From the earliest poems of Langston Hughes.
I do not hate you,
For your faces are beautiful, too.
I do not hate you,
Your faces are whirling lights of loveliness and splendor, too.
Yet why do you torture me,
O, white strong ones,
Why do you torture me?
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Counterclockwise stir coffee
Tea not at all
The moon and stars disjoint
Life the reconstructed south
I bend oak shafts
Weave reeds
Wallow in willow leaves
Life is a thicket
I sigh a lot
Coffee just a cheap trick
Learned from randy goats
With no tea leaf portent
Come for tea at 4
I drink a bit at 5
With any luck
I’ll be three sheets by 6
And won’t remember her
Black is color of my life. Black are my lover’s eyes. Black her swaddling clothes. She races life in black stilettos, my, my, my. Black is life before creation. Black is life after the apocalypse. The night sky is Black crepe with junkie tracks we call stars. Black like me. Yes. Yes. Black is the color of my heart. Black are my tears. Black is my blood, It vanishes into the black earth. The pits of hell are black. My deeds are black. My future is black. My children are black. The stories I read them have black morals. My children will come to a black end. They are young, gifted and too black. Shoe shine black. Boot black. Tar baby black. Black gold. Black is beautiful. Black is where it’s at. Jazz is black. Didn’t you know. Blues is black. Black is blues. Just a variation. But it’s black. I read black. I buy black. I f**k black. God is Black. You didn’t know that either. Black is the road. Black is the fast car shuffling us to the brink of humiliation. The President is Black. It’s a black thing. That’s a black joke. Black is the long journey perforated by an occasional riot we call color. Black is what we close our eyes to. Remember that. Black is what we close our eyes to. And still we rise because what else are we to do. We are Black.
Fried Chicken & Philosophy 