Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Page 10
A movie house in Harlem named after Lincoln,
Nothing at all named after John Brown.
Black people don’t remember
any better than white.
If you’re not alive and kicking,
shame on you!
World War II
What a grand time was the war!
Oh, my, my!
What a grand time was the war!
My, my, my!
In wartime we had fun,
Sorry that old war is done!
What a grand time was the war,
My, my!
Echo:
Did
Somebody
Die?
Mystery
When a chile gets to be thirteen
and ain’t seen Christ yet,
she needs to set on de moaner’s bench
night and day.
Jesus, lover of my soul!
Hail, Mary, mother of God!
Let me to thy bosom fly!
Amen! Hallelujah!
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Sunday morning where the rhythm flows,
how old nobody knows—
yet old as mystery,
older than creed,
basic and wondering
and lost as my need.
Eli, eli!
Te deum!
Mahomet!
Christ!
Father Bishop, Effendi, Mother Home,
Father Divine, a Rabbi black
as black was born,
a jack-leg preacher, a Ph.D.
The mystery
and the darkness
and the song
and me.
Sliver of Sermon
When pimps out of loneliness cry:
Great God!
Whores in final weariness say:
Great God!
Oh, God!
My God!
Great
God!
Testimonial
If I just had a piano,
if I just had a organ,
if I just had a drum,
how I could praise my Lord!
But I don’t need no piano,
neither organ
nor drum
for to praise my Lord!
Passing
On sunny summer Sunday afternoons in Harlem
when the air is one interminable ball game
and grandma cannot get her gospel hymns
from the Saints of God in Christ
on account of the Dodgers on the radio,
on sunny Sunday afternoons
when the kids look all new
and far too clean to stay that way,
and Harlem has its
washed-and-ironed-and-cleaned-best out,
the ones who’ve crossed the line
to live downtown
miss you,
Harlem of the bitter dream,
since their dream has
come true.
Nightmare Boogie
I had a dream
and I could see
a million faces
black as me!
A nightmare dream:
Quicker than light
All them faces
Turned dead white!
Boogie-woogie,
Rolling bass,
Whirling treble
of cat-gut lace.
Sunday by the Combination
I feel like dancin’, baby,
till the sun goes down.
But I wonder where
the sunrise
Monday morning’s gonna be?
I feel like dancin’!
Baby, dance with me!
Casualty
He was a soldier in the army,
But he doesn’t walk like one.
He walks like his soldiering
Days are done.
Son! … Son!
Night Funeral in Harlem
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Where did they get
Them two fine cars?
Insurance man, he did not pay—
His insurance lapsed the other day—
Yet they got a satin box
For his head to lay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Who was it sent
That wreath of flowers?
Them flowers came
from that poor boy’s friends—
They’ll want flowers, too,
When they meet their ends.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Who preached that
Black boy to his grave?
Old preacher-man
Preached that boy away—
Charged Five Dollars
His girl friend had to pay.
Night funeral
In Harlem:
When it was all over
And the lid shut on his head
and the organ had done played
and the last prayers been said
and six pallbearers
Carried him out for dead
And off down Lenox Avenue
That long black hearse done sped,
The street light
At his corner
Shined just like a tear—
That boy that they was mournin’
Was so dear, so dear
To them folks that brought the flowers,
To that girl who paid the preacher man—
It was all their tears that made
That poor boy’s
Funeral grand.
Night funeral
In Harlem.
Blues at Dawn
I don’t dare start thinking in the morning.
I don’t dare start thinking in the morning.
If I thought thoughts in bed,
Them thoughts would bust my head—
So I don’t dare start thinking in the morning.
I don’t dare remember in the morning
Don’t dare remember in the morning.
If I recall the day before,
I wouldn’t get up no more—
So I don’t dare remember in the morning.
Dime
Chile, these steps is hard to cl
imb.
Grandma, lend me a dime.
Montage of a dream deferred:
Grandma acts like
She ain’t heard.
Chile, Granny ain’t got no dime.
I might’ve knowed
It all the time.
Argument
White is right,
Yellow mellow,
Black, get back!
Do you believe that, Jack?
Sure do!
Then you’re a dope
for which there ain’t no hope.
Black is fine!
And, God knows,
It’s mine!
Neighbor
Down home
he sets on a stoop
and watches the sun go by.
In Harlem
when his work is done
he sets in a bar with a beer.
He looks taller than he is
and younger than he ain’t.
He looks darker than he is, too.
And he’s smarter than he looks,
He ain’t smart.
That cat’s a fool.
Naw, he ain’t neither.
He’s a good man,
except that he talks too much.
In fact, he’s a great cat.
But when he drinks,
he drinks fast.
Sometimes
he don’t drink.
True,
he just
lets his glass
set there.
Evening Song
A woman standing in the doorway
Trying to make her where-with-all:
Come here, baby, darlin’!
Don’t you hear me call?
If I was anybody’s sister,
I’d tell her, Gimme a place to sleep.
But I ain’t nobody’s sister.
I’m just a poor lost sheep.
Mary, Mary, Mary,
Had a little lamb.
Well, I hope that lamb of Mary’s
Don’t turn out like I am.
Chord
Shadow faces
In the shadow night
Before the early dawn
Bops bright.
Fact
There’s been an eagle on a nickel,
An eagle on a quarter, too.
But there ain’t no eagle
On a dime.
Joe Louis
They worshipped Joe.
A school teacher
whose hair was gray
said:
Joe has sense enough to know
He is a god.
So many gods don’t know.
“They say”…“They say”…“They say”…
But the gossips had no
“They say”
to latch onto
for Joe.
Subway Rush Hour
Mingled
breath and smell
so close
mingled
black and white
so near
no room for fear.
Brothers
We’re related—you and I,
You from the West Indies,
I from Kentucky.
Kinsmen—you and I,
You from Africa,
I from the U.S.A.
Brothers—you and I.
Likewise
The Jews:
Groceries
Suits
Fruits
Watches
Diamond rings
THE DAILY NEWS
Jews sell me things.
Yom Kippur, no!
Shops all over Harlem
close up tight that night.
Some folks blame high prices on the Jews.
(Some folks blame too much on Jews.)
But in Harlem they don’t answer back,
Just maybe shrug their shoulders,
“What’s the use?”
What’s the use
in Harlem?
What’s the use?
What’s the Harlem
use in Harlem
what’s the lick?
Hey!
Baba-re-bop!
Mop!
On a be-bop kick!
Sometimes I think
Jews must have heard
the music of a
dream deferred.
Sliver
Cheap little rhymes
A cheap little tune
Are sometimes as dangerous
As a sliver of the moon.
A cheap little tune
To cheap little rhymes
Can cut a man’s
Throat sometimes.
Hope
He rose up on his dying bed
and asked for fish.
His wife looked it up in her dream book
and played it.
Dream Boogie: Variation
Tinkling treble,
Rolling bass,
High noon teeth
In a midnight face,
Great long fingers
On great big hands,
Screaming pedals
Where his twelve-shoe lands,
Looks like his eyes
Are teasing pain,
A few minutes late
For the Freedom Train.
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Good Morning
Good morning, daddy!
I was born here, he said,
watched Harlem grow
until colored folks spread
from river to river
across the middle of Manhattan
out of Penn Station
dark tenth of a nation,
planes from Puerto Rico,
and holds of boats, chico,
up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica,
in buses marked New York
from Georgia Florida Louisiana
to Harlem Brooklyn the Bronx
but most of all to Harlem
dusky sash across Manhattan
I’ve seen them come dark
wondering
wide-eyed
dreaming
out of Penn Station—
but the trains are late.
The gates open—
Yet there’re bars
at each gate.
What happens
to a dream deferred?
Daddy, ain’t you heard?
Same in Blues
I said to my baby,
Baby, take it slow.
I can’t, she said, I can’t!
I got to go!
There’s a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.
Lulu said to Leonard,
I want a diamond ring.
Leonard said to Lulu,
You won’t get a goddamn thing!
A certain
amount of nothing
in a dream deferred.
Daddy, daddy, daddy,
All I want is you.
You can have me, baby—
but my lovin’ days is through.
A certain
amount of impotence
in a dream deferred.
Three parties
On my party line—
But that third party,
Lord, ain’t mine!
There’s liable
to be confusion
in a dream deferred.
From river to river,
Uptown and down,
There’s liable to be confusion
when a dream gets kicked around.
Comment on Curb
You talk like
they don’t kick
dreams around
downtown.
I expect they do—
But I’m talking about
Harlem to you!
Letter
Dear Mama,
Time I pay rent and get my food
and laundry I don’t hare much left
but here is five dollars for you
to show you I still appreciates you.
My girl-friend send her love and say
she hopes to lay eyes on you sometime in life.
Mama, it has been raining cats and dogs up
here. Well, that is all so I will close.
Your son baby
Respectably as ever,