Selected Poems of Langston Hughes Page 9
(When you’re no good for dough they go.)
With no sense, just wonderful feet,
What could possibly be all-reet?
Did he get anywhere? No!
Even a great dancer
can’t C.P.T.
a show.
Advice
Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean—
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
Green Memory
A wonderful time—the War:
when money rolled in
and blood rolled out.
But blood
was far away
from here—
Money was near.
Wine-O
Setting in the wine-house
Soaking up a wine-souse
Waiting for tomorrow to come—
Then
Setting in the wine-house
Soaking up a new souse.
Tomorrow …
Oh, hum!
Relief
My heart is aching
for them Poles and Greeks
on relief way across the sea
because I was on relief
once in 1933.
I know what relief can be—
it took me two years to get on WPA.
If the war hadn’t come along
I wouldn’t be out the barrel yet.
Now, I’m almost back in the barrel again.
To tell the truth,
if these white folks want to go ahead
and fight another war,
or even two,
the one to stop ’em won’t be me.
Would you?
Ballad of the Landlord
Landlord, landlord,
My roof has sprung a leak.
Don’t you ’member I told you about it
Way last week?
Landlord, landlord,
These steps is broken down.
When you come up yourself
It’s a wonder you don’t fall down.
Ten Bucks you say I owe you?
Ten Bucks you say is due?
Well, that’s Ten Bucks more’n I’ll pay you
Till you fix this house up new.
What? You gonna get eviction orders?
You gonna cut off my heat?
You gonna take my furniture and
Throw it in the street?
Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.
Talk on—till you get through.
You ain’t gonna be able to say a word
If I land my fist on you.
Police! Police!
Come and get this man!
He’s trying to ruin the government
And overturn the land!
Copper’s whistle!
Patrol bell!
Arrest.
Precinct Station.
Iron cell.
Headlines in press:
MAN THREATENS LANDLORD
TENANT HELD NO BAIL
JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL
Corner Meeting
Ladder, flag, and amplifier:
what the soap box
used to be.
The speaker catches fire
looking at their faces.
His words
jump down to stand
in listeners’ places.
Projection
On the day when the Savoy
leaps clean over to Seventh Avenue
and starts jitterbugging
with the Renaissance,
on that day when Abyssinia Baptist Church
throws her enormous arms around
St. James Presbyterian
and 409 Edgecombe
stoops to kiss 12 West 133rd,
on that day—
Do, Jesus!
Manhattan Island will whirl
like a Dizzy Gillespie transcription
played by Inez and Timme.
On that day, Lord,
Sammy Davis and Marian Anderson
will sing a duet,
Paul Robeson
will team up with Jackie Mabley,
and Father Divine will say in truth,
Peace!
It’s truly
wonderful!
Flatted Fifths
Little cullud boys with beards
re-bop be-bop mop and stop.
Little cullud boys with fears,
frantic, kick their draftee years
into flatted fifths and flatter beers
that at a sudden change become
sparkling Oriental wines
rich and strange
silken bathrobes with gold twines
and Heilbroner, Crawford,
Nat-undreamed-of Lewis combines
in silver thread and diamond notes
on trade-marks inside
Howard coats.
Little cullud boys in berets
oop pop-a-da
horse a fantasy of days
ool ya koo
and dig all plays.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow may be
a thousand years off:
TWO DIMES AND A NICKLE ONLY
says this particular
cigarette machine.
Others take a quarter straight.
Some dawns
wait
Mellow
Into the laps
of black celebrities
white girls fall
like pale plums from a tree
beyond a high tension wall
wired for killing
which makes it
more thrilling.
Live and Let Live
Maybe it ain’t right—
but the people of the night
will give even
a snake
a break.
Gauge
Hemp …
A stick …
A roach …
Straw …
Bar
That whiskey will cook the egg.
Say not so!
Maybe the egg
will cook the whiskey.
You ought to know!
Café: 3 A.M.
Detectives from the vice squad
with weary sadistic eyes
spotting fairies.
Degenerates,
some folks say.
But God, Nature,
or somebody
made them that way.
Police lady or Lesbian
over there?
Where?
Drunkard
Voice grows thicker
as song grows stronger
as time grows longer until day
trying to forget to remember
the taste of day.
Street Song
Jack, if you got to be a rounder
Be a rounder right—
Just don’t let mama catch you
Makin’ rounds at night.
125th Street
Face like a chocolate bar
full of nuts and sweet.
Face like a jack-o’-lantern,
candle inside.
Face like slice of melon,
grin that wide.
Dive
Lenox Avenue
by daylight
runs to dive in the Park
but faster …
faster …
after dark.
Warning: Augmented
Don’t let your dog curb you!
Curb your doggie
Like you ought to do,
> But don’t let that dog curb you!
You may play folks cheap,
Act rough and tough,
But a dog can tell
When you’re full of stuff.
Them little old mutts
Look all scraggly and bad,
But they got more sense
Than some people ever had.
Cur dog, fice dog, kerry blue—
Just don’t let your dog curb you!
Up-Beat
In the gutter
boys who try
might meet girls
on the fly
as out of the gutter
girls who will
may meet boys
copping a thrill
while from the gutter
both can rise:
But it requires
plenty eyes.
Jam Session
Letting midnight
out on bail
pop-a-da
having been
detained in jail
oop-pop-a-da
for sprinkling salt
on a dreamer’s tail
pop-a-da
Be-Bop Boys
Imploring Mecca
to achieve
six discs
with Decca.
Tag
Little cullud boys
with fears,
frantic,
nudge their draftee years.
Pop-a-da!
Theme for English B
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
College Formal: Renaissance Casino
Golden girl
in a golden gown
in a melody night
in Harlem town
lad tall and brown
tall and wise
college boy smart
eyes in eyes
the music wraps
them both around
in mellow magic
of dancing sound
till they’re the heart
of the whole big town
gold and brown
Low to High
How can you forget me?
But you do!
You said you was gonna take me
Up with you—
Now you’ve got your Cadillac,
you done forgot that you are black.
How can you forget me
When I’m you?
But you do.
How can you forget me,
fellow, say?
How can you low-rate me
this way?
You treat me like you damn well please,
Ignore me—though I pay your fees.
How can you forget me?
But you do.
Boogie: 1 a.m.
Good evening, daddy!
I know you’ve heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred
Trilling the treble
And twining the bass
Into midnight ruffles
Of cat-gut lace.
High to Low
God knows
We have our troubles, too—
One trouble is you:
you talk too loud,
cuss too loud,
look too black,
don’t get anywhere,
and sometimes it seems
you don’t even care.
The way you send your kids to school
stockings down,
(not Ethical Culture)
the way you shout out loud in church,
(not St. Phillips)
and the way you lounge on doorsteps
just as if you were down South,
(not at 409)
the way you clown—
the way, in other words,
you let me down—
me, trying to uphold the race
and you—
well, you can see,
we have our problems,
too, with you.
Lady’s Boogie
See that lady
Dressed so fine?
She ain’t got boogie-woogie
On her mind—
But if she was to listen
I bet she’d hear,
Way up in the treble
The tingle of a tear.
Be-Bach!
So Long
So long
is in the song
and it’s in the way you’re gone
but it’s like a foreign language
in my mind
and maybe was I blind
I could not see
and would not know
you’re gone so long
so long.
Deferred
This year, maybe, do you think I can graduate?
I’m already two years late.
Dropped out six months when I was seven,
a year when I was eleven,
then got put back when we come North.
To get through high at twenty’s kind of late—
But maybe this year I can graduate.
Maybe now I can have that white enamel stove
I dreamed about when we first fell in love
eighteen years ago.
But you know,
rooming and everything
then kids,
cold-water flat and all that.
But now my daughter’s married
And my boy’s most grown—
quit school to work—
and where we’re moving
there ain’t no stove—
Maybe I can buy that white enamel stove!
Me, I always did want to study French.
It don’t make sense—
I’ll never go to France,
but night schools teach French.
Now at last I’ve go
t a job
where I get off at five,
in time to wash and dress,
so, si’l-vous plait, I’ll study French!
Someday,
I’m gonna buy two new suits
at once!
All I want is
one more bottle of gin.
All I want is to see
my furniture paid for.
All I want is a wife who will
work with me and not against me. Say,
baby, could you see your way clear?
Heaven, heaven, is my home!
This world I’ll leave behind
When I set my feet in glory
I’ll have a throne for mine]
I want to pass the civil service.
I want a television set.
You know, as old as I am,
I ain’t never
owned a decent radio yet?
I’d like to take up Bach.
Montage
of a dream
deferred.
Buddy, have you heard?
Request
Gimme $25.00
and the change.
I’m going
where the morning
and the evening
won’t bother me.
Shame on You
If you’re great enough
and clever enough
the government might honor you.
But the people will forget—
Except on holidays.