Gangsters


The gangsters of the world
Are riding high.
It's not the underworld
Of which they speak.
They leave that loot to smaller fry.
Why should they great Capone's
Fallen headpiece seek
When stolen crowns
Sit easier on the head -
Or Ethiopia's band of gold
For higher prices
On the marked can be sold-
Or Iraq oil -
Than any vice or bootleg crown of old?
The gangsters of the world ride high -
But not small fry.

-Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes