LANGSTON HUGHES ~

 

Our Land

(Poem for a Decorative Panel)

We should have a land of sun,

Of gorgeous sun,

And a land of fragrant water

Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief

Of rose and gold,

and not this land where life is cold.

We should have a land of trees,

Of tall thick trees,

Bowed down with chattering parrots

Brilliant as the day,

And not this land where birds are grey,

Ah, we should have a land of joy,

Of love and joy and wine and song,

And not this land where joy is wrong

Oh, sweet, away!

Ah, my beloved one, away!

__________________________

Langston Hughes

Blues in Stereo

Legacy 2024

LEYLA MCCALLA TONIGHT ~

 

      Smithsonian Folkways

RE-READING LANGSTON HUGHES ~

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

                          ( To W. E. B. DuBois )



I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

        flow of human blood in human beings.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.



I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

           went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy

           bosom turn all golden in the sunset.




I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.



My soul has grown deep like the rivers.








Cross



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 mother

And wished she were in hell,

I'm sorry for that evil wish

And now I wish her well.



My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I'm gonna die,

Being neither white nor black?








Epilogue



I, too, sing America,



I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well

And grow strong.



Tomorrow,

I'll sit at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.



Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed, —



I, too, am America.








Poem



We have tomorrow

Bright before us

Like a flame.



Yesterday

A night-gone thing,

A sun-down name.



And dawn-today

Broad arch above the road we came.






__________________
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues
Knopf 1926

These poems come from Langston Hughes

100 years ago with his first book of poem

The Weary Blues

published by Knopf, a very young press

then, only ten years old, and recently

re-issued with its original 1926 book design

by Miguel Covarrubias.

Ever since George Floyd was murdered

we have sold out every book from our

little bookshop by Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin

and Toni Morrison and George Jackson and

Martin Luther King, and the Black Panthers,

and Malcom X and Audre Lorde and

Lucille Clifton and even MOVE

from dark burned streets of

Philadelphia rose up. A friend

of ours, who worked poetry in

the prisons back in the 80s-90s

told us then she couldn't find a

bookstore that carried any books 

by James Baldwin, and she searched

high and low. No more.

ZORA AND LANGSTON ~

L I S T E N

LANGSTON HUGHES & THE GANG ~

LANGSTON HUGHES ~

 Langston Hughes

 

Misery




Play the blues for me.

Play the blues for me.

No other music

'Ll ease my misery.



Sing a soothin' song.

Said a soothin' song.

Cause the man I love's done

Done   me   wrong.



Can't you understand,

O, understand

A good woman's cryin'

For a no-good man?



Black gal like me,

black gal like me

'S got to hear a blues

For her misery.







Daybreak in Alabama




When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.







Advice




Folks, I'm telling you,

birthing is hard

and dying is mean 

so get yourself

a little loving

in between.






Little Lyric (Of Great Importance) 



I wish the rent

Was heaven sent. 






Homecoming



I went back in the alley

And I opened up my door.

All her clothes was gone:

She wasn't home no more.



I pulled back the covers,

I made down the bed.

A whole lot of room

Was the only thing I had.






Dream Variations



To fling my arms wide

In some place of the sun,

To whirl and to dance

Till the white day is done.

Then rest at cool evening

Beneath a tall tree

While night comes on gently,

       Dark like me —

That is my dream!



To fling my arms wide

In the face of the sun,

Dance! Whirl! Whirl!

Till the quick day is done

Rest at pale evening . . .

A tall, slim tree . . .

Night coming tenderly

        Black like me.





~ LANGSTON HUGHES



____________


Selected Poems
Langston Hughes
Knopf, 1959