The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou Read Online Free PDF

is jazz
and the season is fall.
Promise me that
or nothing at all.

Fightin’ Was Natural

    Fightin’ was natural,
hurtin’ was real,
and the leather like lead
on the end of my arm
was a ticket to ride
to the top of the hill.Fightin’ was real.
    The sting of the ointment
and scream of the crowd
for blood in the ring,
and the clangin’ bell cuttin’
clean through the
cloud in my ears.
Boxin’ was real.
    The rope at my back
and the pad on the floor,
the smack of four hammers,
new bones in my jaw,
the guard in my mouth,
my tongue startin’ to swell.
Fightin’ was livin'.
Boxin’ was real.
Fightin’ was real.
Livin’ was … hell.

Loss of Love

    The loss of love and youth
and fire came raiding, riding,
a horde of plunderers
on one caparisoned steed,
sucking up the sun drops,
trampling the green shoots
of my carefully planted years.
    The evidence: thickened waist and
leathery thighs, which triumph
over my fallen insouciance.
    After fifty-five
the arena has changed.
I must enlist new warriors.
My resistance,
once natural as raised voices,
importunes in the dark.
Is this battle worth the candle?
Is this war worth the wage?
    May I not greet age
without a grouse, allowing
the truly young to own
the stage?

Seven Women's Blessed Assurance

    1
One thing about me,
I'm little and low,
find me a man
wherever I go.
    2
They call me string bean
‘cause I'm so tall.
Men see me,
they ready to fall.
    3
I'm young as morning
and fresh as dew.
Everybody loves me
and so do you.
    4
I'm fat as butter
and sweet as cake.
Men start to tremble
each time I shake.
    5
I'm little and lean,
sweet to the bone.
They like to pick me up
and carry me home.
    6
When I passed forty
I dropped pretense,
‘cause men like women
who got some sense.
    7
Fifty-five is perfect,
so is fifty-nine,
‘cause every man needs
to rest sometime.

In My Missouri

    In my Missouri
I had known a mean man
A hard man
A cold man
Gutting me and killing me
Was an Ice man
A tough man
A man.
    So I thought I'd never meet a sweet man
A kind man
A true man
One who in darkness you can feel secure man
A sure man
A man.
    But Jackson, Mississippi, has some fine men
Some strong men
Some black men
Walking like an army were the sweet men
The brown men
The men.
    In Oberlin, Ohio, there were nice men
Just men
And fair men
Reaching out and healing were the warm men
Were good men
The men.
    Now I know that there are good and bad men
Some true men
Some rough men
Women, keep on searching for your own man
The best man
For you man
The man.

They Ask Why

    A certain person wondered why
a big strong girl like me
wouldn't keep a job
which paid a normal salary.
I took my time to lead her
and to read her every page.
Even minimal people
can't survive on minimal wage.
    A certain person wondered why
I wait all week for you.
I didn't have the words
to describe just what you do.
I said you had the motion
of the ocean in your walk,
and when you solve my riddles
you don't even have to talk.

When Great Trees Fall

    When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
    When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
    When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see withva hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid, vpromised walks
never taken.
    Great souls die and our reality, bound tothem, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
    And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they