GOOD MORNING DADDY 
Good morning, daddy!
I was born here, he said,
watched Harlem grow
until the 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 are open –
           Yet there're bars
            at each gate.

                 What happens
                  to a dream deferred?

          Daddy, ain't you heard? 

SUBWAY RUSH HOUR 
Mingled
breath and smell
so close
mingled
black and white
so near
no room for fear.

125TH STREET 
Face like a chocolate bar
full of nuts and sweet.

Face like a jack-o’-lantern,
candle inside.

Face like a slice of melon,
grin that wide.

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

          (Hollywood
           laughs at me,
           black –
           so I laugh
           back.)

DRUNKARD
Voice grows thicker
as song grows stronger
as time grows longer until day
trying to forget to remember
the taste of day. 

GREEN MEMORY
A wonder time – the War:
when money rolled in
and blood rolled out.
          But blood
          was far away
          from here –
Money was near.

CASUALTY
He was a soldier in the army,
But he doesn’t walk like one.
He walks like his soldiering
Days are done.

Son! . . . Son! 

TAG 
Little culled boys
          with fears,
           frantic,
nudge their draftee years.

          Pop-a-da!

JUKE BOX LOVE SONG
I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day –
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl. 

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?

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?

MELLOW 
Into the laps 
of black celebrities
white girls fall
like pale plums from a tree
beyond a high tension wall
wired for killing
which makes it 
more thrilling.

CHORD
Shadow faces
In the shadow night
Before the early dawn
Bops bright.

TELL ME 
Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
     deferred
     overlong? 

(all poems for this cycle were first published in Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951)