Society and the World

Let us honor if we can The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one.

Come up with me, American love. Kiss these secret stones with me. The torrential silver of the Urubamba makes the pollen fly to its golden cup. The hollow of the bindweed’s maze, the petrified plant, the inflexible garland, soar above the silence of these mountain coffers.

But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies.

But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies.

Treacherous generals: look at my dead house, look at broken Spain.

Treacherous generals: look at my dead house, look at broken Spain.

But from each hollow of Spain Spain comes forth.

there are so many people dead and so many sea-walls that the red sun used to split, and so many heads that the boats hit, and so many hands that have closed around kisses, and so many things I would like to forget.

O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet—

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway… He did a lazy sway… To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.

The light is buried under chains and noises in impudent challenge of rootless science. Through the suburbs sleepless people stagger, as though just delivered from a shipwreck of blood.

The New York dawn has four columns of mud and a hurricane of black doves that paddle in putrescent waters.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness, Could not ourselves be kind. But you, when at last it comes to pass That man can help his fellow man, Do not judge us Too harshly.

Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness, Could not ourselves be kind. But you, when at last it comes to pass That man can help his fellow man, Do not judge us Too harshly.

Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.

Oh! Moon of Alabama We now must say good-bye We’ve lost our good old mama And must have whiskey Oh, you know why!

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear— And he shows them pearly white— Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear— And he keeps it out of sight.

Women have no wilderness in them, They are provident instead, Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread.

I was born to know you To give you your name Freedom. 1

pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease.

i sing of Olaf glad and big whose warmest heart recoiled at war

“I will not kiss your f.ing flag”