I. I've Known Rivers
- I've known rivers:
- I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
- flow of human blood in human veins.
- My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
- I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
- I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
- I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
- I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
- went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
- bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
- I've known rivers
- Ancient, dusky rivers.
- My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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II. Joy
- I went to look for Joy,
- Slim, dancing Joy,
- Gay, laughing Joy,
- Bright-eyed Joy,
- And I found her
- Driving the butcher's cart
- In the arms of the butcher boy!
- Such company, such company,
- As keeps this young nymph, Joy!
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III. Conservatory Student Struggles With Higher Instrumentation
- The saxophone
- Has a vulgar tone.
- I wish it would
- Let me alone.
- The saxophone
- Is ordinary.
- More than that,
- It's mercenary!
- I'd never been
- Sent!
- The saxophone's
- An instrument
- By which I wish
- I'd never been
- Sent!
- The saxophone's
- An instrument
- By which I wish
- I'd never been
- Sent!
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IV. Blues at Daw
- I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
- I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
- If I thought thoughts in bed,
- Them thoughts would bust my head
- So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.
- I don't dare remember in the morning.
- Don't dare remember in the morning.
- If I recall the day before,
- I wouldn't get up no more
- So I don't dare remember in the morning.
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V. Song for Billie Holiday
- What can purge my heart
- Of the song
- And the sadness?
- What can purge my heart
- But the song
- Of the sadness?
- What can purge my heart
- Of the sadness
- Of the song?
- Do not speak of sorrow
- With dust in her hair,
- Or bits of dust in eyes
- A chance wind blows there.
- The sorrow that I speak of
- Is dusted with despair.
- Voice of muted trumpet,
- Cold brass in warm air.
- Bitter television blurred
- By sound that shimmers
- Where?
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VI. Oppression
- How dreams
- Are not available
- To the dreamers,
- Nor songs,
- To the singers.
- In some lands
- Dark night
- And cold steel
- Prevail
- But the dream
- Will come back,
- And the song
- Break
- Its jail.
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VII. Daybreak in Alabama
- When I get to be a composer
- I'm gonna write me some music about
- Daybreak in Alabama
- And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
- Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
- And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
- I'm gonna put some tall trees in it
- And the scent of pine needles
- And the smell of red clay after rain
- And long red necks
- And poppy colored faces
- And big brown arms
- And the field daisy eyes
- Of black and white black white black people
- And I'm gonna put white hands
- And black hands and brown and yellow hands
- And red clay earth hands in it
- Touching everybody with kind fingers
- And touching each other natural as dew
- In that dawn of music when I
- Get to be a composer
- And write about daybreak
- In Alabama.
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