Selected Poems of Langston Hughes Page 6
Ku Klux
They took me out
To some lonesome place.
They said, “Do you believe
In the great white race?”
I said, “Mister,
To tell you the truth,
I’d believe in anything
If you’d just turn me loose.”
The white man said, “Boy,
Can it be
You’re a-standin’ there
A-sassin’ me?”
They hit me in the head
And knocked me down.
And then they kicked me
On the ground.
A klansman said, “Nigger,
Look me in the face—
And tell me you believe in
The great white race.”
West Texas
Down in West Texas where the sun
Shines like the evil one
I had a woman
And her name
Was Joe.
Pickin’ cotton in the field
Joe said I wonder how it would feel
For us to pack up
Our things
And go?
So we cranked up our old Ford
And we started down the road
Where we was goin’
We didn’t know—
Nor which way.
But West Texas where the sun
Shines like the evil one
Ain’t no place
For a colored
Man to stay!
Share-Croppers
Just a herd of Negroes
Driven to the field,
Plowing, planting, hoeing,
To make the cotton yield.
When the cotton’s picked
And the work is done
Boss man takes the money
And we get none,
Leaves us hungry, ragged
As we were before.
Year by year goes by
And we are nothing more
Than a herd of Negroes
Driven to the field—
Plowing life away
To make the cotton yield.
Ruby Brown
She was young and beautiful
And golden like the sunshine
That warmed her body.
And because she was colored
Mayville had no place to offer her,
Nor fuel for the clean flame of joy
That tried to burn within her soul.
One day,
Sitting on old Mrs. Latham’s back porch
Polishing the silver,
She asked herself two questions
And they ran something like this:
What can a colored girl do
On the money from a white woman’s kitchen?
And ain’t there any joy in this town?
Now the streets down by the river
Know more about this pretty Ruby Brown,
And the sinister shuttered houses of the bottoms
Hold a yellow girl
Seeking an answer to her questions.
The good church folk do not mention
Her name any more.
But the white men,
Habitués of the high shuttered houses,
Pay more money to her now
Than they ever did before,
When she worked in their kitchens.
Roland Hayes Beaten (Georgia: 1942)
Negroes,
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their minds!
Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!
Uncle Tom
Within—
The beaten pride.
Without—
The grinning face,
The low, obsequious,
Double bow,
The sly and servile grace
Of one the white folks
Long ago
Taught well
To know his
Place.
Porter
I must say
Yes, sir,
To you all the time.
Yes, sir!
Yes, sir!
All my days
Climbing up a great big mountain
Of yes, sirs!
Rich old white man
Owns the world.
Gimme yo’ shoes
To shine.
Yes, sir!
Blue Bayou
I went walkin’
By the blue bayou
And I saw the sun go down.
I thought about old Greeley
And I thought about Lou
And I saw the sun go down.
White man
Makes me work all day
And I work too hard
For too little pay—
Then a white man
Takes my woman away.
I’ll kill old Greeley.
The blue bayou
Turns red as fire.
Put the black man
On a rope
And pull him higher!
I saw the sun go down.
Put him on a rope
And pull him higher!
The blue bayou’s
A pool of fire.
And I saw the sun go down,
Down,
Down,
Lawd, I saw the sun go down!
Silhouette
Southern gentle lady,
Do not swoon.
They’ve just hung a black man
In the dark of the moon.
They’ve hung a black man
To a roadside tree
In the dark of the moon
For the world to see
How Dixie protects
Its white womanhood.
Southern gentle lady,
Be good!
Be good!
Song for a Dark Girl
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
The South
The lazy, laughing South
With blood on its mouth.
The sunny-faced South,
Beast-strong,
Idiot-brained.
The child-minded South
Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes
For a Negro’s bones.
Cotton and the moon,
Warmth, earth, warmth,
The sky, the sun, the stars,
The magnolia-scented South.
Beautiful, like a woman,
Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,
Passionate, cruel,
Honey-lipped, syphilitic—
That is the South.
And I, who am black, would love her
But she spits in my face.
And I, who am black,
Would give her many rare gifts
But she turns her back upon me.
So now I seek the North—
The cold-faced North,
For she, they say,
Is a kinder mistress,
And in her house my childr
en
May escape the spell of the South.
Bound No’th Blues
Goin’ down the road, Lawd,
Goin’ down the road.
Down the road, Lawd,
Way, way down the road.
Got to find somebody
To help me carry this load.
Road’s in front o’ me,
Nothin’ to do but walk.
Road’s in front o’ me,
Walk … an’ walk … an’ walk.
I’d like to meet a good friend
To come along an’ talk.
Hates to be lonely,
Lawd, I hates to be sad.
Says I hates to be lonely,
Hates to be lonely an’ sad,
But ever friend you finds seems
Like they try to do you bad.
Road, road, road, O!
Road, road … road … road, road!
Road, road, road, O!
On the no’thern road.
These Mississippi towns ain’t
Fit fer a hoppin’ toad.
NAME
IN
UPHILL
LETTERS
One-Way Ticket
I pick up my life
And take it with me
And I put it down in
Chicago, Detroit,
Buffalo, Scranton,
Any place that is
North and East—
And not Dixie.
I pick up my life
And take it on the train
To Los Angeles, Bakersfield,
Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,
Any place that is
North and West—
And not South.
I am fed up
With Jim Crow laws,
People who are cruel
And afraid,
Who lynch and run,
Who are scared of me
And me of them.
I pick up my life
And take it away
On a one-way ticket—
Gone up North,
Gone out West,
Gone!
Migrant
(Chicago)
Daddy-o
Buddy-o
Works at the foundry.
Daddy-o
Buddy-o
Rides the State Street street car,
Transfers to the West Side,
Polish, Bohunk, Irish,
Grabs a load of sunrise
As he rides out on the prairie,
Never knew DuSable,
Has a lunch to carry.
Iron lifting iron
Makes iron of chocolate muscles.
Iron lifting iron
Makes hammer beat of drum beat
And the heat
Moulds and melts and moulds it
On red heart become an anvil
Until a glow is lighted
In the eyes once soft benighted
And the cotton field is frightened
A thousand miles away.
They draw up restrictive covenants
In Australia, too, they say.
Our President
Takes up important matters
Still left by V-J Day.
Congress cases Russia.
The Tribune’s hair
Turns gray.
Daddy-o
Buddy-o
Signs his name
In uphill letters
On the check that is his pay.
But if he wasn’t in a hurry
He wouldn’t write so
Bad that way,
Daddy-o.
Summer Evening (Calumet Avenue)
Mothers pass,
Sweet watermelon in a baby carriage,
Black seed for eyes
And a rose pink mouth.
Pimps in gray go by,
Boots polished like a Murray head,
Or in reverse
Madam Walker
On their shoe tips.
I. W. Harper
Stops to listen to gospel songs
From a tent at the corner
Where the carnival is Christian.
Jitneys go by
Full of chine bones in dark glasses,
And a blind man plays an accordion
Gurgling Jericho.
Theresa Belle Aletha
Throws a toothpick from her window,
And the four bells she’s awaiting
Do not ring, not even murmur.
But maybe before midnight
The tamale man will come by,
And if Uncle Mac brings beer
Night will pull its slack taut
And wrap a string around its finger
So as not to forget
That tomorrow is Monday.
A dime on those two bottles.
Yes, they are yours,
Too!
And in another week
It will again
Be Sunday.
Graduation
Cinnamon and rayon,
Jet and coconut eyes,
Mary Lulu Jackson
Smooths the skirt
At her thighs.
Mama, portly oven,
Brings remainders from the kitchen
Where the people all are icebergs
Wrapped in checks and wealthy.
DIPLOMA in its new frame:
Mary Lulu Jackson,
Eating chicken,
Tells her mama she’s a typist
And the clicking of the keys
Will spell the name
Of a job in a fine office
Far removed from basic oven,
Cookstoves,
And iceberg’s kitchen.
Mama says, Praise Jesus!
Until then
I’ll bring home chicken!
The DIPLOMA bursts its frame
To scatter star-dust in their eyes.
Mama says, Praise Jesus!
The colored race will rise!
Mama says,
Praise Jesus!
Then,
Because she’s tired,
She sighs.
Interne at Provident
White coats
White aprons
White dresses
White shoes
Pain and a learning
To take away to Alabama.
Practice on a State Street cancer,
Practice on a stockyards rupture,
Practice on the small appendix
Of 26-girl at the corner,
Learning skills of surgeons
Brown and wonderful with longing
To cure ills of Africa,
Democracy,
And mankind,
Also ills quite common
Among all who stand on two feet.
Brown hands
Black hands
Golden hands in white coat,
Nurses’ hands on suture.
Miracle maternity:
Pain on hind legs rising,
Pain tamed and subsiding
Like a mule broke to the halter.
Charity’s checked money
Aids triumphant entry squalling
After bitter thrust of bearing
Chocolate and blood:
Projection of a day!
Tears of joy
And Coca-Cola
Twinkle on the rubber gloves
He’s wearing.
A crown of sweat
Gleams on his forehead.
In the white moon
Of the amphitheatre
Magi are staring.
The light on the Palmolive Building
Shines like a star in the East.
Nurses turn glass doorknobs
Opening into corridors.
A mist of iodine and ether
Follows the young doctor,
Cellophanes his long stride,
Cellophanes his future.
Railroad Avenue
Dusk dark
On
Railroad Avenue.
Lights in the fish joints,
Lights in the pool rooms.
A box-car some train
Has forgotten
In the middle of the
Block.
A player piano,
A victrola.
942
Was the number.
A boy
Lounging on a corner.
A passing girl
With purple powdered skin.
Laughter
Suddenly
Like a taut drum.
Laughter
Suddenly
Neither truth nor lie.
Laughter
Hardening the dusk dark evening.
Laughter
Shaking the lights in the fish joints,
Rolling white balls in the pool rooms,
And leaving untouched the box-car
Some train has forgotten.
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Stars
O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,
O, little breath of oblivion that is night.