Ballad of the Landlord - Weebly
A Poetic Anthology
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Table of Contents
3. “Ballad of the Landlord” Langston Hughes
4. “To the Young Who Want to Die”, “We Real Cool” Gwendolyn Brooks
5. “Lineage” Margaret Walker
6. “Forgiving My Father” Justin Morris
7. “Love’s Gonna Get Us (Material Love)” Damon Turner
8. “What the Mirror Said” Lucille Clifton
9. “The Road Not Taken” Robert Frost
10. “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost
11. “I America Singing” W. Whitman and “‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers” E. Dickinson
12. “The Cities Inside Us” Alberto Rios
13. “To the Desert” B.A. Saenz and “This is Just to Say” W.C. Williams
14. “Bilingual/Bilingüe” Rhina Espaillat
15. “Those Winter Sundays” Robert Hayden
16. “To the Ladies” Lady Mary Chudleigh
17. “Why I Hate Raisins” Natalie Diaz
18. “Ode to My Socks” Pablo Neruda
19. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” William Shakespeare
20. “Litany” Billy Collins
21. “For a Girl Becoming” Joy Harjo
“Ballad of the Landlord”
by Langston Hughes
Landlord, landlord,
My roof has sprung a leak.
Don't you 'member I told you about it
Way last week?
Landlord, landlord,
These steps is broken down.
When you come up yourself
It's a wonder you don't fall down.
Ten Bucks you say I owe you?
Ten Bucks you say is due?
Well, that's Ten Bucks more'n I'll pay you
Till you fix this house up new.
What? You gonna get eviction orders?
You gonna cut off my heat?
You gonna take my furniture and
Throw it in the street?
Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.
Talk on-till you get through.
You ain't gonn a be able to say a word
If I land my fist on you.
Police! Police!
Come and get this man!
He's trying to ruin the government
And overturn the land!
Copper's whistle!
Patrol bell!
Arrest.
Precinct Station.
Iron cell.
Headlines in press:
MAN THREATENS LANDLORD
TENANT HELD NO BAIL
JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL
“To the Young Who Want to Die” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.
You need not die today.
Stay here — through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.
Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.
We Real Cool
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Margaret Walker
Lineage
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
“Forgiving My Father”
by Justin Morris
I’d like to forgive you father,
but I don’t know your heart.
Your face,
is it a mirror image of mine?
I’d like to forgive you father,
but I find your absence a fire
that your face might be able to extinguish.
I’d like to forgive you father, but my last name isn’t
the same as yours
like it’s supposed to be.
You rejected me, dad,
but can I sympathize for you ignorance?
for all the birthdays
you didn’t send me a card,
for the Christmases when I’d wake up,
and you weren’t sitting by the tree waiting for me.
What about summer nights
where prospects of you began to fade?
Fade like you did seventeen years ago.
Out of my life.
I’d like to forgive you father,
but I don’t know you.
And for that
I hate you.
“Love’s Gonna Get Us (Material Love)”
by Damon Turner
Hey, Mr. Smooth! Mr. Ladies’ Man!
Yeah, I’m talking to you, Man;
I see those threads you have on.
Yeah, I see the Reebok Pumps,
Avia sweats, and Nike cross trainers
you wearin’,
And you’re not even an athlete,
Brothaman.
I know what these David Robinson,
Michael Jordon, Bo Jackson commercials
Do for you.
Now you seem to think
That you can go out
There and do it all.
What do they tell you?
Oh, yeah,
They tell you to ‘Just Do It.’
That is, just do it wearing your Nike,
Your Reebok, your Adidas,
and your Converse.
Who are you trying to be
Wearing that Mars Blackmon/Michael
Jordon t-shirt?
Do you think wearing that shirt
Allows you to defy the forces
of gravity as we know it?
Hell no! I don’t think so.
What Nike, Reebok, Adidas,
Avia and Converse
Don’t care about is you.
What they ‘care’ about
Is yo’ money, yo’ money,
and mo’ of yo’ money.
Next tiem you wear your athletic attire
Endorsed by those million dollar brothers,
Think about the economic dividends
Taken out of your community
And placed into their greedy little hands.
Yeah, when you jump another brother
For his NFL or NBA endorsed starter,
Think about what good it does for your people.
Yeah, brothaman. Mr. Nike, Mr. Adidas
Mr. Reebok pump you up.
Just think about it.
“what the mirror said”
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!
- Lucille Clifton
“The Road Not Taken”
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I Hear America Singing
BY WALT WHITMAN
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
The Cities Inside Us – Alberto Rios
We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.
We speak words between us that we recognize
But which cannot be looked up.
They are our words.
They come from very far inside our mouths.
You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us
There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people
We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are
But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.
We each take a piece
Through the eye and through the ear.
It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak
In the outside world
We have to hope that some of that sound
Does not come out, that an arm
Not reach out
In place of the tongue
THIS IS JUST TO SAY
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
William Carlos Williams
To the Desert
BY BENJAMIN ALIRE SÁENZ
I came to you one rainless August night.
You taught me how to live without the rain.
You are thirst and thirst is all I know.
You are sand, wind, sun, and burning sky,
The hottest blue. You blow a breeze and brand
Your breath into my mouth. You reach—then bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
You wrap your name tight around my ribs
And keep me warm. I was born for you.
Above, below, by you, by you surrounded.
I wake to you at dawn. Never break your
Knot. Reach, rise, blow, Sálvame, mi dios,
Trágame, mi tierra. Salva, traga, Break me,
I am bread. I will be the water for your thirst.
Bilingual/Bilingüe
BY RHINA P. ESPAILLAT
My father liked them separate, one there,
one here (allá y aquí), as if aware
that words might cut in two his daughter’s heart
(el corazón) and lock the alien part
to what he was—his memory, his name
(su nombre)—with a key he could not claim.
“English outside this door, Spanish inside,”
he said, “y basta.” But who can divide
the world, the word (mundo y palabra) from
any child? I knew how to be dumb
and stubborn (testaruda); late, in bed,
I hoarded secret syllables I read
until my tongue (mi lengua) learned to run
where his stumbled. And still the heart was one.
I like to think he knew that, even when,
proud (orgulloso) of his daughter’s pen,
he stood outside mis versos, half in fear
of words he loved but wanted not to hear.
Those Winter Sunday by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Deliberate
By Amy Uyematsu
So by sixteen we move in packs
learn to strut and slide
in deliberate lowdown rhythm
talk in a syn/co/pa/ted beat
because we want so bad
to be cool, never to be mistaken
for white, even when we leave
these rowdier L.A. streets—
remember how we paint our eyes
like gangsters
flash our legs in nylons
sassy black high heels
or two inch zippered boots
stack them by the door at night
next to Daddy’s muddy gardening shoes
To the Ladies
BY LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH
Wife and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name:
For when that fatal knot is tied,
Which nothing, nothing can divide:
When she the word obey has said,
And man by law supreme has made,
Then all that’s kind is laid aside,
And nothing left but state and pride:
Fierce as an Eastern prince he grows,
And all his innate rigour shows:
Then but to look, to laugh, or speak,
Will the nuptial contract break.
Like mutes she signs alone must make,
And never any freedom take:
But still be governed by a nod,
And fear her husband as a God:
Him still must serve, him still obey,
And nothing act, and nothing say,
But what her haughty lord thinks fit,
Who with the power, has all the wit.
Then shun, oh! shun that wretched state,
And all the fawning flatt’rers hate:
Value your selves, and men despise,
You must be proud, if you’ll be wise.
Why I Hate Raisins by Natalie Diaz
And is it only the mouth and belly which are
injured by hunger and thirst?
-Mencius
Love is a pound of sticky raisins
packed tight in black and white
government boxes the day we had no
groceries. I told my mom I was hungry.
She gave me the whole bright box.
USDA stamped like a fist on the side.
I ate them all in ten minutes. Ate
too many too fast. It wasn’t long
before those old grapes set like black
clay at the bottom of my belly
making it ache and swell.
I complained, I hate raisins.
I just wanted a sandwich like other kids.
Well that’s all we’ve got, my mom sighed.
And what other kids?
Everoyone but me, I told her.
She said, You mean the white kids.
You want to be a white kid?
Well too bad ’cause you’re my kid.
I cried, At least the white kids get a sandwich.
At least the white kids don’t get the shits.
That’s when she slapped me. Left me
holding my mouth and stomach—
devoured by shame.
I still hate raisins,
but not for the crooked commodity lines
we stood in to get them—winding
around and in the tribal gymnasium.
Not for the awkward cardboard boxes
we carried them home in. Not for the shits
or how they distended my belly.
I hate raisins because now I know
my mom was hungry that day, too,
and I ate all the raisins.
Ode to My Socks
Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.
Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.
The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.
Pablo Neruda
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
By William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Litany by Billy Collins
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
FOR A GIRL BECOMING
for Krista Rae Chico
That day your spirit came to us rains came in from the Pacific to bless
They peered over the mountains in response to the singing of medicine plants
Who danced back and forth in shawls of mist
Your mother labored there, so young in earthly years
And your father, and all of us who loved you gathered, where
Pollen blew throughout that desert house to bless
With the fragrant knowledge of your pending arrival here.
And horses were running the land, hundreds of them
To accompany you here, to bless.
Girl, I wonder what you thought as you paused there in your spirit house
Before you entered into the breathing world to be with us?
Were you lonely for us, too?
Our relatives in that beloved place dressed you in black hair,
Brown eyes, skin the color of earth, and turned you in this direction.
We want you to know that we urgently gathered to welcome you here; we came
Bearing gifts to celebrate:
From your mother’s house we brought: poetry, music, medicine makers, stubbornness, beauty, tribal leaders, a yard filled with junked cars and the gift of knowing how to make them run.
We carried tobacco and cedar, new clothes and joy for you.
And from your father’s house came educators, thinkers, dreamers, weavers and mathematical genius.
They carried a cradleboard, hope, white shell and turquoise for you.
We brought blankets to wrap you in, soft beaded moccasins of deerskin.
Did you hear us as you traveled from your rainbow house?
We called you with thunder, with singing.
Did you see us as we gathered in the town beneath the mountains?
We were dressed in concern and happiness.
We were overwhelmed, as you moved through the weft of your mother
Even before you took your first breath, your eyes blinked wide open.
Now, breathe.
And when you breathe remember the source of the gift of all breathing.
When you walk, remember the source of the gift of all walking.
And when you run, remember the source of the gift of all running.
And when you laugh, remember the source of the gift of all laughter.
And when you cry, remember the source of the gift of all crying.
And when you think, remember the source of the gift of all thinking.
And when your heart is broken, remember the source of the gift of all breaking.
And when your heart is put back together, remember the source of all putting back together.
Don’t forget how you started your journey from that rainbow house,
How you traveled and will travel through the mountains and valleys
of human tests.
There are treacherous places along the way, but you can come to us.
There are lakes of tears shimmering sadly there, but you can come to us.
And valleys without horses or kindnesses, but you can come to us.
And angry, jealous gods and wayward humans who will hurt you,
but you can come to us.
You will fall, but you will get back up again, because you are one of us.
And as you travel with us remember this:
Give a drink of water to all who ask, whether they be plant, creature,
human or spirit;
May you always have clean, fresh water.
Feed your neighbors. Give kind words and assistance
to all you meet along the way--
We are all related in this place--
May you be surrounded with the helpfulness of family and good friends.
Grieve with the grieving, share joy with the joyful.
May you build a strong path with beautiful and truthful language.
Clean your room.
May you always have a home: a refuge from storm, a gathering place for comfort.
Bury what needs to be buried. Uncover the dreams of truthful warriors.
Do not harbor hurt. Laugh easily at yourself; grow kindness with others.
May you always travel lightly and well.
Praise and give thanks for each small and large thing.
Review each act and thought.
May you grow in knowledge, in compassion, in beauty.
Always within you is that day your spirit came to us
When rains came in from the Pacific to bless
They peered over the mountains in response to the singing of medicine plants
Who danced back and forth in shawls of mist
Your mother labored there, so young in earthly years.
And we who love you gather here,
Pollen blows throughout this desert house to bless
With the fragrant knowledge of your appearance here.
And horses run the land, hundreds of them for you,
And you are here to bless.
c Joy Harjo 2005
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