This is a poem.
I stopped reading this poem because it's outdated,
but I think I'll read it again.
This is about the fight before last.
Do you know what I mean?
This is about the fight in Zaire.
And I very much wanted to write a poem about that,
and I wanted to play with words a little bit.
I wanted to play with the word rain,
R-A-I-N because there was, is a drought in that country.
And I wanted to play with the word reign, R-E-I-G-N,
which means a king ruling over his people.
So I did.
The poem starts with a poem by a man named Drew Bundini Brown.
Do you know who?
Good because so many people don't know who that is,
it's unbelievable.
Drew Bundini Brown was in the movie
Shaft, a movie I didn't see by the way but I know he's there.
And he's in Muhammad Ali's Corner.
And he wrote a poem and it goes like this,
float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, rumble young man,
rumble.
And the young man rumbled.
Rained on the just and the unjust,
and it was the rainy season in Zaire.
And the young man poured down, poured down.
And where there had been drought on the continent,
the young man wept the tongues of brothers and sisters
who drummed and drummed for the rumbling young men for who can
stay dry when black rain comes?