Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie by Maya Angelou Page B

ear.
    Doubt and fear,
    Â Â Ungainly things,
    With blushings
    Â Â Disappear.

PART TWO
Just Before the World Ends

When I Think About Myself
    When I think about myself,
    I almost laugh myself to death,
    My life has been one great big joke,
    A dance that’s walked
    A song that’s spoke,
    I laugh so hard I almost choke
    When I think about myself.
    Sixty years in these folks’ world
    The child I works for calls me girl
    I say “Yes ma’am” for working’s sake.
    Too proud to bend
    Too poor to break,
    I laugh until my stomach ache,
    When I think about myself.
    My folks can make me split my side,
    I laughed so hard I nearly died,
    The tales they tell, sound just like lying,
    They grow the fruit,
    But eat the rind,
    I laugh until I start to crying,
    When I think about my folks.
On a Bright Day, Next Week
    On a bright day, next week
    Just before the bomb falls
    Just before the world ends,
    Â Â Just before I die
    All my tears will powder
    Black in dust like ashes
    Black like Buddha’s belly
    Â Â Black and hot and dry
    Then will mercy tumble
    Falling down in godheads
    Falling on the children
    Â Â Falling from the sky
Letter to an Aspiring Junkie
    Let me hip you to the streets,
    Jim,
    Ain’t nothing happening.
    Maybe some tomorrows gone up in smoke,
    raggedy preachers, telling a joke
    to lonely, son-less old ladies’ maids.
    Nothing happening,
    Nothing shakin’, Jim.
    A slough of young cats riding that
    cold, white horse,
    a grey old monkey on their back, of course
    does rodeo tricks.
    No haps, man.
    No haps.
    A worn-out pimp, with a space-age conk,
    setting up some fool for a game of tonk,
    or poker or
    get ’em dead and alive.
    The streets?
    Climb into the streets man, like you climb
    into the ass end of a lion.
    Then it’s fine.
    It’s a bug-a-loo and a shing-a-ling,
    African dreams on a buck-and-a-wing and a prayer.
    That’s the streets man,
    Nothing happening.
Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett and Other Latter-Day Saints
    Novitiates sing Ave
    Before the whipping posts,
    Criss-crossing their breasts and
    tear-stained robes
    in the yielding dark.
    Animated by the human sacrifice
    (Golgotha in black-face)
    Priests glow purely white on the
    bar-relief of a plantation shrine.
    (O Sing)
    You are gone but not forgotten
    Hail, Scarlett. Requiescat in pace.
    God-Makers smear brushes in
    blood/gall
    to etch frescoes on your
    ceilinged tomb.
    (O Sing)
    Hosanna, King Kotton.
    Shadowed couplings of infidels
    tempt stigmata from the nipples
    of your true-believers.
    (Chant Maternoster)
    Hallowed Little Eva.
    Ministers make novena with the
    charred bones of four
    very small
    very black
    very young children
    (Intone DIXIE)
    And guard the relics
    of your intact hymen
    daily putting to death,
    into eternity,
    The stud, his seed,
    His seed
    His seed.
    (O Sing)
    Hallelujah, pure Scarlett
    Blessed Rhett, the Martyr.
Times-Square-Shoeshine-Composition
    I’m the best that ever done it
    (pow pow)
    Â Â that’s my title and I won it
    Â Â (pow pow)
    I ain’t lying, I’m the best
    (pow pow)
    Â Â Come and put me to the test
    Â Â (pow pow)
    I’ll clean ’em til they squeak
    (pow pow)
    Â Â In the middle of next week,
    Â Â (pow pow)
    I’ll shine ’em til they whine
    (pow pow)
    Â Â Till they call me master mine
    Â Â (pow pow)
    For a quarter and a dime
    (pow pow)
    Â Â You can get the dee luxe shine
    Â Â (pow pow)
    Say you wanta pay a quarter?
    (pow pow)
    Â Â Then you give that to your daughter
    Â Â (pow pow)
    I ain’t playing dozens mister
    (pow pow)
    Â Â You can give it to your sister
    Â Â (pow pow)
    Any way you want to read it
    (pow pow)
    Â Â Maybe it’s your momma need it.
    Â Â (pow pow)
    Say I’m like a greedy bigot,
    (pow pow)
    Â Â I’m a cap’tilist, can you dig it?
    Â Â (pow pow)
Faces
    Faces and more remember
    then reject
    the brown caramel days of youth
    Reject the