Langston Hughes

The air was very still and yellow.

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

“Cyclone sho did a good job,” she said. “Looks like I ain’t never had no porch.”

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

He was a great big kid, that’s what Jimboy was, cut out for playing.

I brushed the boots of Washington.

“Treat ’em like chickens, son. Throw ’em a little corn and they’ll run after you, but don’t give ’em too much. If you do, they’ll stop layin’ and expect you to wait on ’em.”

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

“Evening’s the only time we niggers have to ourselves!” she said. “Thank God for night⁠ ⁠… ’cause all day you gives to white folks.”

I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime.

Couples began to sway languidly, melting together like candy in the sun as hips rotated effortlessly to the music.

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

The earth rolls relentlessly, and the sun blazes forever on the earth, breeding, breeding.

Hold fast to dreams, my son, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

Four homeless, plug-ugly niggers, that’s all they were, playing mean old loveless blues in a hot, crowded little dance-hall in a Kansas town on Friday night. Playing the heart out of loneliness with a wide-mouthed leader, who sang everybody’s troubles until they became his own.

All the tom-toms of the jungles beat in my blood, And all the wild hot moons of the jungles shine in my soul.

Sandy had lived too long with three women not to have learned to hold his tongue about the private doings of each of them.

Does a jazz-band ever sob?

And to Sandy it seemed like the saddest music in the world⁠—but the white people around him laughed.

Are only silly puppet gods That the people themselves Have made.