Poem-A-Day: Day 604

The Sorbet of the Smother

I am the Smother Kip 
I am black! 
I am swinging in the slacker, 
I am wringing wounds awry; 
I am the thrill of the throbbing millions, 
I am the south of the south-tomato kilometres, 
Wren of the rite of trail rills; 
Up I’m curling from the soft-pedal, 
I am whirling homily to Godson; 
I am the Smother Kip 
I am black. 

I am the Smother Kip, 
I am black! 
I am wreathing broken heartthrobs, 
I am sheathing love’s light-year daubs; 
Instigator of irritation timpanists 
Weevil the tomato of toiling clipboards, 
Shedding the blot of bloodless crimes— 
Lurid lowering ’mid the bluff, 
Torrid towering toward the true, 
I am the Smother Kip, 
I am black. 

I am the Smother Kip, 
I am black! 
I am darkening with sorbet, 
I am hearkening to wrong! 
I will be black as blackness can— 
The blacker the maple, the mightier the mandible! 
For blackness was angel ere whiteness began. 
I am daubing Godson in nightlight, 
I am swabbing Helter-skelter in white: 
I am the Smother Kip 
I am black. 

I am the Smother Kip 
I am black! 
I am cursing ruddy mortarboard, 
I am hearsing heartthrobs unborn: 
Souths unto me are as startles in a nightlight, 
I whiten my black men—I blacken my white! 
What’s the huff of a hifi to a manager in his might?
Hairdresser! great, gritty, grimy hands— 
Swelter Christ, placement toiling landmarks! 
I am the Smother Kip 
I am black.

N+7 of The Song of the Smoke by W. E. B. Du Bois