218
Madame and the Census Man
1 Leave me and my name
2 Just like I am!
3 Furthermore, rub out
4 That MRS., too-
5 I'll have you know
6 I'm Madam to you!
221
Dream Boogie
1 Good morning, daddy!
2 Ain't you heard
3 The boogie-woogie rumble
4 Of a dream deferred
5 Listen closely;
6 You'll hear their feet
7 Beating out and beating out a-
8 You think
9 It's a happy beat?
10 Listen to it closely;
11 Ain't you heard
12 something underneath
13 like a-
15 Sure,
16 I'm happy!
17 Take it away!
18 Hey, pop!
19 Re-bop!
20 Mop!
222
Parade
1 Seven ladies
2 and seventeen gentlemen
3 at the Elks Club Lounge
4 planning planning a parade:
5 Grand Marshal in his white suit
6 will lead it.
7 Cadilacs with dignitaries
8 will precede it.
9 And behind will come
10 with band and drum
11 on foot... on foot...
12 on foot...
13 Motorcycle cops,
14 white,
15 will speed it
16 out of sight
17 if they can;
18 Solid black,
19 can't be right.
20 Marching... marching...
21 marching...
22 noon till night...
23 I never knew
24 that many Negroes
25 were on earth,
26 did you?
223
Children's Rhymes
1 When I was a chile we used to play,
2 One-two-buckle my shoe!
3 and things like that. But now, Lord,
4 listen at them little varmints!
5 By what sends
6 the white kids
7 I ain't sent:
8 I know I can't
9 be President.
10 There is two thousand children
11 in this block, I do believe!
12 What don't bug
13 then white kids
14 sure bugs me;
15 We knows everybody
16 ain't free!
224
17 Some of these young ones us cert'ly bad-
18 One batted a hard ball right through my window
19 and my gold fish et the glass.
20 What's written down
21 for white folks
22 ain't for us a-tall;
23 Liberty And Justice-
24 Huh-For All.
25 Oop-pop-a-da!
26 Skee! Daddle-de-do!
27 Be-bop!
Sister
1 That little Negro's married and got a kid.
2 Why does he keep on foolin' around Marie?
3 Marie's my sister-not married to me-
4 But why does he keep on foolin' around Marie?
5 Why don't she get a boy-friend
6 I can understand-some decent man?
7 Did it ever occur to you, son,
7 the reason Marie runs around with trash
7 is she wants some cash?
8 Don't decent folks have dough?
225
9 Unfortunately usually no!
10 Well, anyway, it don't have to be a married man.
11 Did it ever occur to you, boy,
12 that a woman does the best she can?
Preference
1 I likes a woman
2 six or eight and ten years older'n myself.
3 I don't fool with these young girls.
4 Young girl'll say,
5 Daddy, I want so-and-so.
6 I needs this, that, and the other.
7 But a old woman'll say,
8 Honey, what does YOU need?
9 I just drawed my money tonight
10 and it's all your'n
11 That's why I likes a older woman
12 who can appreciate me:
13 When she conversations you
14 it ain't forever, Gimme!
226
Necessity
1 Work?
2 I don't have to work.
3 I don't have to do nothing
4 but eat, drink, stay black, and die.
5 This little old furnished room's
6 so small I can't whip a cat
7 without getting fur in my mouth
8 and my landlady's so old
9 her features us all run together
10 and God knows she sure can overcharge-
11 Which is why I reckon I does
12 have to work after all.
Question
1 Said the lady, Can you do
2 what my other man can't do-
3 That is
4 love me, daddy-
5 and feed me, too?
6 Figurine
7 De-dop!
227
Buddy
1 That kid's my buddy,
2 still and yet
3 I don't see him much.
4 He works downtown for Twelve a week.
5 Has to give his mother Ten-
6 she says he can have
7 the other Two
8 to pay his carfare, buy a suit,
9 coat, shoes,
10 anything he wants out of it.
Juke Box Love Song
1 I could take the Harlem night
2 and wrap around you,
3 Take the neon lights and make a crown,
4 Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
5 Taxis, subways,
6 And for your love song tone their rumble down.
7 Take Harlem's heartbeat,
8 Make a drumbeat,
9 Put it on a record, let it whirl,
10 And while we listen to it play,
11 Dance with you till day-
12 Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.
228
Ultimatum
1 Baby, how come you can't see me
2 when I'm paying your bills
3 each and every week?
4 If you got somebody else,
5 tell me-
6 else I'll cut you off
7 without your rent,
8 I mean
9 without a cent.
Warning
1 Daddy,
2 don't let your dog
3 curb you!
Croon
1 I don't give a damn
2 For Alabam'
3 Even if it is my home.
New Yorkers
1 I was born here,
2 that's no lie, he said,
3 right here beneath God's sky.
229
4 I wasn't born here, she said,
5 I come-and why?
6 Where I come from
7 folks work hard
8 all their lives
9 until they die
10 and never own no parts
11 of earth nor sky
12 So I come up here.
13 Now what've I got?
14 You!
15 She lifted up her lips
16 in the dark:
17 The same old spark!
Wonder
1 Early blue evening.
2 Lights ain't come on yet.
3 Looky yonder!
4 They come on now!
Easy Boogie
1 Down in the bass
2 That steady beat
3 Walking walking walking
4 Like marching feet.
230
Movies
1 The Roosevelt, Renaissance, Gem, Alhambra:
2 Harlem Laughing in all the wrong places
3 at the crocodile tears
4 of crocodile art
5 that you know
6 in your heart
7 is crocodile:
8 (Hollywood
9 laughs at me,
10 black--
11 so I laugh
12 back.)
231
Tell Me
1 Why should it be my loneliness,
2 Why should it be my song,
3 Why should it be my dream
4 deferred
5 overlong?
Not a Movie
1 Well, they rocked him with road-apples
2 because he tried to vote
3 and whipped his head with clubs
4 and he crawled on his knees to his house
5 and he got the midnight train
6 and he crossed that Dixie line
7 now he's livin'
8 on a 133rd.
9 He didn't stop in Washington
10 and he didn't stop in Baltimore
11 neither in Newark on the way.
12 Six knots was on his head
13 but, thank God, he wasn'r dead!
14 And there ain't no Ku Klux
15 on a 133rd
232
Neon Signs
1 WONDER BAR
2 WISHING WELL
3 MONTEREY
4 MINTON'S
5 (ancient altar of Thelonious)
6 MANDALAY
7 Spots where the booted
8 and unbooted play
9 SMALL'S
10 CASBAH
233
11 SHALIMAR
12 Mirror-go-round
13 where a broken glass
14 in the early bright
15 smears re-bop
16 sound
Numbers
1 If I ever hit for a dollar
2 gonna salt every dime away
3 in the Post Office for a rainy day.
4 I ain't gonna
5 play back a cent.
6 (Of course, I might
7 combinate a little
8 with my rent.)
What? So Soon!
1 I believe my old lady's
2 pregnant again!
234
3 Fate must have
4 some kind of trickeration
5 to populate the
6 cullud nation!
7 Comment against Lamp Post
8 You call it fate?
9 Figurette
10 De-daddle-dy!
11 De-dop!
Motto
1 I play it cool
2 And dig all jive.
3 That's the reason
4 I stay alive.
5 My motto,
6 As I live and learn,
7 is:
8 Dig and Be Dug
9 In Return
235
Dead in There
1 Sometimes
2 A night funeral
3 Going by
4 Carries home
5 A cool bop daddy.
6 Hearse and flowers
7 Guarantee
8 He'll never hype
9 Another paddy.
10 It's hard to believe,
11 But dead in there,
12 He'll never lay a
13 Hype nowhere!
14 He's my ace-boy,
15 Gone away.
16 Wake up and live!
17 He used to say.
18 Squares
19 Who couldn't dig him,
20 Plant him now--
21 Out where it makes
22 No diff' no how.
Situation
1 When I rolled three 7's
2 in a row
3 I was scared to walk out
4 with the dough.
236
Dancer
1 Two or three things in the past
2 failed him
3 that had not failed people
4 of lesser genius.
5 In the first place
6 he didn't have much sense.
7 He was no good at making love
8 and no good at making money.
9 So he tapped,
10 trucked,
11 boogied,
12 sanded,
13 jittered,
14 until he made folks say,
15 Looky yonder
16 at that boy!
15 Hey!
16 But being no good at lovin'--
17 the girls left him.
18 (When you're no good for dough they go.)
19 With no sense, just wonderful feet,
20 What could possibly be all-reet?
21 Did he get anywhere? No!
22 Even a great dancer
23 can't C.P.T.
24 a show.
237
Advice
1 Folks, I'm telling you,
2 birthing is hard
3 and dying is mean--
4 so get yourself
5 a little loving
6 in between.
Green Memory
1 A wonderful time--the War:
2 when money rolled in
3 and blood rolled out.
4 But blood
5 was far away
4 from here--
5 Money was near.
Wine-O
1 Setting in the wine-house
2 Soaking up a wine-souse
3 Waiting for tomorrow to come--
4 Then
5 Setting in the wine-house
6 Soaking up a new souse.
7 Tomorrow...
8 Oh, hum!
238
Relief
1 My heart is aching
2 for them Poles and Greeks
3 on relief way across the sea
4 because I was on relief
5 once in 1933
6 I know what relief can be--
7 it took me two years to get on WPA.
8 If the war hadn't come along
9 I wouldn't be out the barrel yet.
10 Now, I'm almost back in the barrel again.
11 To tell the truth,
12 if these white folks want to go ahead
13 and fight another war,
14 or even two,
15 the one to stop 'em won't be me.
Ballad of the Landlord
1 Landlord, landlord,
2 My roof has sprung a leak.
3 Don't you 'member I told you about it
4 Way last week?
5 Landlord, landlord
6 These steps is broken down.
7 When you come up yourself
8 It's a wonder you don't fall down
239
9 Ten Bucks you say I owe you?
10 Ten Bucks you say is due?
11 Well, that's Ten Bucks more'n I'll pay you
12 Till you fix this house up new.
13 What? You gonna get eviction orders?
14 You gonna cut off my heat?
15 You gonna take my furniture and
16 Throw it in the street?
17 Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.
18 Talk on--till you get through.
19 You ain't gonna be able to say a word
20 If I land my fist on you.
21 Police! Police!
22 Come get this man!
23 He's trying to ruin the government
24 And overturn the land!
25 Copper's whistle!
26 Patrol Bell!
27 Arrest.
28 Precinct Station.
29 Iron cell.
30 Headlines in press:
31 MAN THREATENS LANDLORD
32 TENANT HELD ON BAIL
33 JUDGE GIVE NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL
240
Corner Meeting
1 Ladder, flag, and amplifier
2 what the soap box
3 used to be
4 The speaker catches fire
5 looking at their faces.
6 His words
7 jump down to stand
8 in listeners' places.
Projection
1 On the day when the Savoy
2 leaps clean over to Seventh Avenue
3 and starts jitterbugging
4 with the Renaissance,
5 on that day when Abyssinia Baptist Church
6 throws her enormous arms around
7 St. James Presbyterian
8 and 409 Edgecombe
9 stoops to kiss 12 West 133rd,
10 on that day--
11 Do, Jesus!
12 Manhattan Island will whirl
13 like a Dizzy Gillespie transcription
14 played by Inez and Timmie.
15 On that day, Lord,
16 Sammy Davis and Marian Anderson
17 will sing a duet
18 Paul Robeson
19 will team up with Jackie Mabley
20 and Father Divine will say in truth,
241
21 Peace!
22 It's truly
23 wonderful!
Flatted Fifths
1 Little cullud boys with beards
2 re-bop be-bop mop and stop
3 Little cullud boys with fears,
4 frantic, kick their draftee years
5 into flatted and flatter beers
6 that at a sudden change become
7 sparkling Oriental wines
8 rich and strange
9 silken bathrobes with gold twines
10 and Heilbroner, Crawford,
11 Nat-undreamed-of Lewis combines
12 in silver thread and diamond notes
13 on trade-marks inside
14 Howard coats
15 Little cullud boys in berets
16 oop pop-a-da
17 horse a fantasy of days
18 ool ya koo
19 and dig all plays.
242
Tomorrow
1 Tomorrow may be
2 a thousand years off
3 TWO DIMES AND A NICKLE ONLY
4 says this particular
5 cigarette machine
Mellow
1 Intro the lap
2 of black celebrities
3 white girls fall
4 like pale plums from a tree
5 beyond a high tension wall
6 which makes it
7 more thrilling.
Live and Let Live
1 Maybe it ain't right-
2 but the people of the night
3 will give even
4 a snake
5 a break.
Gauge
1 Hemp . . .
2 A stick . .
3 A roach . .
4 Straw . .
5 more thrilling.
243
Bar
1 That whiskey will cook the egg
2 say not so
3 Maybe the egg
4 will cook the whiskey.
5 You ought to know!
Cafe: 3 A.M.
1 Detectives from the vice squad -
2 with weary sadistic eyes
3 spotting fairies.
4 Degenerates
5 Some folks say
6 But God,Nature
7 or somebody
6 made them that way
8 Police lady or Lesbian
9 over there?
10 Where?
254
Request
1 Gimme $25.00
2 and the change.
3 I'm going
4 where the morning
5 and the evening
6 won't bother me.
Shame on You
1 If you're great enough
2 and clever enough
3 the government might honor you.
4 But the people will forget --
5 Except on holidays.
6 A movie house in Harlem named after Lincoln,
7 Nothing at all named after John Brown.
255
8 Black people don't remember
9 any better than white
10 If you're not alive and kicking,
11 shame on you!
World War II
1 What a grand time was the war!
2 Oh, my, my!
3 What a grand time was the war!
4 My, my, my!
5 In wartime we had fun,
6 Sorry that old war is done!
7 What a grand time was the war,
8 My, my!
9 Echo:
10 Did
11 Somebody
12 Die?
Mystery
1 When a chile gets to be thirteen
2 and ain't seen Christ yet,
3 she needs to set on de moaner's bench
4 night and day.
256
5 Jesus, lover of my soul!
6 Hail, Mary, mother of God!
7 Let me to thy bosom fly!
8 Amen! Hallelujah!
9 Swing low, sweet chariot,
10 Coming for to carry me home.
11 Sunday morning where the rhythm flows,
12 how old nobody knows --
13 yet old as mystery,
14 older than creed,
15 basic and wondering
16 and lost as my need.
17 Eli, eli!
18 Te deum!
19 Mahomet!
20 Christ!
21 Father, Bishop, Effendi, Mother Horne.
22 Father Drive, a Rabbi black
23 as black was born
24 a jack-leg preacher, a PH.D.
25 The mystery
26 and the darkness
27 and the song
28 and me.
257
Sliver of Sermon
1 When pimps out of loneliness cry:
2 Great God!
3 Whores in final weariness say:
4 Great God!
5 Oh, God!
6 My God!
Testimonial
1 If I just had a piano,
2 if I just had a organ,
3 if I just had a drum,
4 how I could praise my Lord!
5 But I don't need no piano,
6 neither organ
7 nor drum
8 for to praise my Lord
Passing
1 On sunny summer Sunday afternoons in Harlem
2 when the air is one interminable ball game
3 and grandma cannot get her gospel hymns
4 from the Saints of God in Christ
5 on account of the Dodgers on the radio,
258
6 on sunny Sunday afternoons
7 when the kids look all new
8 and far too clean to stay that way,
9 and Harlem has its
10 washed-and-ironed-and-cleaned-best out,
11 the ones who've crossed the line
12 to live downtown
13 miss you,
14 Harlem of the bitter dream
15 since their dream has
16 come true.
Nightmare Boogie
1 I had a dream
2 and I could see
3 a million faces
4 black as me!
5 A nightmare dream:
6 Quicker than light
7 All them faces
8 Turned dead white|
9 Boogie-woogie,
10 Rolling bass,
11 Whirling treble
12 of cat-gut lace.
259
Sunday by the Combination
1 I feel like dancin', baby,
2 till the sun goes down.
3 But I wonder where
4 the sunrise
5 Monday morning's gonna be?
6 I feel like dancin'!
7 Baby, dance with me!
Casualty
1 He was a soldier in the army,
2 But he doesn't walk like one.
3 He walks like his soldiering *
4 Days are done.
Night Funeral in Harlem
1 Night funeral
2 In Harlem:
3 Where did they get
4 Them two fine cars?
5 Insurance man, he did not pay --
6 His insurance lapsed the other day --
260
7 Yet they got a satin box
8 For his head to lay.
9 Night funeral
10 in Harlem:
11 Who was it sent
12 That wreath of flowers?
13 Them flowers came
14 from that poor boy's friends-
15 They'll want flowers, too,
16 When they meet their ends.
17 Night funeral
18 in Harlem:
19 Who preached that
20 Black boy to his grave?
21 Old preacher-man
22 Preached that boy away-
23 Charged Five Dollars
24 His girl friend had to pay.
25 Night funeral
26 in Harlem:
27 When it was all over
28 And the lid shut on his head
29 and the organ had done played
30 and the last prayers been said
31 and six pallbearers
261
32 Carried him out for dead
33 And off down Lenox Avenue
34 That long black hearse done sped,
35 The streetlight
36 At his corner
37 Shined just like a tear-
38 That boy that they was mournin'
39 Was so dear, so dear
40 To them folks that brought the flowers,
41 To that girl who paid the preacher man-
42 It was all their tears that made
43 That poor boy's
44 Funeral grand.
45 Night funeral
46 In Harlem.
Blues at Dawn
1 I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
2 I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
3 If I thought thoughts in bed,
4 Them thoughts would bust my head-
5 So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
6 I don't dare remember in the morning
7 Don't dare remember in the morning.
8 If I recall the day before,
9 I wouldn't get up no more-
10 So I don't dare remember in the morning.
262
Dime
1 Chile, these steps is hard to climb.
2 Grandma, lend me a dime.
3 Montage of a dream deferred:
4 Grandma acts like
5 She ain't heard.
6 Chile, Granny ain't got no dime.
7 I might've knowed
8 It all the time.
Argument
1 White is right,
2 Yellow mellow,
3 Black, get back!
4 Do you believe that, Jack?
6 Then you're a dope,
7 for which there ain't no hope.
8 Black is fine!
9 And, God knows,
10 It's mine!
263
Neighbor
1 Down home
2 he sets on a stoop
3 and watches the sun go by.
4 In Harlem
5 when his work is done
6 he sets in a bar with a beer.
7 He looks taller than he is
8 and younger than he ain't.
9 He looks darker than he is, too.
10 And he's smarter than he looks,
11 He ain't smart.
12 That cat's a fool.
13 Now he ain't neither.
14 He's a good man,
15 except he talks too much.
16 In fact, he's a great cat.
17 But when he drinks,
18 he drinks fast.
19 Sometimes
20 he don't drink.
21 True,
22 he just
23 lets his glass
24 set there.
264
Evening Song
1 A woman standing in the doorway
2 Trying to make her where-with-all:
3 Come here, baby, darlin'!
4 Don't you hear me call?
5 If I was anybody's sister,
6 I'd tell her, Gimme a place to sleep.
7 But I ain't nobody's sister.
8 I'm just a poor lost sheep.
9 Mary, Mary, Mary,
10 Had a little lamb.
11 Well, I hope that lamb of Mary's
12 Don't turn out like I am.
Chord
1 Shadow faces
2 In the shadow night
3 Before the early dawn
4 Bops bright.
Fact
1 There's been an eagle on a nickel,
2 An eagle on a quarter, too.
3 But there ain;t no eagle
4 On a dime.
265
Joe Louis
1 They worshipped Joe.
2 A school teacher
3 whose hair was gray
4 said:
5 Joe has sense enough to know
6 He is a god.
7 So many gods don't know.
8 "They say" ... "They say" ... "They say" ...
9 But the gossips had no
10 "They say"
11 to latch onto
12 for Joe.
Subway Rush Hour
1 Mingled
2 breath and smell *
3 so close
4 mingled
5 black and white
6 so near
7 no room for fear
Brothers
1 We're related-you and I,
2 You from the West Indies,
3 I from Kentucky.
266
4 Kinsmen- you and I,
5 You from Africa,
6 I from the USA.
Likewise
2 Groceries
3 Suits
4 Fruits
5 Watches
6 Diamond rings
7 THE DAILY NEWS
8 Jews sell me things.
9 Yom Kippur, no!
10 Shops all over Harlem
11 close up tight that night.
11 Some folks blame high prices on the Jews.
12 (Some folks blame too much on Jews.)
13 But in Harlem they don't answer back,
14 Just maybe shrug their shoulders,
15 "What's the use?"
16 What's the use
17 in Harlem?
18 What's the use?
19 What's the Harlem?
20 Use in Harlem
267
21 Hey!
22 Baba-re-bop!
23 Mop!
24 On a be-bop kick!
25 Sometimes I think
26 Jews have heard
27 the music of a
28 dream deferred.
Silver
1 Cheap little rhymes
2 A cheap little tune
3 Are sometimes as dangerous
4 As a sliver of the moon.
5 A cheap little tune
6 To cheap little rhymes
7 Can cut a man's
8 Throat sometimes.
Hope
1 He rose up on his dying bed
2 and asked for fish.
3 His wife looked it up in her dream book
4 and played it.
268
Dream Boogie: Variation
1 Tinkling treble,
2 Rolling bass,
3 High noon teeth
4 In a midnight face,
5 Great long fingers
6 On great big hands,
7 Screaming pedals
8 Where his twelve-shoe lands,
9 Looks like his eyes
10 Are teasing pain,
11 A few minutes late
12 For the Freedom Train.
Harlem
1 What happens to a dream deffered?
2 Does it dry up
3 like a raisin in the sun?
4 Or fester like a sore-
5 And then run?
6 Does it stink like rotten meat?
7 Or crust and sugar over-
8 like a syrupy sweet?
9 Maybe it just sags
10 like a heavy load.
269
Good Morning
1 Good morning, daddy!
2 I was born here, he said,
3 watched Harlem grow
4 until colored folks spread
5 from river to river
6 across the middle of Manhatten
7 out of Penn Station
8 dark tenth of a nation,
9 planes from Puerto Rico
10 and holds of boats, chico,
11 up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica
12 in buses marked New York
13 from Georgia Florida Louisiana
14 to Harlem Brookly the Bronx
15 but most of all to Harlem
16 dusky sash across Manhattan
17 I've seen them come dark
18 wondering
19 wide-eyed
20 dreaming
21 out of Penn Station-
22 but the trains are late.
23 The gates open-
24 but the trains are late.
25 The gates open-
26 Yet there're bars
27 at each gate.
28 What happens
29 to a dream deferred?
30 Daddy, ain't you heard?
270
Same in Blues
1 I said to my baby,
2 Baby, take it slow.
3 I can't, she said, I can't!
4 I got to go!
5 There's a certain
6 amount of traveling
7 in a dream deferred.
8 Lulu said to leonard,
9 I want a diamond ring.
10 Leonard said to Lulu,
11 You won't get a goddamn thing!
12 A certain
13 amount of nothing
14 in a dream deferred.
15 Daddy, daddy, daddy,
16 All I want is you.
17 You can have me, baby-
18 but my lovin' days is through.
19 A certain
20 amount of impotence
21 in a dream deferred.
22 Three parties
23 On my party line-
24 But that third party,
25 Lord, ain't mine!
271
26 There's liable
27 to be confusion
28 in a dream deferred.
29 From river to river,
30 Uptown and Down,
31 There's liable to be confusion
32 when a dream gets kicked around.
Comment on Curb
1 You talk like
2 They don't kick
3 s around
4 downtown.
5 I expect they do-
6 But I'm talking about
7 Harlem to you!
Letter
1 Dear Mama,
2 Time I pay rent and get my food
3 and laundry I don't have much left
4 but here is five dollars for you
5 to show you I still appreciates you.
6 My girl-friend send her love and say
7 she hopes to lay eyes on you sometime in life.
272
8 Mama, it has been raining cats and dogs up
9 here. Well, that is all so I will close.
10 Your son baby
11 Respectably as ever,
12 Joe
Island
1 Between two rivers,
2 North of the park,
3 Like darker rivers
4 The streets are dark.
5 Black and white,
6 Gold and brown-
7 Chocolate-custard
8 Pie of a town.
9 Dream within a dream,
10 Our dream deferred.
273