"I Don’t Feel Death Coming / I Feel Death Going": 3 Poems By James Baldwin

Here are three poems excerpted from Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems , out today from Beacon Press . Happy National Poetry Month !

REX USA/Sten Rosenlund

No, I don't feel death coming.

I feel death going:

having thrown up his hands,

for the moment.

I feel like I know him

better than I did.

Those arms held me,

for a while,

and, when we meet again,

there will be that secret knowledge

between us.

James Foote / Getty Images/Photo Researchers RM

The lady is a tramp

a camp

a lamp

The lady is a sight

a might

a light

the lady devastated

an alley or two

reverberated through the valley

which leads to me, and you

the lady is the apple

of God's eye:

He's cool enough about it

but He tends to strut a little

when she passes by

the lady is a wonder

daughter of the thunder

smashing cages

legislating rages

with the voice of ages

singing us through.

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"I Don’t Feel Death Coming / I Feel Death Going": 3 Poems By James Baldwin

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