#AmericanWriters
Good morning, daddy! Ain’t you heard The boogie—woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely:
Only dumb guys fight. If I wasn’t dumb I wouldn’t be fightin’. I could make six dollars a day On the docks
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…
Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think
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
How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water
Now dreams Are not available To the dreamers, Nor songs To the singers.
I sat there singing her Songs in the dark. She said; 'I do not understand The words’.
When Susanna Jones wears red her face is like an ancient cameo Turned brown by the ages. Come with a blast of trumphets, J… When Susanna Jones wears red
Listen! Dear dream of utter aliveness— Touching my body of utter death— Tell me, O quickly! dream of aliv… The flaming source of your bright…
You and your whole race. Look down upon the town in which y… And be ashamed. Look down upon white folks And upon yourselves
Down in the bass That steady beat Walking walking walking Like marching feet. Down in the bass
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—
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh,
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…