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I Twenty-One

BEYOND SANDY HOOK

NEGRO

SALVATION

THE MOTHER OF THE GRACCHI

Walk-Chalk!

Jay Hawk! K. U.!

CENTRAL HIGH

Just because I loves you—

That’s de reason why

My soul is full of color

Like de wings of a butterfly.

Just because I loves you

That’s de reason why

My heart’s a fluttering aspen leaf

When you pass by.

The mills

That grind and grind,

That grind out steel

And grind away the lives

Of men—

In the sunset their stacks

Are great black silhouettes

Against the sky.

In the dawn

They belch red fire.

The mills—

Grinding new steel,

Old men.

Carl Sandburg’s poems

Fall on the white pages of his books

Like blood-clots of song

From the wounds of humanity.

I know a lover of life sings

When Carl Sandburg sings.

I know a lover of all the living

Sings then.

ABRUPT ENCOUNTER

FATHER

BACK HOME

I’VE KNOWN RIVERS

When Susanna Jones wears red

Her face is like an ancient cameo

Turned brown by the ages.

Come with a blast of trumpets,

Jesus!

When Susanna Jones wears red

A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night

Walks once again.

Blow trumpets, Jesus!

And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red

Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.

Sweet silver trumpets,

Jesus!

I’ve known rivers

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

MEXICO AGAIN

PROMENADE

MEANS OF ESCAPE

CARD FROM CUERNAVACA

BULLFIGHTS

TRAGEDY IN TOLUCA

DEPARTURE

MANHATTAN ISLAND

DORMITORY

COLUMBIA

ON MY OWN

HAUNTED SHIP

TIME TO LEAVE

II Big Sea

AFRICA

SAILOR’S HOLIDAY

Singing black boatmen,

An August morning

In the thick white fog at Sekondi;

Coming out to take cargo

From anchored alien ships—

You do not know the fog

We strange so-civilized ones

Sail in always.

S. S. “MALONE”

BURUTU MOON

WRECK OF THE MONKEY CAGE

VOYAGE HOME

STANDEE

JOCKO

BAD LUCK IS GOOD

WINTER SEAS TO ROTTERDAM

MONTMARTRE

WORK

LE GRAND DUC

Lawd, I looked and saw a spider

Goin’ up de wall.

I say, I looked and saw a spider

Goin’ up de wall.

I said where you goin’, Mister Spider?

I’m goin’ to get my ashes hauled!

I did more for my good gal

Than de good Lawd ever done.

Did more for my good gal

Than de good Lawd ever done.

I bought her some hair—

Cause de Lawd ain’t give her none.

Is you ever seen a

One-eyed woman cry?

I say, is you ever seen a

One-eyed woman cry?

Jack, she can cry so good

Just out of that one old eye!

PARIS IN THE SPRING

POEM

Love is like dew

On lilacs at dawn

Comes the swift sun

And the dew is gone.

Love is like star-light

In the sky at morn

Star-light that dies

When day is born.

Love is like perfume

In the heart of a rose

The flower withers,

The perfume goes—

Love is no more

Than the breath of a rose,

No more

Than the breath of a rose.

DON’T HIT A WOMAN

BRICKTOP

LATE PLACE

CHEF ONE-EYE

DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

ITALY

BEACHCOMBER

WORKAWAY

WASHINGTON SOCIETY

Did you ever dream lucky—

Wake up cold in hand?

I’m goin’ down to de railroad, baby,

Lay ma head on de track.

I’m goin’ down to de railroad, babe,

Lay ma head on de track—

But if I see de train a-comin’,

I’m gonna jerk it back.

VACHEL LINDSAY

POETRY IS PRACTICAL

I got de weary blues

And I can’t be satisfied.

Got de weary blues

And can’t be satisfied.

I ain’t happy no mo’

And I wish that I had died.

III Black Renaissance

WHEN THE NEGRO WAS IN VOGUE

HARLEM LITERATI

You don’t know,

You don’t know my mind—

When you see me laughin’,

I’m laughin’ to keep from cryin’.

GURDJIEFF IN HARLEM

PARTIES

DOWNTOWN

SHOWS

POETRY

Thunder of the Rain God

And we three

Smitten by beauty.

Thunder of the Rain God

And we three

Weary, weary.

Thunder of the Rain God

And you, she and I

Waiting for nothingness.

Do you understand the stillness

Of this house in Taos

Under the thunder of the Rain God?

That there should be a barren garden

About this house in Taos

Is not so strange,

But that there should be three barren hearts

In this one house in Taos—

Who carries ugly things to show the sun?

Did you ask for the beaten brass of the moon?

We can buy lovely things with money,

You, she and I,

Yet you seek,

As though you could keep,

This unbought loveliness of moon.

Touch our bodies, wind,

Our bodies are separate, individual things.

Touch our bodies, wind,

But blow quickly

Through the red, white, yellow skins

Of our bodies

To the terrible snarl,

Not mine,

Not yours,

Not hers,

But all one snarl of souls.

Blow quickly, wind,

Before we run back into the windlessness—

With our bodies—

Into the windlessness

Of our house in Taos.

My old man’s a white old man

And my old mother’s black.

If ever I cursed my white old man

I take my curses back.

If ever I cursed my black old mother

And wished she were in hell,

I’m sorry for that evil wish

And now I wish her well.

My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I’m gonna die,

Being neither white nor black?

Clean the spittoons, boy!

Detroit,

Chicago,

Atlantic City,

Palm Beach.

Clean the spittoons.

The steam in hotel kitchens,

And the smoke in hotel lobbies,

And the slime in hotel spittoons

Part of my life.

Hey, boy!

A nickel,

A dime,

A dollar,

Two dollars a Day.

Hey, boy!

A nickel,

A dime,

A dollar,

Two dollars

Buys shoes for the baby.

House rent to pay.

Gin on Saturday,

Church on Sunday.

My God!

Babies and gin and church

and women and Sunday

all mixed up with dimes and

dollars and clean spittoons

and house rent to pay.

Hey, boy!

A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.

Bright polished brass like the cymbals

Of King David’s dancers,

Like the wine cups of Solomon.

Hey, boy!

A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord,

A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—

At least I can offer that.

Com’mere, boy!

Put on yo’ red silk stockings,

Black gal.

Go out and let the white boys

Look at yo’ legs.

Ain’t nothin’ to do for you, nohow,

Round this town—

You’s too pretty.

Put on yo’ red silk stockings, gal,

An’ tomorrow’s chile’ll

Be a high yaller.

Go out an’ let de white boys

Look at yo’ legs.

NIGGER HEAVEN

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December

Of all the things that happened there

That’s all that I remember.

SPECTACLES IN COLOR

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY

FLOOD ON THE MISSISSIPPI

NEW ORLEANS—HAVANA

CREOLES AND CONJUR

OLD HAT

INTERRACIAL CONFERENCE

NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER

ALMA MATER

EXTRA PAGE

PATRON AND FRIEND

Hallelujah! Undercover driveways!

Ma soul’s a witness for de Waldorf-Astoria!

NOT PRIMITIVE

DIAGNOSIS

LITERARY QUARREL

POSTSCRIPT