My house last week.
He said, Have you got
A little time to speak?
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.
Madam and Her Might-Have-Been
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.
Madam and the Census Man
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!
MONTAGE
OF A
DREAM
DEFERRED
Dream Boogie
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!
Parade
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!
Children’s Rhymes
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!
Sister
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.
Preference
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!
Necessity
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.
Question
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!
Buddy
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.
Juke Box Love Song
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.
Ultimatum
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.
Warning
Daddy,
don’t let your dog
curb you!
Croon
I don’t give a damn
For Alabam’
Even if it is my home.
New Yorkers
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!
Wonder
Early blue evening.
Lights ain’t come on yet.
Looky yonder!
They come on now!
Easy Boogie
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!
Movies
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.)
Tell Me
Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
deferred
overlong?
Not a Movie
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.
Neon Signs
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
Numbers
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.)
What? So Soon!
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!
Motto
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.
Dead in There
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.
Situation
When I rolled three 7’s
in a row
I was scared to walk out
with the dough.
Dancer
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.
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes Page 8