Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (9 page)

He said, I am interested

In your soul.

Has it been saved,

Or is your heart stone-cold?

I said, Reverend,

I’ll have you know

I was baptized

Long ago.

He said, What have you

Done since then?

I said, None of your

Business, friend.

He said, Sister

Have you back-slid?

I said, It felt good—

If I did!

He said, Sister,

Come time to die,

The Lord will surely

Ask you why!

I’m gonna pray

For you!

Goodbye!

I felt kinder sorry

I talked that way

After Rev. Butler

Went away—

So I ain’t in no mood

For sin today.

I had two husbands.

I could of had three—

But my Might-Have-Been

Was too good for me.

When you grow up the hard way

Sometimes you don’t know

What’s too good to be true,

Just might be so.

He worked all the time,

Spent his money on me—

First time in my life

I had anything free.

I said, Do you love me?

Or am I mistaken?

You’re always giving

And never taking.

He said, Madam, I swear

All I want is you.

Right then and there

I knowed we was through!

I told him, Jackson,

You better leave—

You got some’n else

Up your sleeve:

When you think you got bread

It’s always a stone—

Nobody loves nobody

For yourself alone.

He said, In me

You’ve got no trust.

I said, I don’t want

My heart to bust.

The census man,

The day he came round,

Wanted my name

To put it down.

I said, JOHNSON,

ALBERTA K.

But he hated to write

The K that way.

He said, What

Does K stand for?

I said, K—

And nothing more.

He said, I’m gonna put it

K—A—Y.

I said, If you do,

You lie.

My mother christened me

ALBERTA K.

You leave my name

Just that way!

He said, Mrs.,

(With a snort)

Just a K

Makes your name too short.

I said, I don’t

Give a damn!

Leave me and my name

Just like I am!

Furthermore, rub out

That MRS., too—

I’ll have you know

I’m
Madam
to you!

Good morning, daddy!

Ain’t you heard

The boogie-woogie rumble

Of a dream deferred?

Listen closely:

You’ll hear their feet

Beating out and beating out a—

    
You think

    
It’s a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:

Ain’t you heard

something underneath

like a—

    
What did I say?

Sure,

I’m happy!

Take it away!

    
Hey, pop!

    
Re-bop!

    
Mop!

    
Y-e-a-h!

Seven ladies

and seventeen gentlemen

at the Elks Club Lounge

planning planning a parade:

Grand Marshal in his white suit

will lead it.

Cadillacs with dignitaries

will precede it.

And behind will come

with band and drum

on foot … on foot …

on foot …

Motorcycle cops,

white,

will speed it

out of sight

if they can:

Solid black,

can’t be right.

Marching … marching …

marching …

noon till night …

    
I never knew

    
that many Negroes

    
were on earth
,

    
did you?

    
I never knew!

                                        PARADE!

    
A chance to let

                                        PARADE!

    the whole world see

                                        PARADE!

    old black me!

When I was a chile we used to play,

“One—two—buckle my shoe!”

and things like that. But now, Lord,

listen at them little varmints!

    
By what sends

    
the white kids

    
I ain’t sent:

    
I know I can’t

    
be President
.

There is two thousand children

in this block, I do believe!

    
What don’t bug

    
them white kids

    
sure bugs me:

    
We knows everybody

    
ain’t free!

Some of these young ones is cert’ly bad—

One batted a hard ball right through my window

and my gold fish et the glass.

    
What’s written down

    
for white folks

    
ain’t for us a-tall:

    
“Liberty And Justice—

    
Huh—For All.”

    
Oop-pop-a-da!

    
Skee! Daddle-de-do!

    
Be-bop!

    Salt’peanuts!

    
De-dop!

That little Negro’s married and got a kid.

Why does he keep on foolin’ around Marie?

Marie’s my sister—not married to me—

But why does he keep on foolin’ around Marie?

Why don’t she get a boy-friend

I can understand—some decent man?

    
Did it ever occur to you, son
,

    
the reason Marie runs around with trash

    
is she wants some cash?

Don’t decent folks have dough?

    
Unfortunately usually no!

Well, anyway, it don’t have to be a married man.

    
Did it ever occur to you, boy
,

    
that a woman does the best she can?

                                        
Comment on Stoop

So does a man
.

I likes a woman

six or eight and ten years older’n myself.

I don’t fool with these young girls.

Young girl’ll say,

    
Daddy, I want so-and-so
.

    
I needs this, that, and the other
.

But a old woman’ll say
,

    
Honey, what does YOU need?

    
I just drawed my money tonight

    
and it’s all your’n
.

That’s why I likes a older woman

who can appreciate me:

When she conversations you

it ain’t forever,
Gimme!

Work?

I don’t have to work.

I don’t have to do nothing

but eat, drink, stay black, and die.

This little old furnished room’s

so small I can’t whip a cat

without getting fur in my mouth

and my landlady’s so old

her features is all run together

and God knows she sure can overcharge—

Which is why I reckon I
does

have to work after all.

Said the lady,
Can you do

what my other man can’t do—

That is

love me, daddy—

and feed me, too?

                                        
Figurine

                         De-dop!

That kid’s my buddy,

still and yet

I don’t see him much.

He works downtown for Twelve a week.

Has to give his mother Ten—

she says he can have

the other Two

to pay his carfare, buy a suit,

coat, shoes,

anything he wants out of it.

I could take the Harlem night

and wrap around you,

Take the neon lights and make a crown,

Take the Lenox Avenue busses,

Taxis, subways,

And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem’s heartbeat,

Make a drumbeat,

Put it on a record, let it whirl,

And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day—

Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Baby, how come you can’t see me

when I’m paying your bills

each and every week?

If you got somebody else,

tell me—

else I’ll cut you off

without your rent.

I mean

without a cent.

Daddy,

don’t let your dog

curb you!

I don’t give a damn

For Alabam’

Even if it is my home.

I was born here,

that’s no lie, he said,

right here beneath God’s sky.

I wasn’t born here, she said
,

I come—and why?

Where I come from

folks work hard

all their lives

until they die

and never own no parts

of earth nor sky

So I come up here
.

Now what’ve I got?

    
You!

She lifted up her lips

in the dark:

The same old spark!

Early blue evening.

Lights ain’t come on yet.

    
Looky yonder!

    
They come on now!

Down in the bass

That steady beat

Walking walking walking

Like marching feet.

Down in the bass

That easy roll,

Rolling like I like it

In my soul.

    Riffs, smears, breaks.

Hey, Lawdy, Mama!

Do you hear what I said?

Easy like I rock it

In my bed!

The Roosevelt, Renaissance, Gem, Alhambra:

Harlem laughing in all the wrong places

    at the crocodile tears

    of crocodile art

    that you know

    in your heart

    is crocodile:

               (Hollywood

               laughs at me,

               black—

               so I laugh

               back.)

Why should it be
my
loneliness,

Why should it be
my
song,

Why should it be
my
dream

    deferred

    overlong?

Well, they rocked him with road-apples

because he tried to vote

and whipped his head with clubs

and he crawled on his knees to his house

and he got the midnight train

and he crossed that Dixie line

now he’s livin’

on a 133rd.

He didn’t stop in Washington

and he didn’t stop in Baltimore

neither in Newark on the way.

Six knots was on his head

but, thank God, he wasn’t dead!

And there ain’t no Ku Klux

on a 133rd.

WONDER BAR

WISHING WELL

MONTEREY

MINTON’S

(ancient altar of Thelonious)

MANDALAY

Spots where the booted

and unbooted play

SMALL’S

CASBAH

SHALIMAR

Mirror-go-round
where a broken glass
in the early bright
smears re-bop
sound