Harper’s ‘Images’: ‘Martin’s Blues’
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He came apart in the open,
the slow-motion cameras
falling quickly
neither alive nor kicking;
stone blind dead
on the balcony
that old melody etched his black lips
in a pruned echo:
We shall overcome
some day--
Yes we did!
Yes we did!
Reprinted by permission from “Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems,” copyright by Michael S. Harper, University of Illinois Press, 1977.
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