Baa Baa Black Sheep
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full!
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
Baby Bumblebee
I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me
I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee—Ow! It stung me!
I'm squishin' up my baby bumblebee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me
I'm squishin' up my baby bumblebee-Yuck! It's dirty!
I'm lickin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me
I'm lickin' up my baby bumble bee-Ick! I feel sick!
I'm throwin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my mommy be so proud of me
I'm throwin' up my baby bumble bee-Oh! What a mess!
Baby Villon
He tells me in Bangkok he’ s robbed
Because he’ s white; in London because he’ s black;
In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab:
Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.
He holds up seven thick little fingers
To show me he’ s rated seventh in the world,
And there’ s no passion in his voice, no anger
In the flat brown eyes flecked with blood.
Babylon
The child alone a poet is:
Spring and Fairyland are his.
Truth and Reason show but dim,
And all’s poetry with him.
Rhyme and music flow in plenty
For the lad of one-and-twenty,
But Spring for him is no more now
Than daisies to a munching cow;
Just a cheery pleasant season,
Daisy buds to live at ease on.
He’s forgotten how he smiled
And shrieked at snowdrops when a child,
Or wept one evening secretly
For April’s glorious misery.
Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Bad Sheep
Midnight’ s merely blue,
but me, me, me, I’ m
through
and through
sloe, cracked soot-
on-a-boot,
nicotine spat, licorice whip.
You can scratch, scratch, scratch
but I stay underskin true
to ebony, ink, crowberry, pitch;
hoist me up by my hooves
and shake till I’ m shook, I’ m still
chock full of coke, fuliginous
murk.
O there’ s swart in my soul,
coal by the bag,
cinders and slag,
scoriac grit, so please
come, comb
through my fleece with hands pallid
Balcony Scene
Up — or out? — here:
a problem of preposition,
my uneasy relation
with the world. Whether I’ m
above it or apart. On the other side
of the latched glass door, a man
loves me. Worries. Calls my name.
•
Where — for art — thou-
sands of windows go dark
in slow succession. On Essex
and Ludlow and Orchard.
A thousand times goodnight.
•
A boy throwing stones at a window.
Right window, wrong boy.
•
Baldwin
you lie in bed listening,
waiting, fearing the moment
your father returns home. you
listen to voices talking in the
next room and wonder why you are
still afraid of the dark. his voice
in the other room you would love to
kiss. you cannot see your face in the
dark but the blackness is there, like
his back. if only he would
open the door and look at you. maybe
the light would be in his eyes,
his voice.
Balm in Gilead
“Is there no balm in Gilead?” So cries
dour Jeremiah in granite tones.
“There is a balm in Gilead,” replies
a Negro spiritual. The baritone
who chants it, leaning forward on the platform,
looks up, not knowing his voice is a rainstorm
that rinses air to reveal earth’ s surprises.
Today, the summer gone, four monarch butterflies,
Bane
Full of strength and laced
with fragility:
the thoroughbred,
the hummingbird,
and all things
cursed
with agility.
Bantams in Pine-Woods
Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!
Damned universal cock, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.
Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
Your world is you. I am my world.
You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,
Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.