#AmericanWriters
'Me an’ ma baby’s Got two mo’ ways, Two mo’ ways to do de Charleston!… Da, da, Da, da, da!
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
My name is Johnson— Madam Alberta K. The Madam stands for business. I’m smart that way. I had a
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,
You sicken me with lies, With truthful lies. And with your pious faces. And your wide, out—stretched, mock—welcome, Christian hands.
Now dreams Are not available To the dreamers, Nor songs To the singers.
I live on a park bench. You, Park Avenue. Hell of a distance Between us two. I beg a dime for dinner—
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
I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the w… flow of human blood in human veins My soul has grown deep like the ri… I bathed in the Euphrates when da…
I could take the Harlem night and wrap around you, Take the neon lights and make a cr… Take the Lenox Avenue busses, Taxis, subways,
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.
Tell all my mourners To mourn in red — Cause there ain’t no sense In my bein’ dead.
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
It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun—