Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. - 5 Very Short Poems (1918)

Forgotten Poems #96 || Reissue #13

    
              —: Play On Your Harp :—
                              (excerpt)

       A seething world is gone stark mad;
       And is drunk with the blood,
       Gorged with the flesh,
       Blinded with the ashes
       Of her millions of dead.
       From out it all and over all
       There stands, years old and fully grown,
       A monster in the guise of man.
    

     
              —: The Mulatto To His Critics :—

       Ashamed of my race?
       And of what race am I?
       I am many in one.
       Thru my veins there flows the blood
       Of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt and Scot,
       In warring clash and tumultuous riot.
       I welcome all,
       But love the blood of the kindly race
       That swarthes my skin, crinkles my hair,
       And puts sweet music into my soul.
     

     
               —: And What Shall You Say? :—

              Brother, come!
       And let us go unto our God.
       And when we stand before Him
       I shall say—
       “Lord, I do not hate,
       I am hated.
       I scourge no one,
       I am scourged.
       I covet no lands.
       My lands are coveted.
       I mock no peoples.
       My people are mocked.”
       And, brother, what shall you say?
     

     
              —: Is It Because I Am Black? :—

       Why do men smile when I speak,
       And call my speech
       The whimperings of a babe
       That cries but knows not what it wants?
       Is it because I am black?

       Why do men sneer when I arise
       And stand in their councils,
       And look them eye to eye.
       And speak their tongue?
       Is it because I am black?
     

     
              —: Memories :—

       The burnished glow of the old-gold moon
       Shines brightly over me.
       A thousand stars, like a thousand isles
       In a dark and placid sea,
       Bring memories of a golden night,
       Bedecked in Autumn's hue
       And fragrant with the lilac's bloom,
       That brought me joy—and you.
     

Joseph Cotter, Snr. (in Caroling Dusk, 1926): “At Thanksgiving time 1894 Paul Laurence Dunbar was a guest in my house in Louisville. Here for the first time in the South he read the Negro dialect poems that afterwards made him famous. My son, the late Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. (1894-1919), was born in the room in which these poems were read. He learned to read and write from his sister, Florence Olivia, who was two years older. Before he entered school at the age of six years he had read about thirty books.”

“Both were graduated from the Louisville Central High School under 16; Florence Olivia won first honor of her class and Joseph the second. After a year-and-a-half at Fisk University, in Nashville, Florence Olivia wrote us that Joseph had tuberculosis and must leave school. He returned home and was put under a doctor. The following December, Florence Olivia returned from Fisk with tuberculosis, and one year from that day she died. It was grieving over his sister's death that discovered to Joseph his poetic talent. He died February 3rd, 1919, leaving his published poems, The Band of Gideon, and two other unpublished works—one of poems and one of one-act plays.”

Illustration: Aaron Douglas (Opportunity, 1925)

      
               For Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.
                       by Dick Whyte

                     when words begin
       the world stops

                      and all that was dead
                      lives again:

                     dead bugs crawling
                     dead winds blowing
                     dead stars burning

       then the world starts up again
       insistently spinning—

                      thread by thread
                      re
       membered
                      move
                      ment

                      meant
                       i was moved
    

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