David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 120
August 18, 2021
Langston Hughes on America
Langston Hughes – 1902-1967
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
August 2, 2021
My poem “The Burning Time” will be published by Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine in their Fall/Winter issue available online September 2021.
My poem “The Burning Time” will be published by Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine in their Fall/Winter issue available online September 2021.
This is the fifth time they have featured my poetry and I am deeply appreciative.
July 26, 2021
Dali on the futile pursuit of originality
“Those who do not want to imitate anything produce nothing.” Salvador Dali
July 7, 2021
Yeats on life as Tragedy
“We can only begin to live when we conceive life as Tragedy.” ― William Butler Yeats
July 1, 2021
You can read three of my poems now published online in Voices on the Wind Issue 85 (Mountain Voices) their final issue.
You can read three of my poems now published online in Voices on the Wind Issue 85 (Mountain Voices) their final issue.
June 30, 2021
Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer-winning poet of ‘the difficult magic of the ordinary,’ dies at 82
Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer-winning poet of ‘the difficult magic of the ordinary,’ dies at 82
— Read on www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/stephen-dunn-pulitzer-winning-poet-of-the-difficult-magic-of-the-ordinary-dies-at-82/ar-AALu93x
June 29, 2021
Honored to have my interview published by Haunted Waters Press
June 25, 2021
I am honored that Voices on the Wind will publish 3 of my poems in Issue #84–their final issue.
I am honored that Voices on the Wind will publish 3 of my poems in Issue #84–their final issue.
Thank you Editor Leslie Clark for your years of dedication and support for poets and their poetry–and have a great retirement.
