AP'S FRAGMENTS
No words speak louder
Than the tragic look of eyes
Close yours out of love.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit
a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
t's the fire in my eyes
and the flash of my teeth
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed
don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair.
The palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Were you anything
But what you are...
A dream come true
And now a dream again...
I might have you back!
But having had you once
And lost you,
It is too much
To want you back again!
I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field.
A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.
It often does not take more than that
to help at times-
to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love
that they don’t
- chat,
they just gaze with their
marvelous understanding.
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us - you know!
How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell your name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived here.
This is to have succeeded.
Love came along and saved me saved me
However, my life remains
the same as before.
What shall I do now that I have
what I've always been looking for.
I can see no cause for worry
'Bout a future heaven or hell,
For the thing has long been settled
And it's plain as tongue can tell;
And it's mighty poor religion
That won't keep a man from fear;
For the next place must be heaven,
Since 'tis hell we are having here.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load
Or does it explode?
Come,
Let us roam the night together
Singing.
I love you.
Across
The Harlem roof-tops
Moon is shining.
Night sky is blue.
Stars are great drops
Of golden dew.
In the cabaret
The jazz-band's playing.
I love you.
Come,
Let us roam the night together
Singing.
I was a red man one time,
But the white men came.
I was a black man, too,
But the white men came.
They drove me out of the forest.
They took me away from the jungles.
I lost my trees.
I lost my silver moons.
Now they've caged me
In the circus of civilization.
Now I herd with the many-
Caged in the circus of civilization.
Within this grave I lie,
Yes, I.
Why laugh, good people,
Or why cry?
Within this grave
Lies nothing more
Than I.
Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean—
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,-
I loved my friend.
To love someone else is easy, but to love what you are, the thing that is yourself, is just as if you were embracing a glowing red-hot iron: it burns into you and that is very painful. Therefore, to love somebody else in the first place is always an escape which we all hope for, and we all enjoy it when we are capable of it. But in the long run, it comes back on us. You cannot stay away from yourself forever, you have to return, have to come to that experiment, to know whether you really can love. That is the question-whether you can love yourself, and that will be the test.
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beach, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
I don't think existence wants you to be serious. I have not seen a serious tree. I have not seen a serious bird. I have not seen a serious sunrise. I have not seen a serious starry night. It seems they are all laughing in their own ways, dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration.
Leaving again. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be grieving. The particulars of place lodged in me, like this room I lived in for eleven days, how I learned the way the sun laid its palm over the side window in the morning, heavy light, how I'll never be held in that hand again.
After all—to have loved, wasn't that the object?
Love is the only thing in life
but then you can love too much
or the wrong way, you lose
yourself or you lose
the person
or you strangle each other
Maybe the object of love is
to have loved
greatly
at one time or another
Like a cinema trailer
watched long ago
If some long unborn friend
Looks at photos in pity,
we say, sure we were happy,
but it was not in the wind.
Let’s love each other
let's cherish each other, my friend,
before we lose each other.
You'll long for me when I'm gone.
You'll make a truce with me.
So why put me on trial while I'm alive?
Why adore the dead but battle the living?
You'll kiss the headstone of my grave.
Look, I'm lying here still as a corpse,
dead as a stone. Kiss my face instead!
Don't think!
Quit pouring thoughts like kerosene,
on everything fresh and green,
burning it to the root.
Be a fool! Drunk on Love, soaked in awe
till dry reeds are sweet as sugarcane.
A lion leaps out of his cage.
A man leaps out of his mind
Bravery is delicious madness,
not some circumspect, cagey thought,
sly and ungiving
Why scheme for a morsel?
Curb your insatiable hunger
and you won't be seduced by a trickster
or reduced to being one.
When greed groans,
I act deaf.
If you quit thinking for one hour,
what will happen?
If you plunge like a fish into Love's ocean,
what will happen?
When worries keep you up at night,
picture the seven sleepers
slumbering in a cave for centuries, resting in faith.
You'll be filled with holy light
no matter where you lay your head.
Straw man,
at the end of your straw world,
there's a fragrant field of amber.
If you leap from your high haystack and join us,
what new heights will you reach?
Again and again, you vowed to be humble as soil.
You broke your word every time.
When you keep it, what will bloom?
You are a gem covered in mud and clay.
Your beautiful face is hidden.
You came down from the heavens.
The high angel adores you and still,
you feel like a poor wretch.
If you remember who you are,
what will you become?
You seek truth but you don't trust
a single truth teller. I know a true seer.
Listen to him. See what happens.
A fragment, a hand longing for its body,
you dream of greatness,
grandiose fantasies,
gripped by greed, gripped by pride.
Give yourself up.
Give yourself over to glory.
See what happens.
You are a mountain tull of gold.
Open the mine. Let the mountain speak.
Hear what happens.
I lost myself but am longing to lose myself more
I lost myself but am longing to lose myself more.
I tell your eyes that I am longing to be as drunk as you.
I don't long for a crown. I don't long for a throne.
Ilong to bow to the ground in your service.
My beautiful beloved grabs me by the throat.
You say, "What do you long for?"
I say, "This!"
I long for the morning breezes to breathe.
I have my breath but long for someone
to tell secrets to.
I am in the circle of pilgrims.
I am safe from misfortune.
I am wax beneath your seal, longing
for the press of your ring.
Another moon is hiding inside the moon.
I am sure of this truth as I look into your true eyes.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread, Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life