Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (10 page)

If I ever hit for a dollar

gonna salt every dime away

in the Post Office for a rainy day.

I ain’t gonna

play back a cent.

(Of course, I might

combinate
a little

with my rent.)

               I believe my old lady’s

               pregnant again!

Fate must have

some kind of trickeration

to populate the

cullud nation!

                         
Comment against Lamp Post

You call it fate?

                         
Figurette

De-daddle-dy!

De-dop!

I play it cool

And dig all jive.

That’s the reason

I stay alive.

My motto,

As I live and learn,

      is:

Dig And Be Dug

In Return
.

Sometimes

A night funeral

Going by

Carries home

A cool bop daddy.

Hearse and flowers

Guarantee

He’ll never hype

Another paddy.

It’s hard to believe,

But dead in there,

He’ll never lay a

Hype nowhere!

He’s my ace-boy,

Gone away.

Wake up and live!

He used to say.

Squares

Who couldn’t dig him,

Plant him now—

Out where it makes

No diff’ no how.

When I rolled three 7’s

in a row

I was scared to walk out

with the dough.

Two or three things in the past

failed him

that had not failed people

of lesser genius.

In the first place

he didn’t have much sense.

He was no good at making love

and no good at making money.

So he tapped,

    trucked,

    boogied,

    sanded,

    jittered,

until he made folks say,

    
Looky yonder

    
at that boy!

    
Hey!

But being no good at lovin’—

the girls left him.

(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.

Folks, I’m telling you,

birthing is hard

and dying is mean—

so get yourself

a little loving

in between.

A wonderful time—the War:

when money rolled in

and blood rolled out.

    But blood

    was far away

    from here—

Money was near.

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!

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?

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

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.

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!

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 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

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.

Maybe it ain’t right—

but the people of the night

    will give even

    a snake

    a break.

Hemp …

A stick …

A roach …

Straw …

That whiskey will cook the egg.

    
Say not so!

    
Maybe the egg

    
will cook the whiskey
.

You ought to know!

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?

Voice grows thicker

as song grows stronger

as time grows longer until day

trying to forget to remember

the taste of day.

Jack, if you got to be a rounder

Be a rounder right—

Just don’t let mama catch you

Makin’ rounds at night.

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.

Lenox Avenue

by daylight

runs to dive in the Park

but faster …

faster …

after dark.

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!

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.

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

Imploring Mecca

to achieve

six discs

with Decca.

Little cullud boys

    with fears,

    frantic,

nudge their draftee years.

    
Pop-a-da!

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?