April Rain Song

April Rain Song
by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.



http://allpoetry.com/April-Rain-Song

Dinosaurs in the Hood

Dinosaurs in the Hood

Related Poem Content Details

BY DANEZ SMITH

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.

Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.

There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing

with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window

& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays

with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,

the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.

Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops

& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene

where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let

the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit

about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.

This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —

children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town

from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive

Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding

black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith

& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors

with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,

screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.

I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick

through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be

a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed

because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor

for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.

This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.

This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.

This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie

who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.

No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills 

the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason

I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy

on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

                                                    his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.

Found here:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/57585

Touched by an Angel

Touched by an Angel
Maya Angelou


We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.


Found here. 

In the elementary school spelling bee

In the elementary school spelling bee

when you intentionally
misspelled heifer,
he almost had a cow.

You're the only kid
on your block
at school
in THE. ENTIRE. FREAKIN'. WORLD.
who lives in a prison
of words.
He calls it the pursuit of excellence.
You call it Shawshank.
And even though your mother
forbids you to say it,
the truth is
you
HATE
words.

From Kwame Alexander's novel in verse, Booked. Excerpted here.

One Way Ticket

One Way Ticket
By Langston Hughes

I pick up my life,
And take it with me,
And I put it down in
Chicago, Detroit,
Buffalo, Scranton,
Any place that is
North and East,
And not Dixie.


http://smsgreatmigration.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-way-ticket-by-langston-hughes.html

Love

Love
              By Langston Hughes
   
Love is a wild wonder
And stars that sing
Rocks that burst asunder
And mountains that take wing.
John Henry with his hammer
Makes a little spark.
That little spark is love
Dying in the dark.


Found here. 

Trans-

Rita Dove

I work a lot and live far less than I could,
but the moon is beautiful and there are
blue stars . . . . I live the chaste song of my heart.

—Garcia Lorca to Emilia Llanos Medinor,
November 25, 1920

The moon is in doubt
over whether to be
a man or a woman.

There’ve been rumors,
all manner of allegations,
bold claims and public lies:

He’s belligerent. She’s in a funk.
When he fades, the world teeters.
When she burgeons, crime blossoms.

O how the operatic impulse wavers!
Dip deep, my darling, into the blank pool.

Found on Poetry.org here.

An Hymn to the Evening

An Hymn to the Evening

by Phillis Wheatley

SOON as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav'nly, more refin'd;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.


Found here on Lit2go from University of South Florida. 

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

by Langston Hughes

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

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln 
     went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy 
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Found here on Poets dot org