Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems by James Baldwin Read Free Book Online

this
    garbage
.
    He willed his thigh not to tremble
    against his son’s head.
    He said,
Why are you here?
    And they said, together,
    We got some questions to ask you!
    Then. Elizabeth asked,
    Are you arresting my husband?
    And they said, together,
    Yeah. Come on, Buster. Move it
.
    He woke up. The door-bell rang.

Song For The Shepherd Boy
    What wouldn’t I give
    to be with you.
    Hey. The rags of my life are few.
    Abandoned priceless gems are scattered
    here and there
    I don’t know where—
    never expected to have them,
    much less need them,
    but, now, an ache, like the beginning
    of the rain,
    makes me wonder where they are.
    If I knew, I would go there,
    travelling far and far
    and find them
    to give them to you.
    You
    would be amazed.
    I see your amber color raised
    and those eyes—!
    brighter than the jewels, far
    more amazing than the loot
    of my looted life.
    Well. Then.
    There is my pain.
    I never thought to think
    of it again.
    And pain’s no gift
    it will not lift
    you up from the mid-night hour.
    Pain cannot be given,
    can only be tracked down,
    discovered
    somewhere—somewhere within that catacomb,
    that maze, that dungeon,
    which my breath built,
    and in which I begin to move,
    now,
    searching
    for something to give to you.
    May ’86, Amherst
    (for David)

For A.
    Sitting in the house, with everything on my mind.
    Stumbling in my house, watching my lover go stone-blind.
    Come back from that window. Please don’t open that door!
    I know where it leads. It leads to hell, and more
    than your blinded eyes can see. Come back,
    come back, and try to lean on me.
    I’m here, I’m here, I’ve gone nowhere away:
    if only you could see!
    How is it we have travelled, you and me,
    through happy days, and torment, and not guessed
    that we could find ourselves so black, unblessed,
    so far apart?
    You are my heart:
    I watched you sleep and watched you play.
    I slapped your buttocks every day.
    I used to laugh with you when you laughed
    and stand, when you stood up, and, with you,
    watched the land drop down beneath us,
    green and brown and crooked,
    as we rose up, up into a sky
    which we alone had found
    and where we were alone. Too much alone, perhaps.
    Perhaps we were as wicked as people said,
    turning to each other for the living bread!
    And, now: I have taken your hope away, you say,
    and you think of me, sometimes, as the most
    monstrous of old men. No matter:
    if I could only make you see
    how you must live when you are far away from me.
    If only I could see for you, if I could for you spell
    the vast contours of hell!
    If I could tell you how, on such a road,
    where I walked once, I stumbled and fell and howled:
    how you must walk the road, and not be driven
    into the great wilderness, by some false dream of heaven!
    I have been there, and I know. But I know, too,
    that nothing I say now will get to you.
    You have your journey now, and I have mine.
    And all day and all night long
    I have waited for a sign
    which will not be given to us now.
    Love,
    love has no gifts to give
    except the revelation that the soul can live:
    on a coming day,
    you will hear, from afar,
    I, your lover, pray.
    You will hear, then, the prayer that you cannot hear now,
    and, when you hear that sobbing, boy, rejoice,
    and know that love is the purpose of the human voice!
    Neuilly s/Seine
    July 23, 1970

For EARL
    I wish I had known more
    than love ever knows, in time.
    One imagines that time
    gives the time
    to quarrel,
    correct, tyrannize,
    and love.
    Baby brother,
    the light of your passage
    has become the light in my own:
    and I had planned it,
bambino
,
    quite the other way around.
    Enough. So much for plans.
    Enough of calculations.
    I will never see you
    as I saw you,
    again,
    never touch you or kiss you
    or scold you again.
    You were very patient with me
    very loving
    but I was sure that I would die before you
    and wanted you to be able to live without me.
    So much for calculations.
    So much for