At the Bar by Olivia Guenther
I met Langston Hughes and Claude McKay
arguing about lines from poems
Dunbar wrote when Harlem still had cattle
carts and the Dutch farmed their oats under
a street sign marked one-twenty-fifth, long
after the bar closed, while the bartender
sought relief from Ella on a seventy
eight, scatting the new notes. Roosevelt was
in the White House and the boys flocked down
to the Apollo with new songs on
their lips, hoping to grab a label,
or a week’s engagement at the Cotton Club…
My uncle, W. M. D, runs
the numbers for the block, from Riley’s
Flats – what else can a black man find to do
if he doesn’t want to be janitor,
or a Mardi Gras buffoon in front
one of them Manhattan hotels, opening
taxi doors and hefting luggage up
thirty seven floors, cause the lifts never
work when guests check in. Can’t find them
at the Waldorf Astoria, where
the tips are crisp notes, without the sweat
and only chauffeur-driven town cars queue for fares…
A chap from Missouri escaped by
his teeth from a lynching. He stole a few
pounds on the weight of some cotton bales
when the boys weren’t looking his way. Saved
by a freight train bound for Chicago, he
barbers on Lennox, by the overpass
and talks all day about the good life
in the grand old confederacy.
‘If it ain’t splitting hairs in this city,
is a journey up river to Sing Sing.
In this year of our lord we still second
class, and the jobs all go to the men.’
‘That was before King and the march, Bull
O’Connor and his dogs, I cannot
forget ‘cause if I shut my eyes it
will all reel back, live in technicolor.
Forget the old black and whites.’ Langston
Hughes and Claude McKay still on about
lines Dunbar wrote across the colour bar…
‘In those days black man couldn’t find time
to memorize, far less to write, then
argue poetry ‘bout years of blight
and strife. Nothing has changed, nothing will,
it’s all about money and bombs, this century.’
~ McDonald Dixon
McDonald Dixon is an actor, poet, playwright, painter and photographer from St. Lucia. In 1993, he was awarded the Piton Medal of Merit (Silver) for his contributions to literature and photography.Â
