Free Selected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes Page B

their shoulders,
    “What’s the use?”
    What’s the use
    in Harlem?
    What’s the use?
    What’s the Harlem
    use in Harlem
    what’s the lick?
    Hey!
    Baba-re-bop!
    Mop!
    On a be-bop kick!
    Sometimes I think
    Jews must have heard
    the music of a
    dream deferred.
Sliver
    Cheap little rhymes
    A cheap little tune
    Are sometimes as dangerous
    As a sliver of the moon.
    A cheap little tune
    To cheap little rhymes
    Can cut a man’s
    Throat sometimes.
Hope
    He rose up on his dying bed
    and asked for fish.
    His wife looked it up in her dream book
    and played it.
Dream Boogie: Variation
    Tinkling treble,
    Rolling bass,
    High noon teeth
    In a midnight face,
    Great long fingers
    On great big hands,
    Screaming pedals
    Where his twelve-shoe lands,
    Looks like his eyes
    Are teasing pain,
    A few minutes late
    For the Freedom Train.
Harlem
    What happens to a dream deferred?
        Does it dry up
        like a raisin in the sun?
        Or fester like a sore—
        And then run?
        Does it stink like rotten meat?
        Or crust and sugar over—
        like a syrupy sweet?
        Maybe it just sags
        like a heavy load.
        
Or does it explode?
Good Morning
    Good morning, daddy!
    I was born here, he said,
    watched Harlem grow
    until colored folks spread
    from river to river
    across the middle of Manhattan
    out of Penn Station
    dark tenth of a nation,
    planes from Puerto Rico,
    and holds of boats, chico,
    up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica,
    in buses marked New York
    from Georgia Florida Louisiana
    to Harlem Brooklyn the Bronx
    but most of all to Harlem
    dusky sash across Manhattan
    I’ve seen them come dark
        wondering
        wide-eyed
        dreaming
    out of Penn Station—
    but the trains are late.
    The gates open—
    Yet there’re bars
    at each gate.
        What happens
        to a dream deferred?
    Daddy, ain’t you heard?
Same in Blues
    I said to my baby,
    Baby, take it slow.
    I can’t, she said, I can’t!
    I got to go!
        
There’s a certain
        
amount of traveling
        
in a dream deferred
.
    Lulu said to Leonard,
    I want a diamond ring.
    Leonard said to Lulu,
    You won’t get a goddamn thing!
        
A certain
        
amount of nothing
        
in a dream deferred
.
    Daddy, daddy, daddy,
    All I want is you.
    You can have me, baby—
    but my lovin’ days is through.
        
A certain
        
amount of impotence
        
in a dream deferred
.
    Three parties
    On my party line—
    But that third party,
    Lord, ain’t mine!
        
There’s liable
        
to be confusion
        
in a dream deferred
.
    From river to river,
    Uptown and down,
    There’s liable to be confusion
    when a dream gets kicked around.
Comment on Curb
    You talk like
    they don’t kick
    dreams around
    downtown.
        
I expect they do—
        
But I’m talking about
        
Harlem to you!
Letter
    Dear Mama
,
        
Time I pay rent and get my food
    and laundry I don’t hare much left
    but here is five dollars for you
    to show you I still appreciates you
.
    My girl-friend send her love and say
    she hopes to lay eyes on you sometime in life
.
    Mama, it has been raining cats and dogs up
    here. Well, that is all so I will close
.
                   
Your son baby
                             
Respectably as ever
,
                                            
Joe
Island
    Between two rivers,
    North of the park,
    Like darker rivers
    The streets are dark.
    Black and white,
    Gold and brown—
    Chocolate-custard
    Pie of a town.
    Dream within a dream
,
    Our dream deferred
.
    Good morning, daddy!
    Ain’t you heard?

WORDS
LIKE
FREEDOM
I, Too
    I, too, sing America.
    I am the darker brother.
    They send me to eat in the