NEW RELEASE / THE LYRICS
No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin
by Meshell Ndegeocello (76 mins)
A word about the words
This musical project has been led and developed by Meshell Ndegeocello over a period of almost 10 years. The lyrics below come from the Genius online lyric site. However, they vary in a number of instances from what’s sung and spoken on the album. The lyrics are reproduced below. They’re also accessible by clicking on the song title links. Enjoy.
Meshell Ndegeocello
No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin
Travel Lyrics
2
On The Mountain Lyrics
3
Baldwin Manifesto I Lyrics
4
Raise The Roof Lyrics
5
The Price Of The Ticket Lyrics
6
What Did I Do? Lyrics
7
Pride I Lyrics
8
Pride II Lyrics
9
Eyes Lyrics
10
Trouble Lyrics
11
Thus Sayeth The Lorde Lyrics
12
Love Lyrics
13
Hatred Lyrics
14
Tsunami Rising Lyrics
15
Another Country Lyrics
16
Baldwin Manifesto II Lyrics
17
Down At The Cross Lyrics
TRAVEL
The opening track of Meshell Ndegéocello’s album No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin is about the inner monologue of a man with suicidal thoughts, which is a recurring motif in Baldwin’s work, whose nonfiction essay book “The Fire Next Time” this album honors.
Travel” by Meshell Ndegéocello was written by Abe Rounds, Chris Bruce, Jake Sherman, James Baldwin, Jebin Bruni, Julius Rodriguez, Justin Hicks, Meshell Ndegéocello & Staceyann Chin.
[Intro]
Balance
Balance
Balance
Bodies
Bodies
Bodies
Water
Water
Gold
Water
Magic, gold
Pact
Dragged
Mercy
Mercy, gold
Mercy
Breathing
Breathing, place
Swollen
Place
Place
Arms
Arms, mouthing (quiet), bathing, space
Breathing
[Verse 1]
I’ve been
Flying
Naked
Dying
Behind
Now I go ahead
Just to see
How long I can breathe
[Chorus]
Somewhere else to be
I stay away
With all the work to be done
I’ll be bleeding as you bake in the sun
Do I have to be good all the time
When I can just leave
[Verse 2]
How to (how to)
Measure (measure)
Weight like
Tissue
Pressure (frying)
So long as my navigation is working, I know (pressure, searching)
No train in the station is going so far (crying, tissue, frying)
That you and your nation will try to deny how much you need me (pleasure, pleasure, pleasure)
Need me (pleasure)
[Chorus]
Somewhere else to be (pleasure, pleasure)
I’ll stay away
With all the work that I’ve done
And the races I that I ran in your name
I keep rising above all the time
But I can’t just leave
[Interlude]
Space, space
Breathing
Space, wonder, wonder
Wonder, you
Tissue
Under, under
Frying
You
Pleasure
Under, under
Culture
You
Climbing
Magic
Tissue
Space, space
Frying
Space, under, under
Pressure
You
Magic
Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure
Space, space
Pleasure
Space, under, under
Pleasure
You
Magic
[Chorus]
Some
Somewhere else to be (somewhere else to be) (under, under, under, you, magic, breathing, under, under, under, under, under, magic)
Somewhere else to be (to be, to be)
Somewhere else to be (to be)
[Outro]
[?]
Culture (under, under, you)
Climbing (breathing)
Tissue (under, under)
Frying (you)
Be glad
Be glad
Pleasure
Pleasure
Pleasure
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting
Waiting (her love)
Waiting (I can breathe)
ON THE MOUNTAIN
God made his face, made his hands, made his mouth, that black griot tongue spitting out a call to revolution, not a revolution of blood, but of the mind and hands, that which builds not destroys, that which lives in faith, not in the untruths of the world
God made his face, and in that face the revolution that was his griot mouth, the ferocity of truth in his eyes, his hands, these stories, with him and in us, gather your hands, your stories, gather, gather, gather in his name, gather, gather
With the powers that be, Nothing is planned It’s a shame
Cuz I don’t like workin too hard
The pressure to rule with power
When common sense is in
Like Your heart it beats too slow
There’s a world to overthrow
Like your heart
Too slow too slow
People who don’t never will
Kill you in the morning
Certainly responsible almost
With the powers that be
Freedom’s a sham
It’s a shame
Cuz I don’t like lovin’ too hard
Like your heart
It beats too slow
Too slow
Kill you in the morning
Too slow
Like your heart
Like your heart beats too slow
Cuz I don’t like lovin’ too hard
With the powers that be
BALDWIN MANIFESTO ONE
Written by James Baldwin
That the artist’s struggle for integrity is a kind of metaphor for the universal and daily struggle for all human beings on the face of this terrifying globe to get to become human beings
It is not our fault, not my fault that I write
I would never have come before you in the position of a complainant for something I must do
What we might get at this evening, if we are lucky
If the mic doesn’t fail, if my voice holds out, is what the importance of this effort is
I want to suggest two propositions
The first one is that the poets, by which I mеan all artists, are the only peoplе who know the truth about us
Soldiers don’t
Statesmen don’t
Priests don’t
Union leaders don’t
Only the poets
That is my first proposition
RAISE THE ROOF
White supremacy must be in the water
Ingested by police/the prosecutor
And the politicians
Who remain silent while a steady staccato of Black bodies
Fall like leaves/in Ferguson/in Cleveland
It is autumn in America
And the world has lost its fucking mind
White cops caught killing on camera
Forcing us to relive the constant killing of our kin
-a new story cracks our consciousness/every day
Every day we watch/those viral videos
Becoming more and more numb/more struck dumb
By the sheer gall of thеse cops steady snuffing out
Black lives in thеir made-in-America home movies
Every day I have to drown my fears
For my child/born Black and girl in a country
In which her safety does not matter
To anyone with any power
I try not to think about
-the catcalls in her future
-the crass comments Black boys make
About Black girl bodies-but this poem is not about that
This poem is about the blatant racism
Embedded in the national justice system
It’s about Grand Juries
That consistently refuse to indict murderers
Captured on video/it’s about the consensus of white opinions
That overwhelm the evidence
Available to anyone with a fucking cellular phone
I am consuming these murders/on repeat
The helpless bile rising angry in my chest
Public shootings/documented/by onlookers
Images passed around after the event
This phenomenon is Black lynching two point O
Except this time we are spectators of our own genocide
Consuming the flesh of these murdered women and men
Who were never willing martyrs in our movement
Dead children of parents who now mourn them
Without closure/without a day in court
We are moving backward through history
Back to that time when Black mothers
Who lost children to white arrogance had no recourse
That shameful time/that supposedly ended
With Emmett Till
With Herbert Lee
With Medgar Evers
With Harriette Moore
With Malcolm X
-back then/there was no hypocrisy about
The system being stacked against anyone
With a smidgen of melanin staining the history of their skin
Five decades after the Black civil rights movement
And we are still not protected by the law
This is not what we voted for
When we voted our first Black president
This is not what our freedom fighters hoped for
When they marched against segregation in Selma
And Chicago and Birmingham and Montgomery
This is not the dream Dr. Martin Luther King died for
In Memphis, Tennessee
Fifty years later/race relations in America
Is still a fucking cauldron bubbling angry
Under the ugly swirl of Black despair
Held in place by the lack of white accountability
Parading as a penal system/in which
Forty percent of those incarcerated
Come from a group which only consists of 12 percent
Of the entire fucking population
With numbers like that
What good does it do me
To comply with those in uniform?
Body riddled by forty-one bullets
For raising your hands while holding a candy bar
Shot-dead at twelve for holding a toy gun
Strangled by an illegal choke hold/for selling loose cigarettes
Arrested without cause/for walking and talking while Black
All this while we pay taxes
And vote for white presidents
Presiding over these United States
As if Black death did not matter
This country continues to default
On the promise of citizenship for Black people
-a system sworn to protect us
Owes us something when it fails
A system sworn to protect us
Owes us something when it fails
In the roll call for protection
All Black bodies must be accounted for
Straight/queer/transgender
Lesbian/feminist/Muslim/man
Woman/immigrant/dark-skin/
Non-binary/tall/fat/skinny/light-skinned
In the face of any killing
Our sorrow must be one/our rage must one
Though we speak with many voices
We must rise with one sound
We must call out the names of the dead
Trayvon Martin
Tamir Rice
Yvette Smith
Michael Brown
Kiwi Herring
Sean Bell
Tarika Wilson
Sandra Bland could have been any one of us
We have to find the fortitude to keep fighting
For ourselves
For our children
For our children’s children
It is time to put our bodies where we say our politics lie
This is not a moment to invoke the sweet by and by
This is a moment for civil fucking disobedience
No matter what you do to our flesh
No matter how long you wage war against our spirit
Our bodies will remain a force of resistance
To the proliferation of White Supremacy
No matter where you came from
No matter how you got here
Inside the brutal walls of these United States of America
White power must always meet fire when it meets with us
If there is any humanity left in you
Get up
Stand up
Sit-in
Join a fucking protest
Pick up a fucking pen
Write
Scream
Wail
March
Pull down a fucking racist flag
Plan
Scheme
Plot a way forward
Fucking strategize
It’s time to raise the roof on these motherfuckers
It is time for America to come to terms
With the permanent fact of Black bodies
You have to get used to us white people
Make a decision to do right by us
Do it willingly/or unwillingly
We don’t fucking care
As for the progressive white liberals among us
Find the words
To speak to the racist white relatives you keep disowning
All of you have got to get with the fucking program
Because our Black asses are never/ever/ever going away
THE PRICE OF THE TICKET
I’m just walkin’
Tryin’ to get home
I ain’t do nothin’
Just leave me alone
Lord give me wings to fly
Before they shoot me down
And I die
Don’t let them shoot me down
And I die
Whoa, put down your guns
And take your hands off me
Whoa, put down your guns
And take your hands off me
Officer, officer, officer
I know you’re afraid like me
But look at my hands
Please don’t shoot me
Whoa, put down your guns
And take your hands off me
Whoa, put down your guns
And take your hands off me
WHAT DID I DO
What did I do
What did I do
What did I do
To be so
To be so
What would you do
If we became you
I can lie too
And be so
And be so
Black and blue
Sad and new
Lapis hue
I’d be so
I’d be so
Would you push through
Let me see you
Well I can pry too
And be so
To be so
Mad and true
Fashioned blue
Sad and new
I’d be so
I’d be so
I ran
And stood
As is
As good
To lean
To long
Too mean
Too strong
So what would you do
If we became you
You could die too
And be so
So what would you do
If we became you
You could die too
And be so
PRIDE 1
Haven’t you felt all my gladness
Haven’t you flown through the atlas
Can’t you admit there is flatness
Suddenly
It’s making me lose
Again
Making me lose again
Suddenly
It’s making me lose
Again
Making me lose again
Suddenly
Making me lose, and it’s making me lose again
Singing glory to her name
And some angels bloody hell
Bloody hell the blood applied
To my heart the only one
Within the wall
It’s making me lose
Again
Making me lose again
Suddenly
It’s making me lose
Again
Making mе lose again
Suddenly
Making me losе, and it’s making me lose again
Cette nation innocente t’a relégué dans un ghetto au fond duquel elle comptait, en fait, te voir périr
Il me faut énoncer précisément ici ce que j’entends par là, car nous arrivons au fond du problème
Aux racines de ma querelle avec mon pays: tu es né là où tu es né, et a été confronté avec l’ennemi
Avec lequel tu as été confronté parce que tu étais noir, et pour cette seule raison
Ainsi avait-on fixé et à jamais, pensait-on, des bornes à ton ambition
Tu étais né dans une société qui affirmait avec
Une précision brutale et de toutes les façons possibles, que tu étais une quantité humaine
Absolument négligeable. On n’attendait pas de to que tu aspires à l’excellence; on attendait de toi
Que tu pactises avec la médiocrité
Partout où tu t’es tourné, adressé, James, pendant le peu de
Temps que tu as déjà passé sur cette Terre, tu t’es fait dire où tu pouvais aller, ce que tu pouvais
Faire, et comment tu pouvais le faire, et où tu pouvais habiter, et qui tu pouvais épouse
TRANSLATION
This innocent nation has relegated you to a ghetto in which it actually expected you to perish
I must state precisely here what I mean by this, for we are getting to the heart of the matter
To the roots of my quarrel with my country: you were born where you were born, and were confronted with the enemy
With whom you were confronted because you were black, and for that reason alone
Thus were limits set and forever, it was thought, to your ambition
You were born into a society that affirmed with Brutal precision and in every possible way, that you were a human quantity
Absolutely negligible.
You were not expected to aspire to excellence; you were expected
To make a pact with mediocrity
Everywhere you turned, James, in the short
Time you’ve already been on this Earth, you were told where you could go, what you could
Do, and how you could do it, and where you could live, and who you could marry
PRIDE 2
Dark black night
White men rage
They dream of killing me
Sister protect yourself
Brother protect yourself
Learn to protect yourselves
Did you think it’d last forever
Lies fall apart
Did you think it’d last forever
Lies fall apart
Don’t be made bitter by pride
Did you think it’d last forever
Forever
Haven’t you flown
Haven’t you felt all my gladness
Haven’t you flown
Can’t you admit there is flatness
EYES
We all react to and, to whatever extent, become what that eye sees
(The crucial, the definitive, the ALL BUT – EVERLASTING JUDGMENT)
And so we move, In the vast and claustrophobic gallery of Others but once you have discerned the
Meaning of a label, it may seem define you for others, but it does not have the power to define you
To yourself
I could tell you were surprised
Did you see yourself
Tеll me all those normal lies
Thеy’ll be coming down
Eyes, eyes, eyes
They put you in for doing
The same thing they’ve been doing
You’ll pay for it later
They tilt the equator for you
If you look up to that sky
We might see what’s due
Try to make me wear disguise
Then I can see myself
Eyes, eyes, eyes
They put me in for screwing
The same thing
They’ve been screwing
I’ll pay for it later
They held the equator for you
They’ve taken up our lives
Still feels like they have mine
Just give me back my time
Eyes, eyes, eyes
They put me in for doing
The same thing
They’ve been doing
The same thing
They have been doing
They held the equator for you
Eyes, eyes, eyes
TROUBLE
What’s another word for trouble?
Would you
Would you keep
Would you keep me in the
Would you keep me in the trouble loop?
Would you
Would you keep
Would you keep me in the
Would you keep me in the trouble loop?
Just be, be right here, right now, we can’t lose our way
All my people
Struggle starts now, right here today
All my people
We talk around the truth
It’s time to make a change
Put our aching hearts to use
What’s another word for trouble? ‘Cause that’s what we’re in
Everyone’s down for the struggle until it begins
Pain makes you humble, hurt is hard to sing
What’s another word for trouble?
Still up kicking alive when they shot you right back down
They don’t want you
They don’t want you around
You bleed for love and law and not for nothing to keep me free
I’m having a hard time with this weather, I can’t stand the sight of spring
I started out five times dark
And if it mattered, I could tell you
The difference in a boy of twenty
And a man of thirty-three
What’s another word for trouble? ‘Cause that’s what we’re in
Everyone’s down for the struggle until it begins
Pain makes you humble, hurt is hard to sing
What’s another word for trouble?
What’s another word for
What’s another word for trouble? ‘Cause that’s what we’re in
Everyone’s down for the struggle until it begins
Pain makes you humble, hurt is hard to sing
What’s another word for trouble?
What’s another word for
The sound connected us
And you should see
How much this touch is moving me
It’s like a fall, but I gotcha if you do
No thing is quite as full or indiscrete
No violent tongue, no loose heat
I see you smiling, but
What’s another word for trouble? ‘Cause that’s what we’re in
Everyone’s down for the struggle until it begins
Pain makes you humble, hurt is hard to sing
What’s another word for trouble?
What’s another word for trouble? ‘Cause that’s what we’re in
Everyone’s down for the struggle until it begins
Pain makes you humble, hurt is hard to sing
What’s another word for trouble?
Till it begins, pain makes you humble
Hurt is hard to sing
All my people
All my people
All my people
Raising my child, eating my greens, crying my curses
Singing my songs, making my love, as the sun rises
As the sun sets, speaking through death, the sound of the crosses
THUS SAYETH THE LORDE
My open eye to the light
Move to the shadow
Wait for it
Wait for the night
Wait for the light
In the night
Move with the stars in the night
Wait for it
Wait for the night
My open eyes to the right
Even the fallow
Waits for it
Waits for the right
Waits for the right time
You and I
In the mire
Here it is shallow
Bodies are the ocean
Shine you and I broken light
See its inside you
And you’re made for it
Made for the fight
Made for the fight
You were right
Move to thе stars in the night
Into the sunrise
Sеt my set my feet to fly
Speak on it
Speak for the right
Reach for the right line
You and I
In the mire
Leaving the shadows
Wait for it wait for it
Wait for it
Audre Lorde said, we were never meant to survive
Lorde said, if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s
Fantasies for me and eaten alive
The Lorde tells us that there is no thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live
Single issue lives
Lorde said, I am not free while any woman is unfree
The Lorde said, when the sun rises, we are afraid
When the sun sets, we are afraid
When our stomachs are full, we are afraid
When our stomachs are empty, we are afraid
When we are loved, we are afraid
When we are alone, we are afraid
When we are silent, we are still afraid
So the Lorde said, it is better to speak
Remembering, we were never meant to survive
And because she knew that speaking was going to be uncomfortable
Because she knew that speaking was going to be hard
The Lord3 tells us, our speaking out, will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive
And disrupt dinner parties
But then the Lord said our speaking will permit other women to speak until laws are changed
Until lives are saved, and the world is altered forever
But the Lorde also said, the Master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house
They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change
The Lord said, revolution is not a one-time event
The good Lord tells us there is only one thing more frightening than speaking your own truth
And that is not speaking
(Thus sayeth the Lorde)
Audre Lorde said, it is better to speak remembering, we were never meant to survive
The Lorde said, your silence will not protect you
So it is better to speak remembering, we were never meant to survive
We were never meant to survive
We were never meant to survive
Thus sayeth the Lorde
My open eye to the light
Move to the shadow
Wait for it
Wait for the night
Wait for the light
In the night
Move with the stars in the night
Wait for it
Wait for the night
My open eyes to the right
Even the fallow
Waits for it
Waits for the right
Waits for the right time
You and I
In the mire
Here it is shallow
LOVE
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Well, when it’s dark, it’s hard
Will you seek to solve yourself?
Me, I take the darkest corner
Whistling to myself
All is as it was and then you came in
Love’s a simple thing to make
You should wanna
When it’s dark, it’s hard
To live in love
Is to be uncertain
To live in love
Is to bear the burden
Of so many
Who yearn to know
My life matters
Yearn to know
To live in love
Is to be uncertain
To live in love
Is to bear the burden
Of so many
Who yearn to know
My life matters
Yearn to know
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Lovе takes off the mask
That we fеar we can’t live without
Love takes off the mask
Love takes off the mask
That we fear we can’t live without
Love takes off the mask
That we fear we can’t live without
And we know we can’t live within
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Love take over me
Love take over me
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
Do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-do, do
“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does
Love is battle, love is a war
Love is growing up, love takes off the mask that we fear we cannot live without
And know we cannot live within”
HATRED
“Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the one who hated, and this is an immutable law
L imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense that once
Hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
Are you going to
Abuse or neglect
Will you fight or will you go to the right
Refuse or accept
Will you understand
What’s not part of your plan
Does it hurt you to see someone
Who’s not likе you gettin’ off
On this here ridе
Wouldn’t you know
Just beneath the surface
Hatred grows
Just beneath the surface
Wouldn’t you know
Just beneath the surface
Beneath the surface
I see you stumbling
And you’re mumbling at me
Just beneath the surface hatred grows
Am I going to
Take or deny
Will you fight me will you go to the right
Be sure I’m in line
Be sure in the night
I knew I was right
Cuz it hurts you so see someone
Who’s not like you gettin’ off
On this here ride
Just beneath the surface
Hatred grows
Just beneath the surface
Wouldn’t you know
Just Beneath the surface
I hear you mumbling
And you think you’re humbling me
Just beneath
Just beneath the surface
Does it hurt you to see someone
Who’s not like you
Who’s not like you
Who’s not like you
TSUNAMI RISING
In the balance of human biology all bodies are created equal, every body, exactly, 70% water. Regardless of race. Religion, gender, sex. Sexual orientation. We all die after seven days without drink
But the idiots obsessed with category have decided that a double X chromosome designates me subordinate to all those with an X and a Y intersect those two X’s with thе fact of my Blackness and my existencе is coded as dangerous hostile a direct threat to the endurance of the white patriarchy. White men have spent centuries perfecting appropriation, taking what they want when they want. The gold they found in Africa was not enough, so they packed our bodies, human bodies, head to toe submerged in a swamp of our own urine and feces. They dragged us across violent Waters, drowning our memories, our histories fading to fractured stories of dark-skinned women washing blankets and rivers we have never seen
500 years later, most Black people in the diaspora, have only dreamt of the Waters of the East smaller than the ones that brought us here, Kinder than the waters in which many of us drowned or young rather than let them live in captivity. At the mercy of those white men and their sons and their grandsons and their grandsons’ sons
For centuries the lineage of whiteness has made sport of cutting open the Flesh of women of color tearing our skin with whips using all manner of doctrines and ticks to forcefully enter our bodies, our very Minds splitting, our bellies ripping out what they desire
After that, many of us had to become one-dimensional. Unable to display all of us. We had to become one thing or the other, spinster or mother, virgin or victim, damsel or whore, we were made to choose. Lose some. So we could keep some
Most of a solid multitude of Sorrows, Bartering silence for safety. We learn to lie, still in the putrid water. We decided to Mark death with sleep. Most of us let go completely slipping away into the sunken place, others jumped and drowned overboard never to be seen again. Others crawled through the sewage and built cities in other countries
In Brooklyn, on the planet of Brooklyn, I spend my nights reading Tales of the Nubians bathing naked in the Nile, Kushite Queens equal to Kings all of them praying to Isis, the most powerful goddess among gods. Mother of all the rulers. If I were her, I would use my might to Smite every motherfucker Whoever looked at a little girl, with lust in his flesh, I would exact vengeance on behalf of every Black woman who was disproportionately boring the weight of sexual violence. Everyone has turned a blind eye to her silently mouthing #metoo, #metoo, #metoo, for centuries, for centuries, rape was a word we only whispered in private
Then the richest whitest women in America began to say #metoo, too. Never mind that this whole #metoo movement was born from the Brilliance of a Black woman’s word that inspired a wildfire of telling that telling has pulled the conversation about sexual violation from the Shadows shoved It onto Primetime TV. 12 years later, Black women are still missing from the public dialogue. We are so tired of being slave to the invisible. We are not made of stone. Black women also carry the weight of these violations. We have been here for centuries screaming #metoo, #metoo, into our hands into our flesh into the Black echo of silence
Even as we seem unaffected, our sorrow sits inside our bellies, our very bones, even when we cannot conjure the words to admit how much the memory of it hurts? We are still saying, #metoo, #metoo even as we refuse to show you exactly where or how or when it hurts, or how we were tore open
We are only holding our tongues so our hearts do not explode. We are exhausted from holding everything in, and we are fast losing faith in the future we always believe would come
For centuries, we have endured the culture of rape and racism combined, for centuries, the world has stood silent while Black men were beaten and bullied by Black men and white men and white women, for centuries anyone who wanted to hit something or own someone they could decide we were it, tag without consequence. Anyone could tag the Black woman, tag the dark girl, tag the universal punching bag, but this crazy mad gaggle of global brown bitches and hands are done braiding the needs of Silent acceptance. Women everywhere are rising like an angry tide, our collective rivers are full from the tears of all the women, all of us who are sick and tired of weeping, we are now roaring like an ocean, come back to take back what was carried away by the brutality of men without my permission. Touch me one more motherfucking time and see what happens. This time your apologies will no longer Shield you from retribution
Every Act of breaking and entering every unwanted fluid that was ever emptied into or already full cup will be made public, will be made public, will be made public
And while we’re here talking about confessions I might as well tell you. I don’t give a fuck that you never really liked me. My mouth, my Black mouth, Black like my mother’s ass has not quite endured me to most. This is not a popularity contest. What you hear me say, this is not a popularity contest. I am only here to call Black women to their own actions
And if you happen to be Black, if you happen to wear the label of girl, if you dare to live long enough to become a woman, if you ever had to argue that, you are no less deserving than your white counterpart if you have ever been inspired by the magic of a Black woman with thighs, and asses that move mountains in their stride. If you speak from the thick lip of your own tooth, if you have ever been called girl, like it was a dirty word. If you have ever been called a bitch, then you step forward. If you are itching to light a fucking bonfire in the house of the white patriarchy come stand with us now
If you want to be free like Harriet Tubman, weapon in hand, waiting for unfriendly waters, her power compelling the freedom of even those who did not want to be free. If you desire to be confrontational like Sojourner Truth, if you wish to be audacious like Audre Lorde, antagonistic like Angela Davis, gangsta like Winnie Mandela, angry like Assata Shakur. Come roar with us in the corner, sit beside us in schools, chant with us in church, vote with us and for us at the polls, travel with us in public, in the virtual, in the flesh, over these waters they have used against us as weapons across the lands of this rock we all call home
Let us use our fire to crack this ground wide open with an uprising that they have never seen before, that they will never see again, that will never ever die down
No more water, the fire next time. No more water. The fire next time
Wanna say, No more water. Give me the fire next time
ANOTHER COUNTRY
Welcome to my volcano
Lust watched the earth make itself
The earth owns itself
I choose to live on her
Welcome to my volcano
Her most feral and free emissions
This volcano belongs to the earth
And so I squat here
I feed the birds
I watch the seeds grow from bird poop
I watch the sea the creatures nest in its crevices
I feed the birds
I watch the seeds grow from bird poop
I watch the sea the creatures nest in its crevices
I watch the volcano reenact the beginning
I watch the volcano reenact the beginning
Were it up to me
I would share this garden
Sounds to me to eat is greed
To eat red is to eat yellow
Gold brown red brown
More greed grows inside
Make more love never grief
Were it up to me
Were it up to me
I would grant a pardon
Love is surely making me
Or maybe making someone else go
Red brown gold brown
More machines grow inside
Make more loving machines
Were it up to me
Were it up to me
Were it up to me
I would share my garden
Love is surely making me
Or is it letting someone else know
Red brown gold brown
BALDWIN MANIFESTO NO> 2
The second proposition is what I really want to get at tonight, and it sounds mystical
I think in a country like ours, at a time when something awful is happening to a civilisation, when it ceases to produce poets, even more crucial ceases to believe in the report that only poets can make people
Millions of people who you will never see, who don’t know you, will never know you
People who may try to kill you in the morning, they live in terrible darkness
That if you have that fun, terrible thing that every artist can recognise but no artist can define, you are responsible to those people, to lighten that darkness
It doesn’t matter what happens to you
You are being used in the way a crab is useful
The way sand certainly has some function
It isn’t personal, this force that you didn’t ask for
A destiny, which you must accept
It’s also your responsibility and if you survive it, if you don’t achieve, if you don’t lie, it is not only your glory, your achievement, it is almost our only hope because only an artist can tell and only artists
Since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone who gets to this planet to survive it, what it’s like to die or to have somebody die, what it’s like to fear
To fear, to love, to be glad. Hymns don’t do this
Churches really cannot, cannot
Churches really cannot do it
The trouble is that all of
The artists can do it, the price he has to pay himself, and that the audience must also pay a willingness to give up everything. To realize that although you spend 27 years acquiring this house, this furniture, this position, although you spend 40 years raising this child, children, nothing, none of it belongs to you
You can only have it by letting go
You can only take if you are prepared to give
And giving is not an investment. It is not a day at the bargain counter
It’s a total risk of everything of you, of who you think you are, of who you’d think you’d like to be, where you think you’d like to go
DOWN AT THE CROSS
When I leave
Will it be better
When I Leave
Will it be better
Once you leave
There’s no turning back
No coming back
Once you leave
Will it be better
Tell me why these bodies are bending
Show me just how sorry you are
Days are dangerous ways to count
But once the run they wanna run out
Haha haha haha haha
Can you see inside or see out
It’s not all biology no how
If you look like this you phantom
Through some tunnel some byzantine lie
Then after your innocence dies
All that’s left is rage and doubt
Tell me how these bodies are bending
Show me just how sorry you are
Haha haha
Will it be better
Will it be better
Once you leave
There’s no turning back
No coming back
When I leave
Page by page, break the spine, slowly, until it is worn
Read it
