DOWN

TO THE RIVER

CAIL JUDY

COLD BULLETS PUBLISHING

Come on, brother, let’s go down
to the river to pray.
 Down to the River

by Cail Judy

COLD BULLETS PUBLISHING, Vancouver

 DOWN TO THE RIVER

Copyright 2009 by Cail Judy

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechani-
cal means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in
writing from the author.

Cail Judy
Website: http://www.cailjudy.com

Printed in Vancouver, BC Canada

First Printing: December 2009

ISBN-13 978-0-9798377-0-8
To Hannah Mary Jenkins
 Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the following:

Professor Jeffrey Severs
Richard Wright
Ralph Ellison
James Baldwin
Amiri Baraka
and Adrienne Kennedy.
 Contents

Rush River, Rush

Twentieth-Century Miracle

Down In the Hole

Ride On, Sweet Jesus

Year of the Negro

Two Found Poems

Adrienne Kennedy Appreciation Day

Preacher Man
I had to kick their law into their teeth in order to save them.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
 RUSH RIVER, RUSH

Rush river, rush

I hear you no more
Rush, O River
My ears are sore.

Once tree, now log

My bones lay across
One day, firewood
Today a cross.

Sing, sparrow sing

Your song in the tree
Sparrow, I weep
No music for me.

Please Mother, please

Lay down the gun.
The day is over—
Mother, they’ve won.
 TWENTIETH-CENTURY MIRACLE

I’m paper-thin
Drunk on gin

I’m a curiosity
Some say monstrosity

Pull my wires
Sparking fires

I’ll dance for you

Rhythm and blues

Like my dance?
No chance?

Get back, brother, get back.

 DOWN IN THE HOLE

He used to think
It was his blackness
That caused all the
Hate.
Like the smell of hot pavement, how it burns your nostrils after a
while.
People would wrinkle their noses
When he walked by.
He was covered in dirt, looking in store windows
Checking out the light displays.
Where does all this electricity come from?
Nobody answered, because you can’t see
an invisible man.
 RIDE ON, SWEET JESUS

Ride on, sweet Jesus, ride on

No one can a-hinder thee
Ride on, sweet Jesus
No one can a-hinder thee

Jesus is coming to take me

To a new home up in the sky
He’s the King of this ol’ world
Lord knows I can’t wait to die

Ride on, sweet Jesus, ride on

Deliver me from sin
This world has no more room for me
You are my next of kin
So I’ll wait here for you Jesus
Down on my knees again

Time’s a-running out

For the people on this plane
Get me up in the morning
I will feel no more shame

Ride on, sweet Jesus

No one can a-hinder thee
 YEAR OF THE NEGRO

Klans men
Illustrations on my wall.
Lions in my throat
Let them out.
When the clock no longer
Has battery power
It’s time for BLACK ART
The hate burrrrrrrrrns hot
Eternal
Yellow flame consuming all.
 TWO FOUND POEMS

Lighthearted jubilees
Dancing the whole afternoon in Washington Square
Joyful blacks above
Sleeping dead below
Many can still remember
The last days of the fairs.
—John Edgar Wideman, Philadelphia Fire (98)

The Negro family feels the impact of poverty

Which is reinforced by American attitudes.
It is unmistakable.
Consolation to the poor may be a matter for conjecture.
With higher family incomes
(Contrary to the Negro family)
Family morality may improve.
Rise, income and social position, rise.
—US Dept. of Labor, The Moynihan Report
 ADRIENNE KENNEDY APPRECIATION DAY

The Mother of Africa

who is the Virgin Mary who is the Whore of Jefferson
went for coffee
with the Prince of Wales who is the White Devil
who is the Mockingbird
and they had a long talk about
the Quiet American
who is the Son of Nations who is Barack Obama
and his new haircut.
 PREACHER MAN

He was an angry man

Both as a preacher and a father.
He demanded holiness from his son.
Each morning he would arise
Wake his boy
And taking the giant cross he kept in the closet
He would force it down his son’s throat.
It left splinters and the boy did not know
Why his own father hated him so.
When he tried to ask,
His father would only respond
By jamming the cross down further
Telling him to pray
Or burn eternal.
COLD BULLETS PUBLISHING