GOSPEL NOBLE TRUTHS

Born in this world        Sit you sit down
You got to suffer        Breathe when you breathe
Everything changes        Lie Down you lie down
You got no soul        Walk where you walk

Try to be gay        Talk when you talk
Ignorant happy        Cry when you cry
You get the blues        Lie down you lie down
You eat jellyroll        Die when you die

There is one Way        Look when you look
You take the high road        Hear what you hear
In your big Wheel        Taste what you taste here
8 steps you fly        Smell what you smell

Look at the View        Touch what you touch
Right to horizon        Think what you think
Talk to the sky        Let go let it go slow
Act like you talk        Earth Heaven & Hell

Work like the sun        Die when you die
Shine in your heaven        Die when you die
See what you done        Lie down you lie down
Come down & walk        Die when you die

New York Subway, October 17, 1975

  — Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997), American poet

The Weary Blues  

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.

With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.

      O Blues!

Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.

      Sweet Blues!

Coming from a black man’s soul.

      O Blues!

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—

      “Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
      Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
      I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
      And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—

      “I got the Weary Blues
      And I can’t be satisfied.
      Got the Weary Blues
      And can’t be satisfied—
      I ain’t happy no mo’
      And I wish that I had died.”

And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.

The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

  — Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967), African-American poet, novelist and playwright.