The Author Reflects on His 35th Birthday by Ishmael Reed

The Author Reflects on His 35th Birthday

35? I have been looking forward 

To you for many years now 

So much so that 

I feel you and I are old 

Friends and so on this day, 35 

I propose a toast to 

Me and You 

35? From this day on 

I swear before the bountiful 

Osiris that 

If I ever 

If I EVER 

Try to bring out the 

Best in folks again I 

Want somebody to take me 

Outside and kick me up and 

Down the sidewalk or 

Sit me in a corner with a 

Funnel on my head 

Make me as hard as a rock 

35, like the fellow in 

The story about the 

Big one that got away 

Let me laugh my head off 

With Moby Dick as we reminisce 

About them suckers who went 

Down with the Pequod 

35? I ain’t been mean enough 

Make me real real mean 

Mean as old Marie rolling her eyes 

Mean as the town Bessie sings about 

“Where all the birds sing bass” 

35? Make me Tennessee mean 

Cobra mean 

Cuckoo mean 

Injun mean 

Dracula mean 

Beethovenian-brows mean 

Miles Davis mean 

Don’t-offer-assistance-when 

Quicksand-is-tugging-some-poor 

Dope-under-mean 

Pawnbroker mean 

Pharaoh mean 

That’s it, 35 

Make me Pharaoh mean 

Mean as can be 

Mean as the dickens 

Meaner than mean 

When I walk down the street 

I want them to whisper 

There goes Mr. Mean 

“He’s double mean 

He even turned the skeletons 

In his closet out into 

The cold” 

And 35? 

Don’t let me trust anybody 

Over Reed but 

Just in case 

Put a tail on that 

Negro too