#AmericanWriters
In the Quarter of the Negroes Where the doors are doors of paper Dust of dingy atoms Blows a scratchy sound. Amorphous jack—o’—Lanterns caper
Here I sit With my shoes mismated. Lawdy—mercy! I’s frustrated!
Being walkers with the dawn and mo… Walkers with the sun and morning, We are not afraid of night, Nor days of gloom, Nor darkness—
God in His infinite wisdom Did not make me very wise— So when my actions are stupid They hardly take God by surprise
Now dreams Are not available To the dreamers, Nor songs To the singers.
Children, I come back today To tell you a story of the long da… That I had to climb, that I had t… In order that the race might live… Look at my face —dark as the night…
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal… It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up,
When the old junk man Death Comes to gather up our bodies And toss them into the sack of obl… I wonder if he will find The corpse of a white multi—millio…
I worked for a woman, She wasn’t mean— But she had a twelve—room House to clean. Had to get breakfast,
That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are w… Her bandage hides two festering so… That once perhaps were eyes.
I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, So I jumped in and sank. I came up once and hollered!
You sicken me with lies, With truthful lies. And with your pious faces. And your wide, out—stretched, mock—welcome, Christian hands.
Let’s go see Old Abe Sitting in the marble and the moon… Sitting lonely in the marble and t… Quiet for ten thousand centuries,… Quiet for a million, million years…
How quiet It is in this sick room Where on the bed A silent woman lies between two lo… Life and Death,
We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark