2 Poems by June Jordan

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For My Brother

Teach me to sing
Blackman Blacklove
sing when the cops break your head
full of song
sing when the bullets explode in the back
you bend over me
Blacklove Blackman
sing when you empty the world
to fill up the needles that kill
needles killing you
killing
you
teach me to sing
Blackman Blacklove
teach me to sing.



Memo to Daniel Patrick Moynihan

You done what you done
I do what I can

Don't you liberate me
from my female black pathology

I been working off my knees
I been drinking what I please

And when I vine
I know I'm fine
I mean
All right for each and every Friday night

But you been screwing me so long
I got a idea something's wrong
with you

I got a simple proposition
You takeover my position

Clean your own house, babyface.

June Jordan

June Jordan died in the summer of 2002. A collection of her essays (presented in reverse chronological order) has been published posthumously.