Frank Marshall Davis: Writer
“He is bitter
A bitter bitter
Cynic”
They said
“And his wine
He brews from wormwood”
I was black and black I always was
From the ebony house of me I watched days swing into weeks to months to years
I hunted golden orchids where “All Men are Created Free and Equal”—and my skin lay raw and sore from the poison ivy of discrimination and the hidden brambles of Jim Crow
I say no sensitive Negro can spend his life in America without finding his cup holds vinegar and his meat is seasoned with gall
A Mississippi manpack, mobbing bent, beat a tinpan bedlam when I would pluck sweet airs from a Muse’s harp
I aimed my eyes at the holy doors of a white man’s church and I heard God’s Servant say “Niggers must be saved elsewhere”
While thousands cheered as the Governor of Georgia thundered “Stand pat on the Constitution” I saw the hungry mouths of six-guns daring his black folk to come to the polls and vote
I turned to what was called my own race … and I looked at a white man’s drama acted by inky performers
I was a weaver of jagged words
A warbler of garbled tunes
A singer of savage songs
I was bitter
Yes
Bitter and sorely sad
For when I wrote
I dipped my pen
In the crazy heart
Of mad America
Wormwood wine?
Vinegar?
Gall?
A daily diet—
But
I did not die
Of diabetes …
Notes:
“Frank Marshall Davis: Writer” originally appeared in I Am the American Negro (Black Cat Press, 1937) and is from Black Moods: Collected Poems (University of Illinois Press, 2002). © 2002 Board of Trustees. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.
This poem is part of the portfolio “As Direct as Good Blues: Frank Marshall Davis.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the December 2023 issue.
Source: Poetry (December 2023)