Poems for 2/21/23 - Two Poems by Langston Hughes

 

Two Poems by Langston Hughes

New Yorkers

    I was born here,
    that's no lie, he said,
    right here beneath God's sky.

    I wasn't born here, she said,
    I come--and why?  
    Where I come from
    folks work hard
    all there lives
    until they die
    and never own no parts
    of earth nor sky
    So I come up here.
    Now what've I got?
        You!

    She lifted up her lips
    in the dark:
    The same old spark!

Movies

    The Roosevelt, Renaissance, Gem, Alhambra:
    Harlem laughing in all the wrong places
        at the crocodile tears
        of crocodile art
        that you know
        in your heart
        is crocodile:

            (Hollywood
            laughs at me,   
            black--
            so I laught
            back.)