Nikki and me

So my mom bought Nikki Giovanni's album "The Truth Is on the Way" when I was a kid. Eventually I got around to listening to it (I listened to all my parents album in an attempt to understand their musical tastes, which ran the gamut from R&B, blues, jazz, and funk, to classical, folk, and country). I memorized this poem and used it as protection and defense against junior high school boys. It stunned at least a few of then into silence. I've since met Nikki, had the great pleasure of having lunch with her. I told her that my mama was my introduction to her poetry. But I didn't tell her I used her as a secret weapon.




Ego Tripping
by Nikki Giovanni

I was born in the Congo.
I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the sphinx.
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light.
I am bad.
I sat on the throne drinking nectar with Allah.
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe to cool my thirst.
My oldest daughter is Nefertiti.
The tears from my birth pains
created the Nile.
I am a beautiful woman.
I gazed on the forest and burned out the Sahara desert.
With a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes, I crossed it in two hours.
I am a gazelle so swift, so swift you can't catch me.
For a birthday present when he was three, I gave my son Hannibal an elephant.
He gave me Rome for mother's day.
My strength flows ever on.
My son Noah built an ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day.
I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.
Men intone my loving name.
All praises all praises,
I am the one who would save.
I sowed diamonds in my back yard.
My bowels deliver uranium.
The filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels.
On a trip north,I caught a cold and blew my nose giving oil to the Arab world.
I am so hip even my errors are correct.
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went.
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents.
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal,
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.
I mean. . . I. . .can fly like a bird in the sky. . .