#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
By what sends the white kids I ain’t sent: I know I can’t be President.
I play it cool I dig all jive. That's the reason I stay alive. My motto
You say I O.K.ed LONG DISTANCE? O.K.ed it when? My goodness, Central That was then!
I was so sick last night I Didn’t hardly know my mind. So sick last night I Didn’t know my mind. I drunk some bad licker that
The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Goin’ down the road, Lawd, Goin’ down the road. Down the road, Lawd, Way, way down the road. Got to find somebody
I woke up this mornin’ ’Bout half-past three. All the womens in town Was gathered round me. Sweet gals was a-moanin’,
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—
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow… I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other ni… By the pale dull pallor of an old…
I look at the world From awakening eyes in a black fac… And this is what I see: This fenced—off narrow space Assigned to me.
Where is the Jim Crow section On this merry—go—round, Mister, cause I want to ride? Down South where I come from White and colored
Night funeral In Harlem: Where did they get Them two fine cars? Insurance man, he did not pay—
How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water
The ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond and jade, Sit silently on their temple shelv… While the people