wordplayground

i
am going to rise
en masse
from Inner City
		     sick
		   of newyork ghettos
		chicago tenements
	      1 a’s slums
weary
	of exhausted lands
	sagging privies
	saying yessuh yessah
	yes SIR
	in an asortment
	of geographical dialects i
have seen my last
broken down plantation
even from a 
distance
	i
will load all my books
in ’50 Chevy pickups ‘53
Fords fly United and ‘66
caddys i 
	have packed in 
        the old man and the old lady and 
	wiped the children’s noses
	I’m tired 
	of hand me downs
	  shut me ups
	    pin me ins
	      keep me outs 
	    messing me over have
	      just had it
	      baby
	    from
	you . . . 
i’m 
gonna spread out
over America 
	intrude
my proud blackness
all
   over the place
	I have wrested wheat fields 
	from the forests
	turned rivers
	from their courses
	leveled mountains
	at a word
	festooned the land with
bridges
	     gemlike 
    on filaments of steel 
	     moved
glistening towers of Babel in place
  sweated a whole 
  civilization
		now
		    I’m 
gonna breathe fire
through flaming nostrils BURN
       a place for
		me
in the skyscrapers and the 
schoolrooms on the green 
lawns and the white 
beaches
		i’m
gonna wear the robes and
sit on the benches
make the rules and make
the arrests say
who can and who
can’t 
	baby you don’t stand 
	a
	chance
i’m 
   gonna put black angels 
   in all the books and a black
   Christchild in Mary’s arms i’m
   gonna make black bunnies black
   fairies black santas black
   nursery rhymes and
		     black
   ice cream
		i’m 
gonna make it a 
   crime
	to be anything BUT black
	pass the coppertone
gonna make white 
a twentyfourhour
lifetime
J.O.B.
	     an’ when all the coppertone’s gone . . . ?