"O Blood of the River of songs, 
O songs of the River of Blood,"
	Let me lie down. Let my words 

Lie sound in the mouths of men 
Repeating their invocations pure 
	And perfect as the moans that 

Mount in the mouth of Bessie Smith. 
Blues for the angels kicked out 
	Of heaven. Blues for the angels 

Who miss them still. Blues for 
My people and whatever water 
	They know. O weary drinkers 

Drinking from the bloody river,
Why go to heaven with Harlem 
	So close? Why sing of rivers 

With a daddy of my own to miss? 
I remember him and taste a stain 
	Red as blood coursing the body 

Of a man chased by a mob. I write 
That running, his sweat: here, 
	He climbs a poplar for the sky, 
	
But it is only sky. The river?
Follow me. You'll see. We tried	
	To fly and learned we couldn't 

Swim. Dear singing river full of 
My blood, are we as loud under-
	Water? Is it blood that binds 
	
Brothers? Or is it the Mississippi 
Running through the fattest vein
	Of America? When I say home, 


I mean I wanted to write some 
Lines. I wanted to hear the blues, 
	But here I am swimming in the river 
	
Again. What runs through the fat
Veins of a drowned body? What 
	America can a body call home? 

When I say Congo, I mean blood. 
When I say Nile, I mean blood. 
	When I say Euphrates, I mean, 
	
If only you knew how much blood 
We have in common. So much,
	In Louisiana, they call a man like me 

Red. And red was too dark 
For my daddy. And my daddy was 
	Too dark for America. He ran 
	
Like a man from my mother 
And me. And my mother's sobs 
	Are the songs of Bessie Smith

Who wears more feathers than 
Death. O the death my people refuse 
	To die. When I was 18, I wrote down 

The river though I couldn't win 
A race, climbed a tree that winter, then 
	Fell, flat on my wet, red face. Line 

After line, I read all the time, 
But "there was nothing 
	I could do about Race."