Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BROWN-SKIN, by CHARLES ELMER HUBER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BROWN-SKIN, by                    
First Line: Everywhere a black face beams
Last Line: Is that brown skin.
Subject(s): African Americans; Culture Conflict; Negroes; American Blacks


Everywhere a black face beams
Upon the scene. A trumpet screams
Above the scraping of the drums
And frenzied pounding of piano keys.
The brown-skinned entertainer comes
With her sensuous charms to tease
The sex-crazed minds of each of those
Who sit and drink and smoke and watch
With avid eyes her primeval throes,
And hunger for a touch
Of that brown skin.

Heaving breasts and weaving thighs,
Which cause the old men many sighs
Of deep regret and memories, and the young
Ones sighs of keen desire. Among
Themselves, they talk of who shall have her first,
As for her lips and swaying hips they thirst
In lewd anticipation. Every portion
Of her lithe form is followed by their glances;
Her writhing, jerking belly, and contortions,
All of which the white man more entrances
Because of that brown skin.

Throughout the smoke-filled room there surges
The loud, unceasing laughter of the blacks,
While the less free laughter of the whites merges
To swell the din, as she enacts
Her savage dance. And coarse jests
Are made of her firm brown thighs and breasts.

Her clear, pure voice then for awhile
Drowns out the bawdy talk, and with a smile,
She sings to one and all, her eyes inviting
Each to share her bed, and thus find how exciting
Is that brown skin.





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