your rattle

  To the jingo cry

  Of blood and battle

  While Revolt in the rice fields

  Puts on a red gown.

  Before you are king,

  He’ll come to town.

  THE DOVE

  …and here is

  old Picasso and the dove

  and dreams as fragile

  as pottery with dove

  in white on clay

  dark brown as

  earth is brown

  from our old

  battle ground…

  WAR

  The face of war is my face.

  The face of war is your face.

        What color

        Is the face

        Of war?

  Brown, black, white—

  Your face and my face.

  Death is the broom

  I take in my hands

  To sweep the world

        Clean.

  I sweep and I sweep

  Then mop and I mop.

  I dip my broom in blood,

  My mop in blood—

  And blame you for this,

  Because you are there,

        Enemy.

  It’s hard to blame me,

  Because I am here—

  So I kill you.

  And you kill me.

        My name,

  Like your name,

        Is war.

  5

  AFRICAN QUESTION MARK

  OPPRESSION

  Now dreams

  Are not available

  To the dreamers,

  Nor songs

  To the singers.

  In some lands

  Dark night

  And cold steel

  Prevail—

  But the dream

  Will come back,

  And the song

  Break

  Its jail.

  ANGOLA QUESTION MARK

  Don’t know why I,

  Black,

  Must still stand

  With my back

  To the last frontier

  Of fear

  In my own land.

  Don’t know why I

  Must turn into

  A Mau Mau

  And lift my hand

  Against my fellow man

  To live on my own land.

  But it is so—

  And being so

  I know

  For you and me

  There’s

  Woe.

  LUMUMBA’S GRAVE

  Lumumba was black

  And he didn’t trust

  The whores all powdered

  With uranium dust.

  Lumumba was black

  And he didn’t believe

  The lies thieves shook

  Through their “freedom” sieve.

  Lumumba was black.

  His blood was red—

  And for being a man

  They killed him dead.

  They buried Lumumba

  In an unmarked grave.

  But he needs no marker—

  For air is his grave.

  Sun is his grave,

  Moon is, stars are,

  Space is his grave.

  My heart’s his grave,

  And it’s marked there.

  Tomorrow will mark

  It everywhere.

  COLOR

  Wear it

  Like a banner

  For the proud—

  Not like a shroud.

  Wear it

  Like a song

  Soaring high—

  Not moan or cry.

  QUESTION AND ANSWER

  Durban, Birmingham,

  Cape Town, Atlanta,

  Johannesburg, Watts,

  The earth around

  Struggling, fighting,

  Dying—for what?

  A world to gain.

  Groping, hoping,

  Waiting—for what?

  A world to gain.

  Dreams kicked asunder,

  Why not go under?

  There’s a world to gain.

  But suppose I don’t want it,

  Why take it?

  To remake it.

  HISTORY

  The past has been a mint

  Of blood and sorrow.

  That must not be

  True of tomorrow.

  6

  DINNER GUEST: ME

  DINNER GUEST: ME

  I know I am

  The Negro Problem

  Being wined and dined,

  Answering the usual questions

  That come to white mind

  Which seeks demurely

  To probe in polite way

  The why and wherewithal

  Of darkness U.S.A.—

  Wondering how things got this way

  In current democratic night,

  Murmuring gently

  Over fraises du bois,

  “I’m so ashamed of being white.”

  The lobster is delicious,

  The wine divine,

  And center of attention

  At the damask table, mine.

  To be a Problem on

  Park Avenue at eight

  Is not so bad.

  Solutions to the Problem,

  Of course, wait.

  NORTHERN LIBERAL

  And so

  we lick our chops at Birmingham

  and say, “See!

  Southern dogs have vindicated me—

  I knew that this would come.”

  But who are we to be

  so proud that savages

  have proven a point

  taken late in time

  to show how liberal I am?

  Above the struggle

  I can quite afford to be:

  well-fed, degreed,

  not beat—elite,

  up North.

  I send checks,

  support your cause,

  and lick my chops

  at Jim Crow laws

  and Birmingham—

  where you,

  not I

  am.

  SWEET WORDS ON RACE

  Sweet words that take

  Their own sweet time to flower

  And then so quickly wilt

  Within the inner ear,

  Belie the budding promise

  Of their pristine hour

  To wither in the

  Sultry air of fear.

  Sweet words so brave

  When danger is not near,

  I’ve heard

  So many times before,

  I’d just as leave

  Not hear them

  Anymore.

  UN-AMERICAN INVESTIGATORS

  The committee’s fat,

  Smug, almost secure

  Co-religionists

  Shiver with delight

  In warm manure

  As those investigated—

  Too brave to name a name—

  Have pseudonyms revealed

  In Gentile game

        Of who,

        Born Jew,

        Is who?

  Is not your name Lipshit
z?

        Yes.

  Did you not change it

  For subversive purposes?

        No.

  For nefarious gain?

        Not so.

  Are you sure?

  The committee shivers

  With delight in

  Its manure.

  SLAVE

  To ride piggy-back

  to the market of death

  there to purchase a slave,

  a slave who died young,

  having given up breath—

  unwittingly,

  of course—

  a slave who died young,

  perhaps from a fix

  with a rusty needle

  infected,

  to purchase a slave

  to the market of death

  I ride protected.

  UNDERTOW

  The solid citizens

  Of the country club set,

  Caught between

  Selma and Peking,

  Feel the rug of dividends,

  Bathmats of pride,

  Even soggy country club

  Pink paper towels

  Dropped on the MEN’S ROOM floor

  Slipping out from under them

  Like waves of sea

  Between Selma, Peking,

  Westchester

  And me.

  LITTLE SONG ON HOUSING

  Here I come!

  Been saving all my life

  To get a nice home

  For me and my wife.

        White folks flee—

        As soon as you see

        My problems

        And me!

  Neighborhood’s clean,

  But the house is old,

  Prices are doubled

  When I get sold:

  Still I buy.

        White folks fly—

        Soon as you spy

        My wife

        And I!

  Next thing you know,

  Our neighbors all colored are.

  The candy store’s

  Turned into a bar:

  White folks have left

  The whole neighborhood

  To my black self.

        White folks, flee!

        Still—there is me!

        White folks, fly!

        Here am I!

  CULTURAL EXCHANGE

  In the Quarter of the Negroes

  Where the doors are doors of paper

  Dust of dingy atoms

  Blows a scratchy sound.

  Amorphous jack-o’-lanterns caper

  and the wind won’t wait for midnight

  For fun to blow doors down.

  By the river and the railroad

  With fluid far-off going

  Boundaries bind unbinding

  A whirl of whistles blowing.

  No trains or steamboats going—

  Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.

  In the Quarter of the Negroes

  Where the doorknob lets in Lieder

  More than German ever bore,

  Her yesterday past grandpa—

  Not of her own doing—

  In a pot of collard greens

  Is gently stewing.

  Pushcarts fold and unfold

  In a supermarket sea.

  And we better find out, mama,

  Where is the colored laundromat

  Since we moved up to Mount Vernon.

  In the pot behind the paper doors

  On the old iron stove what’s cooking?

  What’s smelling, Leontyne?

  Lieder, lovely Lieder

  And a leaf of collard green.

  Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.

  You know, right at Christmas

  They asked me if my blackness,

  Would it rub off?

  I said, Ask your mama.

  Dreams and nightmares!

  Nightmares, dreams, oh!

  Dreaming that the Negroes

  Of the South have taken over—

  Voted all the Dixiecrats

  Right out of power—

  Comes the COLORED HOUR:

  Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,

  Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,

  A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.

  In white pillared mansions

  Sitting on their wide verandas,

  Wealthy Negroes have white servants,

  White sharecroppers work the black plantations,

  And colored children have white mammies:

                Mammy Faubus

                Mammy Eastland

                Mammy Wallace

  Dear, dear darling old white mammies—

  Sometimes even buried with our family.

                Dear old

                Mammy Faubus!

  Culture, they say, is a two-way street:

  Hand me my mint julep, mammy.

                Hurry up!

                Make haste!

  FROSTING

  Freedom

  Is just frosting

  On somebody else’s

  Cake—

  And so must be

  Till we

  Learn how to

  Bake.

  IMPASSE

  I could tell you,

  If I wanted to,

  What makes me

  What I am.

  But I don’t

  Really want to—

  And you don’t

  Give a damn.

  7

  DAYBREAK IN ALABAMA

  FREEDOM

  Freedom will not come

  Today, this year

        Nor ever

  Through compromise and fear.

  I have as much right

  As the other fellow has

        To stand

  On my two feet

  And own the land.

  I tire so of hearing people say,

  Let things take their course.

  Tomorrow is another day.

  I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.

  I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

        Freedom

        Is a strong seed

        Planted

        In a great need.

        I live here, too.

        I want freedom

        Just as you.

  GO SLOW

  Go slow, they say—

  While the bite

  Of the dog is fast.

  Go slow, I hear—

  While they tell me

  You can’t eat here!

  You can’t live here!

  You can’t work here!

  Don’t demonstrate! Wait!—

  While they lock the gate.

  Am I supposed to be God,

  Or an angel with wings

  And a halo on my head

  While jobless I starve dead?

  Am I supposed to forgive

  And meekly live

  Going slow, slow, slow,

  Slow, slow, slow,

  Slow, slow,

  Slow,

  Slow,

  Slow?

  ????

  ???

  ??

  ?

  MERRY-GO-ROUND

        Colored child

        at carnival

  Where is the Jim Crow section

  On this merry-go-round,

  Mister, cause I want to ride?

  Down South where I come from

&
nbsp; White and colored

  Can’t sit side by side.

  Down South on the train

  There’s a Jim Crow car.

  On the bus we’re put in the back—

  But there ain’t no back

  To a merry-go-round!

  Where’s the horse

  For a kid that’s black?

  DREAM DUST

  Gather out of star-dust

        Earth-dust,

        Cloud-dust,

  And splinters of hail,

  One handful of dream-dust

        Not for sale.

  STOKELY MALCOLM ME

  i have been seeking

  what i have never found

  what i don’t know what i want

  but it must be around

  i been upset

  since the day before last

  but that day was so long

  i done forgot when it passed

  yes almost forgot

  what i have not found

  but i know it must be

  somewhere around.

  you live in the Bronx

  so folks say.

  Stokely,

  did i ever live

  up your

  way?

  ???

  ??

  ?

  SLUM DREAMS

  Little dreams

  Of springtime

  Bud in sunny air

  With no roots

  To nourish them,

  Since no stems

  Are there—

  Detached,

  Naïve,

  So young.

  On air alone

  They’re hung.

  GEORGIA DUSK

  Sometimes there’s a wind in the Georgia dusk

  That cries and cries and cries

  In lonely pity through the Georgia dusk

  Veiling what the darkness hides.

  Sometimes there’s blood in the Georgia dusk