Children learn to smile.
THE NEW DEAL
I have believed in my convictions
and been convicted for my beliefs.
I have been conned by the Constitution
and harassed by the police.
I have been billed for the Bill of Rights
as though I’d done something wrong.
I have become a special amendment
for what included me all along.
Like: ‘All men are created equal.’
(No amendment needed there)
I’ve contributed in every field including cotton
from Sunset Strip to Washington Square.
Back during the non-violent era
I was the only non-violent one.
Come to think of it there was no non-violence
’cause too many rednecks had guns.
There seems to have been this pattern
that took a long time to pick up on.
But all black leaders who dared stand up
wuz in jail, in the courtroom or gone.
Picked up indiscriminately
by the shocktroops of discrimination
to end up in jails or tied up in trials
while dirty tricks soured the nation.
I’ve been hoodwinked by professional hoods,
My ego had happened to me.
‘Just keep things cool!’ they kept repeating.
‘And keep the people out of the streets.
We’ll settle all this at the conference table.
You leave everything to me.’
Which brings me back to my convictions
and being convicted for my beliefs
’cause I believe these smiles
in three piece suits
with gracious, liberal demeanor
took our movement off the streets
and took us to the cleaners.
In other words, we let up the pressure
and that was all part of their plan
and every day we allow to slip through our fingers
is playing right into their hands.
TUSKEEGEE #626
Tuskeegee #626
Somebody done got slick
When deadly germs are taking turns
Seeing what makes us tick
Tuskeegee #626
Scientists getting their kicks
When deadly disease can do what it please
Results ain’t hard to predict
Tuskeegee #626
Pushed aside mighty quick
When brothers, you dig
Are guinea pigs
For vicious experiments.
KING HENRY IV
The King is alive and twenty millions strong
And long before he ever ascended to the throne
He was made fun of, a source of great humor
His domination over neighborhoods was nothing but a rumor
Back when the King’s name was so rarely spoke
And the ten million disciples mentioned by some folks
Was called exaggerated and treated like a joke
They didn’t understand that the monster had woke
But the King could instantly demonstrate
That he wasn’t no laughing matter
Blow folks away so quickly it would demonstrate
Nobody and nothing does it better
Now we’re talking about total finesse
That’s when you know you’re dealing with the best
There ain’t even been one whisper of force
Over the entire kingdom of Henry IV
The awful thing about it is there ain’t nothing you can do
Guard all your doors and windows and the King can still rob you
Oh, No! ain’t talking about the ’60s, not that f’n far back
In the ’80s with folks falling into and between the cracks
And talking about being right in the center of the news
But the King don’t never give no interviews
And the reporters was lined up. The King was raising hell around here
And then information just dried up and the king seemed to disappear
Gone so quickly you might have just an impression
Moved along so slickly it was like an amnesia expression
Am I certain of my facts now of course.
I know almost all there is to know about King Henry IV
What it left on the ghetto streets was an incorrect understanding
About the ways he caught on and how rapidly he was expanding
The reason I felt black kids was headed for a fall
Was the day I read this poem painted in a bathroom stall:
Fuck a man in the butt and you could get it for sure
Pass a dope needle around and there wasn’t no cure
The kids believed if you wasn’t gay and didn’t shoot dope
You was home free, take the day off and float
But what would always make the King seem so tough
Is that he could get in and then take five years to show back up
And you can go scream at them until you get hoarse
But they don’t understand and about King Henry IV
[There was only Public Enemy with really decent shit to say
And maybe Run DMC had it with ‘Walk This Way’
15 years ago? Hell it wasn’t even ten
Which only goes to show how fast the King is moving in]
He was no more than a whisper at gay after-hours spots
If there are no bloodless revolutions why hadn’t he fired a shot?
Sunday mornings from the pulpit he was blamed on promiscuity
More confusing newspaper bullshit only furthered the ambiguity
Preacher’s became obsessed and called him a message from above
The creature’s game progressed since nobody knew who the fuck he was
Completely taking over areas that had never seen royalty
But soon millions on five continents could all pledge their
loyalty
The invisible monarch was steady doing his thing
He never heard folks once saying ‘Hail to the King!’
But he’s got powers you can’t help but endorse
And the Africans call him King Henry IV
A POEM FOR JOSE CAMPOS TORRES
I had said I wasn’t gonna’ write no more poems
like this.
I had confessed to myself all along, tracer of
life/poetry trends,
that awareness/consciousness poems that screamed
of pain
and the origins of pain and death had blanketed
my tablets and therefore
my friends/brothers/sisters/outlaws/in-laws
and besides, they already knew.
But brother Torres,
common, ancient bloodline brother Torres,
is dead.
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more poems
like this.
I had said I wasn’t gonna write no more words
down
about people kickin’ us when we’re down
about racist dogs that attack us and
drive us down, drag us down and beat us down.
But the dogs are in the street!
The dogs are alive and the terror in our hearts
has scarcely diminished.
It has scarcely brought us the comfort we
suspected:
the recognition of our terror,
and the screaming release of that recognition
has not removed the certainty of that knowledge.
How could it?
The dogs, rabid, foaming with the energy of their
brutish ignorance,
stride the city streets like robot gunslingers, and
spread death
as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun
butts and police shields.
I had said I wasn’t go
nna’ write no more poems
like this.
But the battlefield has oozed away from the
stilted debates of
semantics, beyond the questionable flexibility of
primal screaming.
The reality of our city/jungle streets and their
gestapos has
become an attack on home/life/family/
philosophy/total.
It is beyond a question of the advantages of
didactic niggerisms.
The MOTHERFUCKIN’ DOGS are in the street!
In Houston maybe someone said Mexicans were
the new niggers.
In L.A. maybe someone decided Chicanos were
the new niggers.
In Frisco maybe someone said Asians were the
new niggers.
Maybe in Philadelphia and North Carolina they
decided they
didn’t need no new niggers.
I had said I wasn’t gonna’ write no more poems like this. But the dogs are in the street.
It’s a turn around world where things all too
quickly turn around.
It was turned around so that right looked wrong.
It was turned around so that up looked down.
It was turned around so that those who marched
in the streets
with Bibles and signs of peace became enemies
of the state
and risks to National Security;
So that those who questioned the operations of
those in authority
on the principles of justice, liberty, and equality
became the vanguard of a communist attack.
It became so you couldn’t call a spade a
motherfuckin’ spade.
Brother Torres is dead.
The Wilmington Ten are still incarcerated.
Ed Davis, Ronald Reagan and James Hunt and
Frank Rizzo are still alive.
And the dogs are in the MOTHERFUCKIN’ street.
I had said I wasn’t gonna’ write no more poems
like this.
I made a mistake.
DON'T GIVE UP (THE SPIRITS)
I never thought of myself as a complex man
Or as someone who was really that hard to understand
Though it would hardly take a genius to realize
I’ve always been a lot too arrogant and a little too f’n wise
A combination that made a lotta folks duty bound
To do whatever they could to try and bring me down
To head off some of the things I might say
To see if they couldn’t take some of my stride away
To bring me disappointment and teach me to fear it
Obviously these are folks who don’t have the spirits:
Don’t give up. It’s time to stop your falling.
You’ve been down long enough. Can’t you hear the spirits
calling?
It’s the spirits can’t you hear it calling your name?
There are people whose lives are so far off the track
That what they like best is stabbing brothers in the back
And I was obviously too blind and probably too weak
To see who was responsible for my losing streak
But the best way to explain it is to say simply because
I was looking around outside and truth is that I was the one
So I got locked into all the analysis
And found myself blocked into a kind of paralysis
And something was calling and I almost didn’t hear it
But I’ve spent a lotta time being blessed by the spirits:
Don’t give up. It’s time to stop your falling.
You’ve been down long enough. Can’t you hear the spirits
calling?
It’s the spirits can’t you hear it calling your name?
It don’t matter whether it was a child or an adult
There was absolutely no one I couldn’t insult.
So that I could isolate myself somewhere off to the side
And continue to juggle all the possible ‘whys’
The warmth I once could generate so well
Had turned into a frozen hell.
And all of the discouraging injustices I felt
Pinned me inside a drug-infested cell
Where those who told didn’t know and those that knew
didn’t tell
And I could continue to feel sorry for myself:
Don’t give up. It’s time to stop your falling.
You’ve been down long enough. Can’t you hear the spirits
calling?
Ain’t no way overnight to turn your life around.
And this ain’t the conversation of someone who never falls
back down
But no matter how long you’ve been on trial
And no matter how many times you tried to make it
And found out that right then you just couldn’t take it
If you’re looking for a loser who found strength and success
Remember the spirit of brother Malcolm X
And know that you can leave all of your mistakes behind
The day you really make up your mind:
Don’t give up. It’s time to stop your falling.
You’ve been down long enough. Listen to the spirits calling!
PUBLICATIONS
The Vulture (novel), 1970, World Publishing; 1996, Payback Press
Small Talk at 125th & Lenox (poetry), 1970, World Publishing
The Nigger Factory, (novel), 1972 The Dial Press; 1996, Payback Press
The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron (poetry booklet/LP), 1979, Arista
So Far, So Good (poetry), 1990, Third World Press
Now and Then (poetry) 2000, Payback Press/Brouhaha Books
RECORDINGS
Small Talk at 125th & Lenox, 1970, Flying Dutchman Records
Pieces of a Man, 1971, Flying Dutchman
Free Will, 1972, Flying Dutchman
Winter In America, 1974, Strata-East
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (compilation), 1974, Flying Dutchman
First Minute of a New Day, 1975, Arista
From South Africa to South Carolina, 1975, Arista
It’s Your World, 1976, Live Double LP set, Arista
Bridges, 1977, Arista
Secrets, 1978, Arista
The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron, 1979, Arista
1980, 1980, Arista
Real Eyes, 1980, Arista
Reflections, 1981, Arista
Moving Target, 1982, Arista
The Best of Gil Scott-Heron, 1984, Arista
Space Shuttle, 1989, Castle Communication
Tales of the Amnesia Express [Live], 1990, Castle Communication
Glory [compilation], 1992, Arista-Ariola
Spirits, 1994, TVT Records
The Vulture & The Nigger Factory
Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron’s highly successful two novels are now collected together for the first time.
A hip and fast moving thriller, The Vulture relates the strange story of John Lee’s murder – telling it in the words of four men who knew him when he was just another kid, working after school, hanging out, and waiting for something to happen. Just who did kill John Lee, and why?
The Nigger Factory is a scornful statement on the way which human beings are conditioned to think. On the campus of Sutton University, Virginia, the students are trying to carry forth the message of reconstruction to a university resistant to change. The failure of Sutton to embrace the changing attitudes of the Sixties has necessiated extreme reaction, and the revolution is nigh …
‘They are impressive and ambitious works that vigorously mix street savvy and intellectual flair. They retain a freshness and energy that has dated them little.’ GQ
‘With the pace of cleanly constru
cted thrillers they wield the force of a highly focused political consciousness.’ The Herald
‘There’s plenty of tension and sex, but also a whole heap of politics. These are ace period pieces.’ Select
‘They’re prodigious works, displaying the ability with words that his subsequent recorded works show so clearly.’ Wire
The Vulture & The Nigger Factory
ISBN 0 86241 901 8
£7.99 pbk
Buy online at www.canongate.net for a 20% discount.
Payback Poetry
Rebel Without Applause – Lemn Sissay
The long-awaited reprint of Lemn Sissay’s debut collection.
‘Fierce, funny, serious, satirical, streetwise and tender.’
The Big Issue
ISBN 1 8419 6 001 7
£7.99 pbk
Morning Breaks in the Elevator – Lemn Sissay
This is a twist of Lemn. His first solo collection in eight years.
‘Easily the best, most comprehensive collection of poetry about
modern Britain I have read for a long time.’
Straight No Chaser
ISBN 0 86241 838 9
£7.99 pbk
The Fire People – Edited by Lemn Sissay
A coming together of the finest contemporary Black British poets,
including Tricky, Jackie Kay and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
‘The collection forms a milestone of great significance.’
The Times
ISBN 0 86241 739 2
Transformatrix – Patience Agbabi
Inspired by ’90s poetry, ’80s rap and ’70s disco, Transformatrix is
an exploration of women, travel and the realties of modern Britain.
‘Rising Star … Patience Agbabi.’
The Observer
ISBN 0 86241 941 7
£7.99 pbk
Buy online at www.canongate.net for a 20% discount.
About the Author
Gil Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949. He has been opening eyes, minds and souls for thirty years. A highly influential and widely admired singer, proto-rapper, jazz pianist, published poet, novelist and socio-political commentator, Scott-Heron remains a unique and major figure in global music. With over fifteen albums to his name, his politically charged output has won him an international following. His work illuminates a philosophy of life that holds human affection as well as political and artistic responsibility as the underlying factors that inspire his writing. The publication of Now and Then – the first ever British issue of his poetry – is a major deal. For real.