Selected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes Read Free Book Online

drum.
        Laughter
        Suddenly
        Neither truth nor lie.
        Laughter
    Hardening the dusk dark evening.
        Laughter
    Shaking the lights in the fish joints,
    Rolling white balls in the pool rooms,
    And leaving untouched the box-car
    Some train has forgotten.
Mother to Son
    Well, son, I’ll tell you:
    Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
    It’s had tacks in it,
    And splinters,
    And boards torn up,
    And places with no carpet on the floor—
    Bare.
    But all the time
    I’se been a-climbin’ on,
    And reachin’ landin’s,
    And turnin’ corners,
    And sometimes goin’ in the dark
    Where there ain’t been no light.
    So boy, don’t you turn back.
    Don’t you set down on the steps
    ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
    Don’t you fall now—
    For I’se still goin’, honey,
    I’se still climbin’,
    And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Stars
    O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,
    O, little breath of oblivion that is night.
        A city building
        To a mother’s song.
        A city dreaming
        To a lullaby.
    Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.
    Out of the little breath of oblivion
        That is night,
        Take just
        One star.
To Be Somebody
    Little girl
    Dreaming of a baby grand piano
    (Not knowing there’s a Steinway bigger, bigger)
    Dreaming of a baby grand to play
    That stretches paddle-tailed across the floor,
    Not standing upright
    Like a bad boy in the corner,
    But sending music
    Up the stairs and down the stairs
    And out the door
    To confound even Hazel Scott
    Who might be passing!
    Oh!
    Little boy
    Dreaming of the boxing gloves
    Joe Louis wore,
    The gloves that sent
    Two dozen men to the floor.
    Knockout!
    Bam! Bop! Mop!
    There’s always room,
    They say
,
    At the top.
Note on Commercial Theatre
    You’ve taken my blues and gone—
    You sing ’em on Broadway
    And you sing ’em in Hollywood Bowl,
    And you mixed ’em up with symphonies
    And you fixed ’em
    So they don’t sound like me.
    Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.
    You also took my spirituals and gone.
    You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones
    And all kinds of
Swing Mikados
    And in everything but what’s about me—
    But someday somebody’ll
    Stand up and talk about me,
    And write about me—
    Black and beautiful—
    And sing about me,
    And put on plays about me!
    I reckon it’ll be
    Me myself!
    Yes, it’ll be me.
Puzzled
    Here on the edge of hell
    Stands Harlem—
    Remembering the old lies,
    The old kicks in the back,
    The old,
Be patient
,
    They told us before.
    Sure, we remember.
    Now, when the man at the corner store
    Says sugar’s gone up another two cents,
    And bread one,
    And there’s a new tax on cigarettes—
    We remember the job we never had,
    Never could get,
    And can’t have now
    Because we’re colored.
    So we stand here
    On the edge of hell
    In Harlem
    And look out on the world
    And wonder
    What we’re gonna do
    In the face of
    What we remember.
Seashore through Dark Glasses (
Atlantic City)
    Beige sailors with large noses
    Binocular the Atlantic.
    At Club Harlem it’s eleven
    And seven cats go frantic.
    Two parties from Philadelphia
    Dignify the place
    And murmur:
    Such Negroes
    disgrace the race!
    On Artie Avenue
    Sea food joints
    Scent salty-colored
    Compass points.
Baby
    Albert!
    Hey, Albert!
    Don’t you play in dat road.
        You see dem trucks
        A-goin’ by.
        One run ovah you
        An’ you die.
    Albert, don’t you play in dat road.
Merry-Go-Round
    Colored child at carnival:
    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
    Can’t sit side by side.
    Down South on the train
    There’s a Jim Crow car.
    On the bus we’re put in the back—
    But there ain’t no back
    To a merry-go-round!
    Where’s the horse
    For a kid that’s black?
Elevator Boy
    I got a job