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Cane: SEVENTH STREET

Cane
SEVENTH STREET
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table of contents
  1. CANE
  2. FOREWORD
  3. CONTENTS
  4. KARINTHA
  5. REAPERS
  6. NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWER
  7. BECKY
  8. FACE
  9. COTTON SONG
  10. CARMA
  11. SONG OF THE SON
  12. GEORGIA DUSK
  13. FERN
  14. NULLO
  15. EVENING SONG
  16. ESTHER
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
  17. CONVERSION
  18. PORTRAIT IN GEORGIA
  19. BLOOD-BURNING MOON
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
  20. SEVENTH STREET
  21. RHOBERT
  22. AVEY
  23. BEEHIVE
  24. STORM ENDING
  25. THEATER
  26. HER LIPS ARE COPPER WIRE
  27. CALLING JESUS
  28. BOX SEAT
    1. 1
    2. 2
  29. PRAYER
  30. HARVEST SONG
  31. BONA AND PAUL
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4
  32. KABNIS
    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4

SEVENTH STREET

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

SEVENTH STREET is a bastard of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood... Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! .. the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings, theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A Nigger God! He would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgment Day. Who set you flowing?

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,
Bootleggers in silken shirts,
Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,
Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

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RHOBERT
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Public domain in the USA.
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