Folkways by Kamau Brathwaite

Folkways

 from "The Spades"

I

I am a fuck-

in' negro,

man, hole

in my head,

brains in

my belly;

black skin

red eyes

broad back

big you know

what; not very quick

to take offence

but once

offended, watch

that house

you livin' in

an' watch that lit-

tle sister.

My puffy pink-

faced sin-

ful palms

are hands

that hit

hard, hold no

futures.

The precious life-

line readings there

outline no

ready fortunes.

Just hard hands,

man, spade hard

and licensed

with their blisters.

I am a fuck-

in' negro,

man, hole

in my head,

brains in 

my belly;

steel

hits the rock

and the borad blade

shivers, eye

sockets bulge and

burn with the 

shock, sweat

silvers the

back until I feel

bad, mother, I feel

like the sick

dog kicked from the

garbage, the snicked

hawk gripped in its tightening circle

of air.  This is the hate

that makes my skin

stink, gives me my body

odour.  And I feel

bad, mother, I feel

like a drum with a hole

in its belly, an old

horse lost at the hurdle.

But don't touch

me now, don't hold

me; for the good 

God's sake, if you scheme-

in' now to relieve

me now, to sweet

talk me now, to support

me now, just forget

it now, please forsake

me now.  Just watch

me fall in the mud

o' my dreams

with my face in the cow-

pen, down

at heart, down

at hope, down

at heel.

But bes' leh we get to rass

o' this place; out o' this

ass hole, out o' the stink o' this

hell.

To rass

o' this work-song singin' you singing'

the chant o' this work chain

gang, an' the blue bell

o' this horn that is blowin' the Lou-

ee Armstrong blues; keep them

for Alan Lomax, man, for them

swell

folkways records, man

that does sell for two pounds ten.  But get

me out'a this place, you hear, where my dreams are wet

as hell.