Angelou - Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry

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Copyright 2015 by The Estate of Maya Angelou

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

All of the poems in this collection, excluding the titles listed below, are copyright Maya Angelou and are reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Hirt Music, Inc., c/o Gerard W. Purcell Associates, Ltd., for permission to reprint the following poems: They Went Home, The Gamut, To a Man, No Loser, No Weeper, When You Come to Me, Remembering, In a Time, Tears, The Detached, To a Husband, Accident, Lets Majeste, or On Diverse Deviations, Mourning Grace, Sounds Like Pearls, When I Think About Myself, Letter to an Aspiring Junkie, Miss Scarlett, Mr. Rhett and Other Latter-Day Saints, Faces, To a Freedom Fighter, Riot: 60s, Black Ode, No No No No, My Guilt, The Calling of Names, On Working White Liberals, Sepia Fashion Show, The Thirteens (Black), The Thirteens (White), and Harlem Hopscotch. Copyright 1969 by Hirt Music, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hirt Music, Inc., c/o Gerard W. Purcell Associates, Ltd., 964 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Angelou, Maya.
[Poems]
The complete poetry / Maya Angelou.
pagescm
ISBN 978-0-8129-9787-3
eBook ISBN 978-0-8129-9788-0
I. Title.
PS3551.N464 2015
811.54dc23
2014043508

www.atrandom.com

Title-page photograph 1974 by Magnum Photos/Wayne Miller

Book design by Barbara M. Bachman

v3.1

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE GREAT LOVE OF MY LIFE.

CONTENTS

TO AMBER SAM
and
THE ZORRO MAN

They Went Home

They went home and told their wives,

that never once in all their lives,

had they known a girl like me,

But They went home.

They said my house was licking clean,

no word I spoke was ever mean,

I had an air of mystery,

But They went home.

My praises were on all mens lips,

they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,

theyd spend one night, or two or three.

But

The Gamut

Soft you day, be velvet soft,

My true love approaches,

Look you bright, you dusty sun,

Array your golden coaches.

Soft you wind, be soft as silk,

My true love is speaking.

Hold you birds, your silver throats,

His golden voice Im seeking.

Come you death, in haste, do come,

My shroud of black be weaving,

Quiet my heart, be deathly quiet,

My true love is leaving.

A Zorro Man

Here

in the wombed room

silk purple drapes

flash a light as subtle

as your hands before

love-making

Here

in the covered lens

I catch a

clitoral image of

your general inhabitation

long and like a

late dawn in winter

Here

this clean mirror

traps me unwilling

in a gone time

when I was love

and you were booted and brave

and trembling for me.

To a Man

My man is

Black Golden Amber

Changing.

Warm mouths of Brandy Fine

Cautious sunlight on a patterned rug

Coughing laughter, rocked on a whorl of French tobacco

Graceful turns on woolen stilts

Secretive?

A cats eye.

Southern. Plump and tender with navy-bean sullenness

And did I say Tender?

The gentleness

A big cat stalks through stubborn bush

And did I mention Amber?

The heatless fire consuming itself.

Again. Anew. Into ever neverlessness.

My man is Amber

Changing

Always into itself

New. Now New.

Still itself.

Still.

Late October

Carefully

the leaves of autumn

sprinkle down the tinny

sound of little dyings

and skies sated

of ruddy sunsets

of roseate dawns

roil ceaselessly in

cobweb greys and turn

to black

for comfort.

Only lovers

see the fall

a signal end to endings

a gruffish gesture alerting

those who will not be alarmed

that we begin to stop

in order simply

to begin

again.

No Loser, No Weeper

I hate to lose something,

then she bent her head,

even a dime, I wish I was dead.

I cant explain it. No more to be said.

Cept I hate to lose something.

I lost a doll once and cried for a week.

She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.

I believe she was took, by some doll-snatching sneak.

I tell you, I hate to lose something.

A watch of mine once, got up and walked away.

It had twelve numbers on it and for the time of day.

Ill never forget it and all I can say

Is I really hate to lose something.

Now if I felt that way bout a watch and a toy,

What you think I feel bout my lover-boy?

I aint threatening you, madam, but he is my evenings joy.

And I mean I really hate to lose something.

When You Come to Me

When you come to me, unbidden,

Beckoning me

To long-ago rooms,

Where memories lie.

Offering me, as to a child, an attic,

Gatherings of days too few,

Baubles of stolen kisses,

Trinkets of borrowed loves,

Trunks of secret words,

I CRY.

Remembering

Soft grey ghosts crawl up my sleeve

to peer into my eyes

while I within deny their threats

and answer them with lies.

Mushlike memories perform

a ritual on my lips

I lie in stolid hopelessness

and they lay my soul in strips.

In a Time

In a time of secret wooing

Today prepares tomorrows ruin

Left knows not what right is doing

My heart is torn asunder.

In a time of furtive sighs

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