"tubercular" poems
walking down park
amsterdam
or columbus do you ever stop
to think what it looked like
before it was an avenue
did you ever stop to think
what you walked
before you rode
subways to the stock
exchange (we can’t be on
the stock exchange
we are the stock
exchanged)
did you ever maybe wonder
what grass was like before
they rolled it
into a ball and called
it central park
where syphilitic dogs
and their two-legged tubercular
masters fertilize
the corners and side-walks
ever want to know what would happen
if your life could be fertilized
by a love thought
from a loved one
who loves you
ever look south
on a clear day and not see
time’s squares but see
tall Birch trees with sycamores
touching hands
and see gazelles running playfully
after the lions
ever hear the antelope bark
from the third floor apartment
ever, did you ever, sit down
and wonder about what freedom’s freedom
would bring
it’s so easy to be free
you start by loving yourself
then those who look like you
all else will come
naturally
ever wonder why
so much asphalt was laid
in so little space
probably so we would forget
the Iroquois, Algonquin
and Mohicans who could caress
the earth
ever think what Harlem would be
like if our herbs and roots and elephant ears
grew sending
a cacophony of sound to us
the parrot parroting black is beautiful black is beautiful
owls sending out whooooo’s making love ...
and me and you just sitting in the sun trying
to find a way to get a banana tree from one of the monkeys
koala bears in the trees laughing at our listlessness
ever think its possible
for us to be
happy
Nikki Giovanni, “Walking Down Park” from The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni. Copyright © 1996 by Nikki Giovanni.
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 1:17 PM UTC
I saw the rest of my kind scour against the streets, hands calloused-laden,
wizened by erratic explosions – nondescript music analogous to silence;
terse sleep stiff in wind, homes filled with tension, arrow-headed men
quiver through the busy streets as tatterdemalion as stray dogs.
inverted triangle, sidereal vertigo, mutilated rose and the beheaded tulip.
the ambiguous spiral of the downcast climb. I see all men maddened
by wine over the rooftops.
choking in dank light – the night exudes its flayed machinery.
an empty bottle of whiskey and a body stripped of skin melded with fright
raised higher than the maladroit sky.
I, whose name is but an algorithm of formlessness. I, whose silence is but the contemplation of stone. I,
whose voice toboggans like a tender ramshackle of incantations
filling tubercular pockets with spare hope yet none are we but only poorer.
whose fingers are but tired girls tousling in bed lacquered by sunsets – whose nails are paler
than a ****** of moonlight, whose homes are inflamed hemmed in by petticoats,
whose eyes set affixed to no avatars in juxtaposition of parks
falling madly in love with everything that glints.
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 1:08 AM UTC
You’re a book
A book with a convoluted plot, sometimes it’s hard keeping up
I’m slowly trying to learn you
I tread ever-so-care-fully
But when you are naked you are much more complaisant
It feels like we’re on the same page
In the penumbral light of my bedroom I climb on top of you and begin to kiss you
Under the sheets it is as if we are pigeons in the eaves, safe and cosy
Two souls coming together via flesh
My hands reach out for your *******
They reach out for love.
I see you in a new light.
I see you waking up with me in the first light of the morning
White bed sheets and sleepy smiles, your hair tousled
Your eyes plain, your lips unrouged
You’re skin is soft
We make love and have breakfast outside.
My muse.
The sun rises too fast
I find myself looking at you,
Perfect white teeth and a symmetrical face.
I’m way too fond of you to notice flaws
But if I did, wouldn’t they just serve to particularise your beauty?
It’s alright this, isn’t it?
This kind of connubial life we’re living.
Words are all I have.
I am a poet and you like my tongue
This very tongue that holds the small space between your thighs and makes you tremble,
This very tongue that, you say, sounds very unAfrican-
Why don’t you write like an African child?
Well, it is because of the way I grew up and the where I grew up and the who I grew up with.
Like that? Does that sound African enough?
The first time I took my t shirt off in front of you, you said I was thin
No, no,
I remember exactly what you called me: tubercular.
You are bold. I like that a lot.
But also, you’re kind of a *****
I am in love with you, the whole of you.
You and your nice smelling hair.
You and your dreamy brown eyes.
You and your half-hearted ********
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 4:55 PM UTC
i,m electric. its, the pisshard light
crapping ugly vowels off the bulbs
on the stree tonthestreet spitting webs
of iridescent ridiculous tubercular scarlet
folds of loose legs
akimbo receptive culling frilly cotton
nets
about their thighs. their thighs crying
white dark femurs
blasting hot
on my i's. on my eyes. on my
punch heavy brooding crumble
slashing the serious night air nightmare
night blaring
neon daughters
dna
in little flecks
some cordial bums; laugh ******** nonsense
birds. they're a bottle away. a bottle away
a oblivion. sip sip. drink your soul away
and rude the clean folks
passing on the asphalt rivers
veining in the cold hot bright darkness
Oct 22, 2010
Oct 22, 2010 at 12:52 PM UTC
Into sky
Synthetic sky
Into cloudless recesses of
Artificial sun
Help me lift it up
Tubercular layers
And acetylene light
Below I sleep in a spiderweb
Where scavenger's reign
By design
Delicate
Intricate
Singularity
Worn for a vow
Worn as a shroud
Our night is falling
I come and stand
At every door
Next to manufactured girls
Hoping to lift you up
The ghosts they draw
On my back
Want no light to shine
And so I must
Leave it behind
For the man coming after me
Jun 6, 2024
Jun 6, 2024 at 2:59 PM UTC
If I asked you politely
Would you quietly **** off?
The crap you keep saying
Is like a tubercular cough.
If lies were visible to us
You’d look like a gas cloud.
You don’t just think like a fool
You say it all out loud.
Take a ride on the Reading
Do not pass go.
Go directly to jail, ****
For a decade or so.
You don’t have any credit
With me, that is for sure.
If you are a disease I bet
Science hasn’t found a cure.
It’s almost like nobody has
Ever taught you about things
Like transparent lying, and
Disgusting racist mutterings.
The only thing that stinks more
Than you is your philosophy.
It’s just psychotic ramblings
And not much else to me.
You’ve lost all your possessions
From decisions you have made.
Now your half interest in hell is
A thousand degrees in the shade.
When you talk, nobody listens
Because they know you will lie.
We hide when we see you coming
And come out after you pass by.
Take a ride on the Reading
Do not pass go.
Go directly to jail, ****
For a decade or so.
You don’t have any credit
With me, that is for sure.
If you are a disease I bet
Science hasn’t found a cure.
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 6:30 PM UTC
under the tubercular sky
we wonder where to go
the pulse of midnight rain
one times one
picture postcards
of broken hearts
iron dreams
the alchemy of memories
in a gyzym of consciousness
forever was never till now
the everyanything of conversation
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 6:32 AM UTC