Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie

by Maya Angelou

Overview

Another remarkable collection of poetry from one of America's masters of the medium. The first part gathers together poems of love and nostalgic memory, while Part II portrays confrontations inherent in a racist society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307833273
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/10/2013
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	64
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Maya Angelou was raised in Stamps, Arkansas. In addition to her bestselling autobiographies, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman, she wrote numerous volumes of poetry, among them Phenomenal Woman, And Still I Rise, On the Pulse of Morning, and Mother. Maya Angelou died in 2014.

Hometown:

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Date of Birth:

April 4, 1928

Place of Birth:

St. Louis, Missouri

Education:

High school in Atlanta and San Francisco

Read an Excerpt

PART ONE
 
Where Love Is a Scream of Anguish
 
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 men’s lips,
  they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,
  they’d 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 I’m 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 cat’s 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.