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I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire's call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Have you dug the spill Of Sugar Hill? Cast your gims On this sepia thrill: Brown sugar lassie, Caramel treat, Honey-gold baby Sweet enough to eat. Peach-skinned girlie, Coffee and cream, Chocolate darling Out of a dream. Walnut tinted Or cocoa brown, Pomegranate-lipped Pride of the town. Rich cream-colored To plum-tinted black, Feminine sweetness In Harlem’s no lack. Glow of the quince To blush of the rose. Persimmon bronze To cinnamon toes. Blackberry cordial, Virginia Dare wine— All those sweet colors Flavor Harlem of mine! Walnut or cocoa, Let me repeat: Caramel, brown sugar, A chocolate treat. Molasses taffy, Coffee and cream, Licorice, clove, cinnamon To a honey-brown dream. Ginger, wine-gold, Persimmon, blackberry, All through the spectrum Harlem girls vary— So if you want to know beauty’s Rainbow-sweet thrill, Stroll down luscious, Delicious,fine Sugar Hill.

After our rendez-vous—this the last word he said, Waving to me as the train pulled away from the station. And so it seemed: harmless. Till evening brought The first prick of fever, which soon trellised my veins; At 2 AM came that knock on the city gates, Little pig, little pig, let me come in. . . . Ha! ever a bold and warlike people, we didn’t. Days of siege. We threw corpses dead of plague From the tops of parapets to frighten it away: But what was it? That vatic voice was not like his at all, and by its speech one could tell it somehow knew us well. The mystery deepened. A strange billowing cloud Made my people short of breath, I heard them wheezing. The end seemed near. What could this ailment be? Hunting  out clues, I went over the roses and snows Of his departed face like a treasure map, over His words hanging in air like the scrolls of Alexandria. Had I not been consensual, a free agent, Gay, single as any singing lark, who Chooses to unlock, to whom? Well? One night, finally, I climbed our tallest tower, lay In the open on its roof and had a brilliant dream. I saw my body nestled between angels Like the body of the prophet Jesus, I saw it Leaking from a finger’s tip like a slit ragdoll. And then I saw: this feathery, amorphous creature Black as mildew in the bath, soft as bread mold, Chewing on my bloodpuddings in the corner. And then I knew! That morning, I went out by the porter’s door Pressing one finger to judicious lips like Oedipus. Your name, I said,I have it now: Despair— Shrieking, it vanished with brimstone and flames. So I etched Harmless in that ground of merds and moss And to this day, my people listen to strangers crying wares With an intelligent ear, remembering our grave old danger.

Little soul, you and I will become the memory of a memory of a memory. A horse released of the traces forgets the weight of the wagon.

I leaned against the mantel, sick, sick, Thinking of my failure, looking into the abysm, Weak from the noon-day heat. A church bell sounded mournfully far away, I heard the cry of a baby, And the coughing of John Yarnell, Bed-ridden, feverish, feverish, dying, Then the violent voice of my wife: "Watch out, the potatoes are burning!" I smelled them ... then there was irresistible disgust. I pulled the trigger ... blackness ... light ... Unspeakable regret ... fumbling for the world again. Too late! Thus I came here, With lungs for breathing ... one cannot breathe here with lungs, Though one must breathe Of what use is it To rid one's self of the world, When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?

i was born by a lake, chicken shack, & a church — Common, “The Morning” 1st defense against food deserts. when the whitefolk wouldn't sling us burgers you gave no fuck. stuck your golden-ringed hand into the flour & fixed the bird. you 1st example of black flight. original innovation of deep fry. you beef tallow, city slick & down home migration taste. of course your sauce sweet & burn at the same time. of course you call it mild so whitefolk won't know to fear until it's too late. you no corporate structure, just black business model. they earn the recipe & go make it their own. every cut of crow you throw in the grease is dark meat. the whole shack: shaking, drenched in mild sauce, sweet spirit, baptized.

we’re trying to eliminate the shack. — Kristen Pierce, Harold’s CEO & daughter of founder Harold Pierce when i went to summer camp the white kids had a tendency to shorten names of important institutions. make Northwestern University into NU. international relations into IR. everybody started calling me Nate. before this i imagined myself Nathaniel A. maybe even N. Armstead to big up my granddad. i wrote my whole name on everything. eventually i started unintentionally introducing myself as Nate. it never occurred to me that they could escape the knowing of my name’s real length. as a shorty most the kids in my neighborhood couldn’t say my name. Mick-daniel, Nick-thaniel, MacDonnel shot across the courts like wild heaves toward the basket. the subconscious visual of a chicken shack seems a poor fit for national expansion. Harold’s Chicken is easier, sounds like Columbus’s flag stuck into a cup of cole slaw. shack sounds too much like home of poor people, like haven for weary like building our own.

Berkeley psychologists told Harold his anger was justified. What parents let their child go for a midnight walk under no moon?I couldn’t have been more than four

There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she; She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three; And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.

I HEARD a woman's lips Speaking to a companion Say these words: "A woman what hustles Never keeps nothin' For all her hustlin'. Somebody always gets What she goes on the street for. If it ain't a pimp It's a bull what gets it. I been hustlin' now Till I ain't much good any more. I got nothin' to show for it. Some man got it all, Every night's hustlin' I ever did."