They Wouldn'T Let Me Be White

They wouldn’t let me be White Oh I wanted to be Dreams of that Pulitzer haunted me They said, Sir, you have ten minutes to play I gave them Milton, Poe and Millay I stood before that panel Like I was auditioning for Jesus On judgment day I belted out those rhymes like Sandburg Gave them sweet elegant words I gave them personification and anapest Gave them Trochee with syllables unstressed I played those Robert Frost Blues Those Road less traveled Blues Those Thomas Hardy going down on the Titanic Blues- And they said, Son, You could be the greatest Since Langston Hughes! And oh I was out of sight Switched up / Got Fancy Moved the stressed syllable From the middle to the right But still they wouldn’t let me be White I had every judge popping their fingers Moving their heads from left to right So I took a bow And smiled up at those lights I gave them Dickinson, Browning and Keats Oh I had those White judges on their feet I played until they saw stars A judge leaned over and said, You remind me so much of- What’s his name? Paul Lawrence Dunbar I played Eliot I played Cummings I played Stevens too I had those White Poets out of their shoes Oh I lifted them a hundred miles off the ground But when they came down They said, You could be the next Sterling Brown I said, Come on! Get out of town! I closed that audition with my best Haiku They said, M.e. Don’t take this wrong we like you I took a final bow I had performed to their delight But still they wouldn’t let me be White