Tired and Merry Christmas

I am currently reading The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel. Of the multiple poems in this collection that spoke to me, these two below were the most meaningful. The anger of Hughes in the 1930s and his internationalist outlook are especially interesting considering how we tend to limit writers along national lines.

Tired

I am so tired of waiting,

Aren't you,

For the world to become good

And beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

And cut the world in two

And see what worms are eating

At the rind.

Merry Christmas 

Merry Christmas, China,

From the gun-boats in the river,

Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts,

And peace on earth forever.

Merry Christmas, India,

To Gandhi in his cell,

From righteous Christian England,

Ring out, bright Christmas bell!

Ring Merry Christmas, Africa,

From Cairo to the Cape!

Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord!

(For murder and for rape.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti!

(And drown the voodoo drums--

We'll rob you to the Christian hymns

Until the next Christ comes.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba!

(While Yankee domination 

Keeps a nice fat president

In a little half-starved nation.)

And to you down-and-outers,

("Due to economic laws")

Oh, eat, drink, and be merry

With a bread-line Santa Claus--

While all the world hails Christmas,

While all the church bells sway!

While, better still, the Christian guns

Proclaim this joyous day!

While holy steel that makes us strong

Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song:

SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere!

Let Merry Christmas GAS the air!