Ego Tripping by Nikki Giovanni

Ego Tripping

by. Nikki Giovanni (1973)


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...