When they shot Malcolm Little down
On the stage of the Audubon Ballroom,
When his life ran out through bullet holes
(Like the people running out then the murder began)
His blood soaked the floor
One drop found a crack through the stark
Pounding thunder-slipped under the stage and began
Its journey: burrowed through concrete into the cellar,
Dropped down darkness, exploding like quicksilver
Pellets of light, panicking rats, paralyzing cockroaches-
Tunneled through rubble and wrecks of foundations,
The rocks that buttress the bowels of the city, flowed
Into pipes and power lines, th
A river of tears is my story A river of pain in this land A river of angry fire
Will I burn and never tire Until I am treated like a man Until I am treated like a man.
I am moved by passing winds,
Spun mockingly upon one stand
Where all flight ends where it begins.
Strange breezes, from a distant land
Have called me,, too, and I have turned
And turned and could not understand.
Beneath each season’s sun I’ve burned
With you, and watched freed wings depart
For dreamed-of-places where I’ve yearned
To go.
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