#AmericanWriters
By what sends the white kids I ain’t sent: I know I can’t be President.
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!
Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple?
Here I sit With my shoes mismated. Lawdy—mercy! I’s frustrated!
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 mot…
When a man starts out with nothing… When a man starts out with his han… Empty, but clean, When a man starts to build a world… He starts first with himself
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—
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run?
When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left
Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long—headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Good morning, daddy! Ain’t you heard The boogie—woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely:
Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt
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…
Only dumb guys fight. If I wasn’t dumb I wouldn’t be fightin’. I could make six dollars a day On the docks
Clean the spittoons, boy. Detroit, Chicago, Atlantic City, Palm Beach.