Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems

by James Baldwin

There is nothing in the least original about the fiery tongs to the eyeballs, the sex torn from the socket, the infant ripped from the womb, the brains dashed out against rock, nothing original about Judas, or Peter, or you or me: nothing: we are liars and cowards all, or nearly all, or nearly all the time: for we also ride the lightning, answer the thunder, penetrate whirlwinds, curl up on the floor of the sun, and pick our teeth with thunderbolts.

the womb a dangerous swamp, the hope, and fear, of love is acid in the marrow of the bone.

Now, if that song tormented me, I could have no choice but be whiter than a bleaching bone of all the ways there are, this must be the most dreadful way to be alone.

Dread stalks our streets, and our faces. Many races gather, again, to despise and disperse and destroy us: nor can they any longer pretend to be looking for a friend. That dream was sold when we were, on the auction-block of Manifest Destiny.

If the hope of giving is to love the living, the giver risks madness in the act of giving.

Imagination creates the situation, and, then, the situation creates imagination. It may, of course, be the other way around: Columbus was discovered by what he found.

Untitled Lord, when you send the rain, think about it, please, a little? Do not get carried away by the sound of falling water, the marvelous light on the falling water. I am beneath that water. It falls with great force and the light Blinds me to the light.