Old Lem
I talked to old Lem
and old Lem said:
“They weigh the cotton
They store the corn
We only good enough
To work the rows;
They run the commissary
They keep the books
We gotta be grateful
For being cheated;
Whippersnapper clerks
Call us out of our name
We got to say mister
To spindling boys
They make our figgers
Turn somersets
We buck in the middle
Say, “Thankyuh, sah.”
They don’t come by ones
They don’t come by twos
But they come by tens.
“They got the judges
They got the lawyers
They got the jury-rolls
They got the law
They don’t come by ones
They got the sheriffs
They got the deputies
They don’t come by twos
They got the shotguns
They got the rope
We git the justice
In the end
And they come by tens.
“Their fists stay closed
Their eyes look straight
Our hands stay open
Our eyes must fall
They don’t come by ones
They got the manhood
They got the courage
They don’t come by twos
We got to slink around
Hangtailed hounds.
They burn us when we dogs
They burn us when we men
They come by tens . . .
“I had a buddy
Six foot of man
Muscled up perfect
Game to the heart
They don’t come by ones
Outworked and outfought
Any man or two men
They don’t come by twos
He spoke out of turn
At the commissary
They gave him a day
To git out the county
He didn’t take it.
He said ‘Come and get me.’
They came and got him
And they came by tens.
He stayed in the county—
He lays there dead.
They don’t come by ones
They don’t come by twos
But they come by tens.”
Copyright Credit: “Old Lem,” from The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, edited by Michael S. Harper. Copyright © 1980 by Sterling A. Brown. Reprinted by permission of Jacqueline M. Combs.
Source: The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown (Harper & Row, 1980)