“Park Benching”
      by Langston Hughes

                    I’ve sat on the park benches in Paris
                    Hungry
                    I’ve sat on the park benches in New York
                    Hungry
                    And I’ve said
                    I want a job.
                    I want to work.
                    And I’ve been told
                    There are no jobs.
                    There is no work.
                    So I’ve sat on the park benches
                    Hungry.
                    Mid-winter,
                    Hungry days,
                    No jobs,
                    No work.

"Dying Beast"
    by Langston Hughes
                       

                 Sensing death,
                 The buzzards gather-
                 Noting the last struggle
                 Of flesh under weather,
                 Of agonized eye
                 At passing wind
                 And boundless sky.
                 Sensing death,
                 The buzzards overhead
                 Await that still moment
                 When life-
 

                  Is dead.

Analytical Paragraph about  "Park Benching”

            In Hughes’ poem “ Park Benching”, he draws a clear picture of what a park bencher would do and say.  A park bencher is someone who lives off a park bench.  The person in the poem is traveling from city to city trying to find a job.  He is very hungry and sits on park benches waiting for a job to open.  The struggle the park bencher goes through grows when he goes to different cities and finds the same result.  “ I’ve sat on the park benches in Paris/ Hungry. / I’ve sit on the park benches in New York/ Hungry. / And I’ve said:/ I want a job. / I want to work.”  In the lines above, one sees how the person in the poem is trying to find work.  He traveled from Paris to New York without anything but reassurance of there being a park bench there.  This could be a true account of what Langston Hughes experienced.  He traveled abroad to find work including in Europe and New York.  He could be telling about what happened to him in the early 1920s.  The many repeated lines in the poem reflect what the park bencher is going through in a different city.  It makes one feel that the park bencher is trying to help himself, but that no one will help him.  The park bencher is sad and dejected, but will move on and try to find a job in another city like San Francisco.  This is a feeling developed by Hughes that leads one to believe that the park bencher will not give up until he finds a job. 

Analytical Paragraph on   "Dying Beast”

            “The Dying Beast” by Hughes shows the cruel punishment animals have to go through, when they are waiting to die knowing they will get eaten by the buzzards above.  It shows the struggle the dying animal must go through by the explanation of its slow and malicious death.  The buzzards wait until the living is almost dead and then they hover.  “Sensing death,/ The buzzards gather-/ Noting the last struggle/ Of flesh under weather.”  One now knows the struggle an animal goes through, basically just to die. This poem shows that not all animals out there are cute and cuddly like they appear to be, but are really bloodthirsty raging beasts ready to find another victim.  The animal, knowing death is coming, must stare above at the sick beasts that will come down and break open the flesh and drink its still warm blood.  The animal wishes it would die and not go through the agonizing torture of watching his death unfold above him.