The Ghetto, And Other Poems Part 8

An' the singin' flame an' the gleeful crowd Circlin' aroun'... won't mammy be proud!

With a stone at her hade an' a stone on her heart, An' her mouth like a red plum, broken apart...

See where the blue an' khaki prance, Adding brave colors to the dance About the big bonfire white folks make-- Such gran' doin's fo' a lil' c.o.o.n's sake!

Hear all the eagah feet runnin' in town-- See all the willin' han's reach outah night-- Han's that are wonderful, steady an' white!

To toss up a lil' babe, blinkin' an' brown...

Rock-a-by baby--higher an' higher!

Mammy is sleepin' an' daddy's run lame...

(Soun' may yuh sleep in yo' cradle o' fire!) Rock-a-by baby, hushed in the flame...

(An incident of the East St. Louis Race Riots, when some white women flung a living colored baby into the heart of a blazing fire.)

THE FOUNDLING

Snow wraiths circle us Like washers of the dead, Flapping their white wet cloths Impatiently About the grizzled head, Where the coa.r.s.e hair mats like gra.s.s, And the efficient wind With cold professional baste Probes like a lancet Through the cotton s.h.i.+rt...

About us are white cliffs and s.p.a.ce.

No facades show, Nor roof nor any spire...

All sheathed in snow...

The parasitic snow That clings about them like a blight.

Only detached lights Float hazily like greenish moons, And endlessly Down the wh.o.r.e-street, Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm, The blizzard waltzes with the night.

THE WOMAN WITH JEWELS

The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain.

Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs, Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat.

She is obesely beautiful.

Her eyes are full of bleared lights, Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for sh.o.r.e...

And her mouth is scarlet and full--only a little crumpled-- like a flower that has been pressed apart...

Why does she come alone to this obscure bas.e.m.e.nt-- She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her on either side?

She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her, spilling the soup.

The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs in their silken fles.h.i.+ngs...

The mountainous b.r.e.a.s.t.s tremble...

There is an agitation in her gems, That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays...

She erupts explosive breaths...

Every step is an adventure From this...

The serpent's tooth Saved Cleopatra.

SUBMERGED

I have known only my own shallows-- Safe, plumbed places, Where I was wont to preen myself.

But for the abyss I wanted a plank beneath And horizons...

I was afraid of the silence And the slipping toe-hold...

Oh, could I now dive Into the unexplored deeps of me-- Delve and bring up and give All that is submerged, encased, unfolded, That is yet the best.

ART AND LIFE

When Art goes bounding, lean, Up hill-tops fired green To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile, Sits old and chill On sidings shaven clean, And counts his cl.u.s.tering Dead daisies on a string With witless laughter....

Then like a new Jill Toiling up a hill Life scrambles after.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Pythoness body--arching Over the night like an ecstasy-- I feel your coils tightening...

And the world's lessening breath.

DREAMS

Men die...

Dreams only change their houses.

They cannot be lined up against a wall And quietly buried under ground, And no more heard of...

However deep the pit and heaped the clay-- Like seedlings of old time Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world-- Dreams will to light.

THE FIRE

The old men of the world have made a fire To warm their trembling hands.

They poke the young men in.

The young men burn like withes.

If one run a little way, The old men are wrath.

They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames.

Green withes burn slow...

And the smoke of the young men's torment Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak, And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky....

Green withes burn slow...

And the old men of the world sit round the fire And rub their hands....

But the smoke of the young men's torment Ascends up for ever and ever.

A MEMORY

I remember The crackle of the palm trees Over the mooned white roofs of the town...

The s.h.i.+ning town...

And the tender fumbling of the surf On the sulphur-yellow beaches As we sat... a little apart... in the close-pressing night.

The moon hung above us like a golden mango, And the moist air clung to our faces, Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child And we watched the out-flung sea Rolling to the purple edge of the world, Yet ever back upon itself...

As we...