Black Weariness
I am tired this night
I shall go alone to Mojo Mike’s Cafe and bathe my body in high breakers of hot jazz flung tableward ... molten notes falling in a crimson spray
I shall sink my soul in warm whiskey while the light-scarred night roosts nervously on the quivering limb of 47th Street in Chicago’s Congo
For these hours I can forget that I am black
At school I honed my mind against sleek sides of white ideas
Mine was a leather covered silence in a room of chintz and red plush sound as I packed my bag with silver bits of knowledge
Later I learned these sparkling morsels gave little strength as I fought across burning sands of a Nordic land
Some I have thrown away
Others I shall guard as priceless treasure until the rattlesnake bite of death for some day yet I may have need of them
Although I move as one disgraced, outlawed by this my land for being black, I shall lift proud feet and walk by day past sneering townspeople returning blow for blow until my strength flees and I collapse in utter exhaustion
I would joyously use these silver bits of knowledge helping my white brothers build into America
But when gifts are flung back hard into the face of the giver and the hand extended is seized and crushed between mailed fists what is there left but fighting?
I am tired this night
My arms hang weary from battle
For these few hours
At Mojo Mike’s Cafe
I shall forget civilization
I shall forget color, caste
I shall move in a fantastic world of raceless men and women
So that tomorrow
Refreshed by this wild dream
Goaded by this vision of America as America
I may go forth again
Fighting, fighting
Ever fighting
Until I am no longer one apart
Until they call to me as I tread our streets:
“Hello, Brother
“Hello, American!”
Notes:
“Black Weariness” originally appeared in 47th Street: Poems (Decker Press, 1948) and is from Black Moods: Collected Poems (University of Illinois Press, 2002). © 2002 Board of Trustees. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.
This poem is part of the portfolio “As Direct as Good Blues: Frank Marshall Davis.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the December 2023 issue.
Source: Poetry (December 2023)