Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems

by James Baldwin

This flag has been planted on the moon: it will be interesting to see what steps the moon will take to be revenged for this quite breathtaking presumption.

Oh, towering Ronnie Reagan, wise and resigned lover of redwoods, deeply beloved, winning man-child of the yearning Republic, from diaper to football field to Warner Brothers sound-stages, be thou our grinning, gently phallic, Big Boy of all the ages!

No, said the Great Man’s Lady, I’m against abortion. I always feel that’s killing somebody. Well, what about capital punishment? I think the death penalty helps.

My days are not their days. My ways are not their ways. I would not think of them, one way or the other, did not they so grotesquely block the view between me and my brother.

They know that no one will appear to turn back time, they know it, just as they know that the earth has opened before and will open again, just as they know that their empire is falling, is doomed, nothing can hold it up, nothing.

I know enough to tell you to go to hell and when I think you’re wrong I will not go along. I have a right to tremble when you begin to crumble. Your life is my life, too, and nothing you can do will make you something other than my mule-headed brother.

We all have our ways and days but my love has been as constant as the rays coming from the earth or the sun, which you have used to obliterate me,

I will never see you as I saw you, again, never touch you or kiss you or scold you again.

Lord, when you send the rain, think about it, please, a little?