Countee Cullen poems
Countee Cullen(30 May 1903 - 9 January 1946 / New York)
Incident
- by Countee Cullen 131
Once riding in old Baltimore,Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
A Brown Girl Dead
- by Countee Cullen 57
With two white roses on her breasts,White candles at head and feet,
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
Lord Death has found her sweet.
Her mother pawned her wedding ring
To lay her out in white;
She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing
to see herself tonight.