Read Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie Online
Authors: Maya Angelou
Copyright
©
1971 by Maya Angelou
All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by
Random House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada
by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
The following poems were first published in
The Poetry of Maya Angelou
and are reprinted
by permission of Hirt Music Inc.
Copyright
©
1969 by Hirt Music Inc.:
  Â
“They Went Home,” “The Gamut,”
  Â
“To a Man,” “No Loser, No Weeper,”
  Â
“When You Come to Me, “Remembering,”
  Â
“In a Time,” “Tears,” “The Detached,”
  Â
“To a Husband,” “Accident,” “Let's
  Â
Majeste” or the “Ego and I,”
  Â
“On Diverse Deviations,” “Mourning Grace,”
  Â
“Sounds Like Pearls,” “When I Think
  Â
About Myself,” “Letter to an Aspiring
  Â
Junkie,” “Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett & Other
  Â
Latter-Day Saints,” “Faces,” “To a Freedom
  Â
Fighter,” “Riot: 60's,” “No No No No,”
  Â
“Black Ode,” “My Guilt,” “The Calling of
  Â
Names,” “On Working White Liberals,”
  Â
“Sepia Fashion Show,” “The Thirteens
  Â
(Black),” “The Thirteens (White),”
  Â
“Harlem Hopscotch.”
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-156964
eISBN: 978-0-307-83327-3
Random House Website address:
http://www.randomhouse.com/
v3.1
To AMBER SAM
     Â
and the ZORRO MAN
They went home and told their wives,
  that never once in all their lives,
  had they known a girl like me,
But â¦Â They went home.
They said my house was licking clean,
  no word I spoke was ever mean,
  I had an air of mystery,
But â¦Â They went home.
My praises were on all men's lips,
  they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,
  they'd spend one night, or two or three.
But â¦
Soft you day, be velvet soft,
  My true love approaches,
Look you bright, you dusty sun,
  Array your golden coaches.
  Soft you wind, be soft as silk
My true love is speaking.
  Hold you birds, your silver throats,
His golden voice I'm seeking.
Come you death, in haste, do come
  My shroud of black be weaving,
Quiet my heart, be deathly quiet,
  My true love is leaving.
Here
in the wombed room
silk purple drapes
flash a light as subtle
as your hands before
love-making
Here
in the covered lens
I catch a
clitoral image of
your general inhabitation
long and like a
late dawn in winter
Here
this clean mirror
traps me unwilling
in a gone time
when I was love
and you were booted and brave
and trembling for me.
My man is
Black Golden Amber
Changing.
Warm mouths of Brandy Fine
Cautious sunlight on a patterned rug
Coughing laughter, rocked on a whorl of French tobacco
Graceful turns on woolen stilts
Secretive?
A cat's eye.
Southern. Plump and tender with navy bean sullenness
And did I say “Tender”?
The gentleness
A big cat stalks through stubborn bush
And did I mention “Amber”?
The heatless fire consuming itself.
Again. Anew. Into ever neverlessness.
My man is Amber
Changing
Always into itself
New. Now New.
Still itself.
Still.
Carefully
the leaves of autumn
sprinkle down the tinny
sound of little dyings
and skies sated
of ruddy sunsets
of roseate dawns
roil ceaselessly in
cobweb greys and turn
to black
for comfort.
Only lovers
see the fall
a signal end to endings
a gruffish gesture alerting
those who will not be alarmed
that we begin to stop
in order simply
to begin
again.
“I hate to lose something,”
  then she bent her head
“even a dime, I wish I was dead.
I can't explain it. No more to be said.
Cept I hate to lose something.”
“I lost a doll once and cried for a week.
She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.
I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching-sneak
I tell you, I hate to lose something.”
“A watch of mine once, got up and walked away.
It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day.
I'll never forget it and all I can say
Is I really hate to lose something.”
“Now if I felt that way bout a watch and a toy,
What you think I feel bout my lover-boy?
I ain't threatening you madam, but he is my evening's joy.
And I mean I really hate to lose something.”
  When you come to me, unbidden,
Beckoning me
  To long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.
  Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
  Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
  Trunks of secret words,
      I CRY.
Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleeve
to peer into my eyes
while I within deny their threats
and answer them with lies.
Mushlike memories perform
a ritual on my lips
I lie in stolid hopelessness
and they lay my soul in strips.
In a time of secret wooing
Today prepares tomorrow's ruin
Left knows not what right is doing
My heart is torn asunder.
In a time of furtive sighs
Sweet hellos and sad goodbyes
Half-truths told and entire lies
My conscience echoes thunder
In a time when kingdoms come
Joy is brief as summer's fun
Happiness, its race has run
Then pain stalks in to plunder.
Tears
The crystal rags
Viscous tatters
of a worn-through soul
Moans
Deep swan song
Blue farewell
of a dying dream.
We die,
Welcoming Bluebeards to our darkening closets,
Stranglers to our outstretched necks.
  Stranglers, who neither care nor
  care to know that
 Â
DEATH IS INTERNAL
.
We pray,
Savoring sweet the teethed lies,
Bellying the grounds before alien gods
  Gods, who neither know nor
  wish to know that
 Â
HELL IS INTERNAL
.
We love,
Rubbing the nakednesses with gloved hands
Inverting our mouths in tongued kisses,
  Kisses that neither touch nor
  care to touch if
 Â
LOVE IS INTERNAL
.
Your voice at times a fist
  Tight in your throat
Jabs ceaselessly at phantoms
  In the room,
Your hand a carved and
  skimming boat
Goes down the Nile
  To point out Pharoah's tomb.
You're Africa to me
  At brightest dawn.
The Congo's green and
  Copper's brackish hue,
A continent to build
  With Black Man's brawn.
I sit at home and see it all
  Through you.
tonight
  when you spread your pallet
of magic,
  I escaped.
sitting apart,
  I saw you grim and unkempt.
Your vulgar-ness
  not of living
your demands
  not from need.
tonight
  as you sprinkled your brain-dust
of rainbows,
  I had no eyes.
Seeing all
I saw the colors fade
and change.
  The blood, red dulled
through the dyes,
and the naked
Black-White truth.