Singers
Singers like O-
Singers like Odetta-and that statue
On Bedloe’s Island managed by Sol Hurok
Dancers bojangles late lamented
Katherine Dunham Al and Leon
Arthus Carmen Alvin Mary
Jazzers Duke and Dizzy Eric Dolphy
Miles and Ella and miss Nina
Strayhorn hid backstage with Luther
“do you read music?” and Louis saying
“not enough to hurt my playing”
Gospel singers who pant to pack
Golden crosses to a Cadillac
Bonds and still and Margaret Still
Global trotters baseball batters
Jackie Willie Campanella
Football players leather puncers
Unforgotten Joes and sugar Rays
Who break away like comets from lesser stars in orbit
To move out to st. Albans
Where the grass is greener
Schools are better for their children
And other kids less meaner than
In the quarter of the negroes
Where winter(s name is Hawkins
And Niagara Falls is frozen
If show fare’s more than 30¢
I moved out to Long Island
Even farther than St. Albans
(which lately is stone nowhere)
I moved out ever farther further farther
On the sound way off the turnpike
On the sound way off the turnpike
And I’m the only colored

Go there! Yes, I made it!
Name in the papers every day!
Famous-the hard way-
From nobody and nothing to where I am
They know me, too, Downtown
All across the country, Europe-
Me who used to be nobody,
Nothing but another shadow
In the quarter of the negroes,
Now a name! my name-a name!

Yet they asked me out on my patio
Where did I ge my money!
I said, from your mama!
They wondered I was sensitive
And had a chip on shoulder?
Did I know Charlie Mungus?
And why did Richard Wright
Live all that while in paris instead of coming home to decent die
In Harlem or the south side of Chicago
Or the womb of Mississippi?
And one should love one’s country
For one’s country is your mama.
Living in St. Albans
Shadow of the negroes
Westport and New Canaan
In the shadow of the negroes-
Highly integrated
Means too many negroes
Even for the negroes-
Especially for the first ones
Who move in unobtrusive
Book-of-the-month in cases
Seeking suburb with no jukebox
Pool hall or bar on corner
Seeking lawns and shade trees
Seeking peace and quiet
Autumn leaves in autumn
Holland bulbs in spring
Decent garbage service
Birds that really sing
$40,000 houses-
Payments not belated-
The only negroes in the block
Integrated

Horn of plenty
In escrow to Joe Glasser.
The sermon on the mount
In Billington’s church of rubber.
Love thy neighbor as thyself
In George Sokolsky’s column.
Birds that really sing.
Every day’s tomorrow
And election time
Is always four years
From the other
And my lawn mower
New and shiny
From the big glass shopping center
Cuts my hair on credit.
They rung my bell to ask me
Could I recommend a maid.
I said, yes, your mama.