WordUp - kalamu’s words

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

CLIFFORD BROWN

(you get used to it)

 

they used to call me brownie—clifford brown. i don’t have a name now, at least none that you all can translate. i guess you can call me the spirit of brownie, except that’s so limiting and in the spirit world there are no limits. can you understand be everywhere all the time at the same time? never mind. this is about to get too out for you to dig.

 

when the accident happened, i had nodded off. i mean the ’56 pennsylvania crackup, not the one in ’50 that had me hung up in the hospital for a year. dizzy came and visited me, encouraged me to resume my career when i was released. not that one. instead i mean the big one where i woke up dead.

 

max and newk, they were in the other car, which had gone on ahead. so when they heard we had died, well, maxwell really took it hard. i guess because he knew richie’s wife shouldn’t have been driving because richie had only recently taught her how to drive—recently like a matter of weeks.

 

but when max, who was six years my senior and had seven on richie, tried to intervene, richie sounded on him. you know how we young cats asserting our manhood can run guilt trips, “max. max. why you always treating me like bud’s baby brother? i play as much box as earl does, more, ‘cause bud is so inconsistent, and me, i’m always there.”

 

which was true. he was on time, all the time. “plus i arrange and compose.” and he would touch his thick glasses in a disarming gesture that belied the stern words he was declaiming. “i’m a grown man, max. a grown, married man. i got a wife, a woman, a life, a man. why are you second guessing me on who can drive and who can’t drive? why you treat me like a boy?”

 

it was such a drag, such a drag seeing youngsters straining to act so old. but you know, like richie was carrying a gorilla on his back. what with richie tickling the ivories and being the younger brother of earl bud powell, the reigning rachmaninoff of jazz piano. i bet you if my older brother played trumpet and was named dizzy, i would play bass or drums. but then again, being who i was, what choice did i have but to play what i played or else not play at all? no one chooses to be born who they are.

 

but anyway, max, max starts drinking to get drunk. and drinking and drinking. no even tasting the liquor, just pouring it in trying to kill the pain. richie’s gone. his wife was gone. i was gone. max is whipping himself like a cymbal on an uptempo “cherokee”—ta-tah, ta-tah, ta-tah-tah, tat tah! and newk, newk just disappeared, was up in his room, standing in the middle of the floor, going deep inside himself trying not to feel nothing.

 

max was in his room drinking and crying, crying and drinking. and newk, in a room above max, was silent as a mountain. i had to do something, so i played duets with newk all that night. all night. we played and we played. and we played. all night. i was willing to play as long as newk was willing and newk stayed willing all night. it was like he was a spirit too, but that comes from being a musician. when you’re really into the music you get used to going into the spirit world all the time and bringing the peoples with you. that’s the real joy of playing, leaving this plane and entering the spirit world.

 

as much as me and newk played that night, that’s how much max drank and cried. finally, i couldn’t take it no more and i had to appear to max. i stepped in the seam between worlds. i was like translucent. that was as close as i could come to having a body but i was solid enough for max to peep me, and i spoke… well not really spoke, kind of sounded inside max’s head while i was shimmering in the shadows of that gloomy hotel room.

 

“max, it wasn’t your fault, man. you can’t live other people’s lives. you’ve got to sound your own life.”

 

i couldn’t find the words to tell max how it was. we all live. we all die. the force that people on earth call god, gives us all breath but also, sooner or later, takes that breath away. in time, god gets round to killing each of us. whatever we do in between, we do or don’t do.

 

and max starts bawling even louder, talking about how i was too good for this world, how my example helped all of them clean up their particular indisciples. he was moaning, you know, crying and talking all out his head at the same time. crying pain like a man cries when he’s really broke down.

 

if i had still been alive i would have hugged him but i was dead and that’s why he was crying. so finally, all i could do was tell him the truth. “hey, max, it’s alright, max. it’s alright. get yourself together and keep playing. i’m cool where i’m at. it’s alright!

 

the next morning, when they left, max and newk got in the car and didn’t say a word. for the rest of their lives they never talked to each other about that scene. we all have different ways of dealing with death, even those of us who are dead.

 

and there it is. life is always about decisions and consequences made within a given set of circumstances. you can’t change the past. you can’t foresee the future. all you have is the clay of today to shape your existence. no matter what particular condition you are in, you can only do what you can do. you can only go with the flow of where you are at, and work hard to blow the prettiest song you can conceive. that’s all any of us can do in however many choruses we get the chance to take while we’re alive.

 

besides, believe me, death ain’t no big thing. you get used to it, after a while.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

WHO TRAVELS WITH THE NIGHT

 

Who travels with the night? We all do. Deep within ourselves we carry distrust and doubts, and these negativities fuse into our molecular specifics, a merger that not only permanently mottles the walls of our memory but also causes questions to be randomly released by totally unrelated happenings: for instance, the hue associated with two or three of us stealthily gathering dark brown pecans out of the tall, uncut grass; stuffing the oval-shaped, sharply-pointed spheroids into our jacket pockets; and then hopping the fence and laughing together while cracking the hard shells with a small hammer and eagerly eating those crunchy but soft seeds we had flinched from our neighbor’s back yard; that and meeting a date at Loretta’s Praline shop on Frenchmen Street on some soft autumn evening a half hour or so before sunset. Some how the colors of those two different experiences connect together and make me think of the shape and shade of my mother’s eyes, the same eyes that looked at my brother with such tenderness the time he was sick, and had a rough time of it, coughing, repeatedly, seemingly unendingly, coughing hard coughs, hacking up a slimy greenish-gray stuff which she, our mother, patiently wiped away with a hand-cloth while pressing a cool, moist towel to his forehead, leaning over him like a protective willow tree on a hot day. I’ve never forgotten the way she looked directly at me when I asked if he was going to be alright, and the motion her eyes made as she lowered them back to his, and gently touching his cheek she simply said, yes, god willing, and both at that moment and always since that moment I questioned why would god not be willing to let my brother live.

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

milton nascimento

 

in the scheme of things, as flows this river called life, our barges momentarily close to each other, because the currents are what they are, fast running & strong, with an undertow that will sweep you off into areas you don't want to go if you don't steer your craft with determination, because there are also so many lights and sights on the shore, so many distractions, so many invitations to dock and get lost in enjoying the landside diversions, because there is sometimes fog on the river and also because of our natural wariness—and that's really a wrong description, our wariness is not natural, our wariness is "nurtured," after being on the river awhile one learns that everybody who rides a barge is not necessarily a fellow traveler—because of all of that and more, especially this fog and just the speed we travel, a speed which discourages skipping around from boat to boat, a speed which sometimes does not allow us to fully grasp what is happening as someone whizzes by us and we are also moving real fast and here passes us somebody else moving faster, like amiri baraka says, somebody's fast is another body's slow, and who knows when you are on your boat alone or I on mine, alone, who knows, and we be trying to make our way, even those of us straining to push our barge up river, no matter the direction we all are struggling along, all of us once issued from the mouth waters of our mother's womb are actually headed downward toward that big sea wherein we will become part of the eternal dust/water & spirit of this universe, how long do we have on the river, who knows, where we dock, that is our choice, how long we sit there, and then again, sometimes it is not really our choice, sometimes, like our ancestors we are forced into spaces and not given choices, not given the space to decide how to maneuver and negotiate our time on the river, fortunately, for us, we have a bit more leeway than did our ancestors in this regard—and I give thanx and praise to them because their struggles on, or should I say "in" the river, swimming without aid of boat or oar, swimming sometimes without even driftwood to hold to, swimming with balls and chains shackled to their limbs, the ways in which they miraculously waded through and parted the waters to make a way for us, to create an opportunity for us to acquire barges and boats and other vessels, the navigational lessons they learned and passed down to us, learned on the sly, on the fly, anyway they could, and passed on, goodness, we must give thanx and praise -- so here float we, sometimes moving on our own steam, crisscrossing the river of life, sometimes out of fuel just drifting, some times shut down in despair, and sometimes we're just out there and we've got everything we need to keep going except the will to do the hard work of moving our boats along on the big muddy of this river whose waters are increasingly polluted and stinking and sometimes even on fire, rivers literally on fire burning oil slicks, or sometimes we are in serious disrepair, rudders broke, holes in the hull and the like, sometimes got everything we need to move except good common sense so we waste our resources and the richness of our legacies handed down to us from those who struggled to get to the water in the first place, who waged the herculean battle just to get down by the riverside, when I use this metaphor of floating on the river of life, I mean more than just you and i, more than just a line I toss out to make conversation, I mean something so deep, so deep, so when I call out to you in the lightless night or through the morning fog, when I holler out my identifying shout and momentarily maneuver close, close enough so that our barges bump gently against each other, touch and go, as we float on down the river, and it is morning, or just after noon in a crowded river, or late past midnight and we are the only vessels visible in the darkness, or whenever, when I shout and sing my request, ask your permission to board, it is in the fullest awareness that my request is not about a merger of companies but rather a momentary sharing, a temporal but not temporary alignment of spaces and personalities, temporal in that it is time bound, you've got places to go, people to meet, things to do, and so do i, and neither of us intends to leave our vessels unattended for long, nor either of us give up our vessel for life aboard the other's, and similarly, I understand should I hear you sing, unlike sailors mythisizing some madness about the sound of women singing on the water is a siren song that will lead them to ruin, I understand—i'm listening to milton nascimento at this moment and his music is so mystically beautiful, so ethereal, I mean his voice climbs like sunlight descending on a shaft through the clouds except that it reverses the flow and rises where the sunbeam comes down his voice ascends and the melodies he utters and the stories in his voice, I don't speak portuguese but I hear milton's meaningful beauty, and when I read the lyrics translated it helps or doesn't help, but all i've really got to do is open my ears and listen, and that is the beauty of great art, we don't have to know how it was done, in many cases don't even have to know the language, especially when it's music or visual, all we have to do is be open to beauty and it will take our hand and lead us there, it will kiss us full on the mouth, lips open with the surprise of the tongue moving lucidly in and out our mouths thrilling us to our toes, ah milton nascimento—I understand you are not asking for anything all the time even though this knowing is forever, the paradox of life on the river, nothing lasts, everything flows on, everything changes, but awareness and knowledge of the deepness and connections between soul mates stretches pass any fence that time can erect, breeches the dams built to hold us back and exploit the movement of our waters, so sometimes I will call to you, or you to me, and if we are close enough and if the time permits, I mean if we are not busy steering through some particular rough waters or on a mission that requires all our attention, if there is time we will tie up to each other and one board the other for a moment, and that's all I ask, permission to board, not to stay, nor to take anything with me, but to be in you, with you for whatever sharing time there is for us on this river called life, encircled in your embrace, and, of course, you in mine, for whatever time…

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

BUDDY BOLDEN

 

a bunch of us were astral traveling, pulsating on the flow of a wicked elvinesque polyrhythmic 6/8 groove. although our physical eyes had disappeared from our faces, we still had wry eyebrows arched like quarter moons or miniature ram's horns. every molecule of our thirsty skin was a sensitive ear drinking in the vibes. at each stroke of sweat-slicked drumstick on skins, our wings moved in syncopated grace. shimmering cymbal vibrations illuminated the night so green bright we could feel the trembling emerald through the soles of our feet. deep red pulsing bass sounds throbbed from our left brain lobes, lifting us and shooting us quickly across the eons. we moved swiftly as comets, quiet as singing starlight.

 

as we neared the motherwomb, firefly angels came out to escort us to the inner sanctum. with eager anticipation i smelled a banquet of hip, growling, intense quarter notes when we entered the compound. a hand carved, coconut shell bowl brimming with hot melodies radiating a tantalizing aroma sat steaming at each place setting, heralding our arrival. whenever i rode this deeply into the music, i would never want to return back to places of broken notes and no natural drums.

 

on my way here i heard nidia who was in a prison in el salvador. she had been shot, captured. her tormentors were torturing her with continuous questions, sleep deprivation, psychological cruelty, and assassination attempts against her family. she sang songs to stay strong. singing in prison, i dug that. 

 

once we made touchdown, we kissed the sweetearth (which tasted like three parts blackstrap molasses and one part chalky starch with a dash of sharply tart orange rind) and smeared red clay in our hair. then lay in the sun for a few days listening to duke ellington every morning before bathing. i was glad to see otis redding flashing his huge carefree smiles and splashing around in the blue lagoon. finally after hugging the baobab tree (the oldest existing life force) for twenty-four hours we were ready to glide inside and hang with the children again. whenever one returned from planet earth, we had to take a lot of precautions. you never know what kinds of human logic you might be infected with. since i had spent most of my last assignment checking out far flung galaxies, on my first examination i was able to dance through the scanner with nary a miscue. my soul was cool.

 

i only had ten centuries to recuperate before returning to active rotation so i was eager to eat. the house was a buzz with vibrations. a hefty-thighed cook came in and tongue kissed each of us seated at the mahogony table, male and female, young and old, whatever. that took about six centuries. she was moving on cp time and when i tasted her kiss i understood why.

 

up close her skin was deeper than a sunken slave ship and glowed with the glitter of golddust pressed across her brow and on the sides of her face just above her cheekline. she wore a plum-sized chunk of orangish-yellow amber as a pendant held in place by a chain braided from the mane of a four hundred pound lion. her head was divided into sixteen sectors each with a ball of threaded hair tied in nubian knots, each knot exactly the same size as the spherical amber perfectly poised in the hollow of her throat. i was so stunned by the beauty force of her haunting entrance, i had to chant to calm myself.

 

"drink deeply the water from an ancient well." was all she said as she spun in slow circles. tiny bells dangled between the top of the curvaceous protrudence of her posterior and the bottom of the concavity of the arch in the small of her back where it met her waist and flared outward to the expanse of her sturdy hips. suspended from a cord she wore around her waist, the hand carved, solid gold bells gave off a tiny but distinctive jingle which rose and fell with each step.

 

emanating a bluegreen aura of contentment, she didn't look like she had ever, in any of her many lifetimes, done anything compromising such as vote for a capitalist (of whatever color) or succumb to the expediency of accepting any system of domination. she didn't say a word, instead she hummed without disrupting the smiling fullness of her lips. she wasn't ashame of her big feet as she stepped flatfootedly around the table, a slender gold ring on the big toe of each foot.

 

her almond shaped, kola nut colored eyes sauntered up to each of our individualities, sight read our diverse memories and swam in the sea of whatever sorrows we had experienced. she silently drank all our bitter tears and became pregnant with our hopes. she looked like she had never ever worn clothes and instead had spent her whole life moving about in the glorious garment of a nudity so natural she seemed like a miracle you had to prepare yourself to witness as she innocently and righteously strode through the sun, moon and star light.

 

when she neared me she effortlessly slinked into a crouched, garden tending posture and, with sharp thrusting arm movements, choreographed an improvised welcome dance (how else, except by improvisation, could her movements mirror everything i was thinking?). placing my ear to her distended stomach, i guessed six months. she arched her back. a ring shout undulated out of her womb. i got so excited i had to sit on my wings to keep still.

 

when she stood up to her full six foot height with her lithe arms akimbo, i coudn't help responding. i got an erection when she placed her hand on the top of my head. she laughed at my arousal.

 

"drink your soup, silly" she teased me and then laughed again, while gently tracing her fingers across my face, down the side of my neck and swiftly brushing my upper torso, briefly petting the hummingbird rapidity of my chest muscle twitches. and then the program began.

 

a few years after monk danced in, coltrane said the blessing in his characteristic slow solemn tone. you know how coltrane talks. as usual, he didn't eat much. but we were filled with wonder anyway. then bob chrisman from the black scholar gave a short speech on one becomes two when the raindrop splits. everybody danced in appreciation of his insights.

 

when we resumed our places, the child next to me reflected aloud, "always remember you are a starchild. you will become any reality that you get with unless you influence that reality to become you. we have no power but osmosis and vibrations. as long as you don't forget your essence, it's alright to live inside something else." the child hugged me while extrapolating chrisman's message.

 

a voice on the intercom was calling for volunteers to help move the mountain. even though i wasn't through with my soup and still had a couple of centuries left, i rose immediately. i had drunk enough to imagine going up against the people who couldn't clap on two and four. "earth is very dangerous" the voice intoned. "the humans have the power to induce both amnesia and psychic dislocation."

 

the child smiled at me and sang "i'll wait for you where human eyes have never seen." we only had time to sing 7,685 choruses because i had to hurry to earth. our spirits there were up against some mighty powerful forces and the ngoma badly needed reinforcements. but i took a couple of months to thank the chef for sitting me next to the child.

 

"no thanx needed. i simply gave back to you what you gave to me." then in a divine gesture she lovingly touched each of my four sacred drums: head, heart, gut and groin. cupping them warmly in both her hands, she slow kissed an eternal rhythm into each. before i could say anything she was gone, humming the child's song "...where human eyes have never seen, i'll wait for you. i'll wait for you."

 

i got to earth shortly after 1947 started. people were still making music then. back in 1999 machines manufactured music. real singing was against the law.

 

walking down the street one day i saw what i assumed was a soul sister. she was humming a simple song. i sensed she was possibly one of us. she looked like a chef except with chemically altered hair on her mind instead of black puffs of natural nubianity. i spoke anyway. she walked right through me.

 

i turned around to see where she had gone. but she was gone. i looked up and i was on the bandstand. i was billie holiday. every pain i ever felt  was sobbing out of my throat. i looked at my black and blue face. the fist splotches from where my man had hit me.

 

"I'd rather

for my man

to hit me,

 

            then

            for him

 

to jump

            up

and quit me." i sang through the pain of a broken jaw.

 

"have you ever loved somebody who didn't know how to love you?" i asked the audience. in what must have been some kind of american ritual, everyone held up small, round hand mirrors and intently peered into their looking glass. the music stopped momentarily as if i had stumbled into a bucket of moonlit blood. my left leg started trembling. every word felt like it was ripped from my throat with pieces of my flesh hanging off each note. i almost fainted from the pain, but i couldn't stop singing because whenever i paused, even if only for a moment, the thought of suicide pressed me to the canvas. and you know i couldn't lay there waiting for the eight count, knocked out like some chump. i was stronger than these earthlings. i had to get up and keep on singing, but to keep on making music took so much energy. i was almost exhausted. and when i stopped the pain was deafening. exhausting to sing. painful to stop. this was a far heavier experience than i had foreseen.

 

i kept singing but i also felt myself growing weaker. drained. "i say have you ever given your love to a rascal that didn't give a damn about you?" this was insane. when would i be able to stop? there was so much money being exchanged that i was having a hard time breathing. i could feel my soul growing dimmer, the pain beginning to creep through even while i was singing. so this is what the angels meant by "hell is being silenced by commerce." legal tender was choking me.

 

for a moment i felt human, but luckily the band started playing again. some lame colored cat had crawled up on the stage and was thawing out frozen conservatory school cliches. made my bunions groan. but i guess when you're human you got to go through a lot of trial and error. especially when you're young in earth years. the whole time i was on that scene i felt sorry for the children. most of them had never seen their parents make love.

 

humans spend a lot of their early years playing all kinds of games to prepare themselves to play all kinds of games when they grow up. the childrearing atmosphere was so dense the only thing little people could do was lie awake naked under the covers and play with themselves but only whenever the adults weren't watching cause if those poor kids got caught touching each other, they were beaten. can you imagine that?

 

damn, i thought smelly horn wasn't ever going to stop, prez had to pull his coat, "hey shorty, don't take so long to say so little."

 

as soon as the cat paused, i jumped in "have you ever loved somebody..." yes, i had volunteered, but i had no idea making music on earth would be this taxing.

 

when our set ended, i stumbled from the stand totally disoriented. by now i almost needed to constantly make music in order to twirl my gyroscope and keep it spinning. after the set, i found it very difficult to act like a human and sit still while talking to the customers. i kept wanting to hover and hum. but i went through the changes, even did an interview.

 

"the only way out is to go through it all" i found myself saying to an english reporter who was looking at me with insane eyes.

 

he did his best to sing. "you've been hurt by white people in america and i want to let you know that there are white people who love and respect you." i could hear his eyes as clear as sid catlett's drum. i appreciated his attempts but those were some stiff-assed paradiddles he was beating. the youngster was still in his teens and offered me a handkerchief to wipe the pain off my face. i waved it away, that little bandana wouldn't even dry up so much as one teardrop of my sadness. at that moment what i really needed was a lift cause the scene was a drag.

 

"the only way to go through it all is to go through it all. yaknow. survive it and sing about it." i said holding the side of my head in the cup of my hand and speaking with my eyes half closed and focused on nothing in particular.

 

"why sing about it?" he said eager as a pig snouting around for truffles (even though he wasn't french, i could see he had sex on his mind).

 

"cause if you keep the pain within you'll explode." he reached for his wallet about to offer me money. for sure he was a hopeless case. once i dug he didn't understand creativity, i switched to sociology. "millions of people been molested as children." he had been there, done that. he was starting to catch my drift. "men been beating on women. you know i was a slave. that means i was violated. that means i was broke down. that means i would lay there and take it. in and out. lay there. still. i have heard reports that i was a prostitute. but i never sold myself just for money, i lay down because there was no room to stand up. in and out. in and out. til finally, they ejaculated. and finished. for the moment, for the night... til... whenever." i looked up and his mind was on the other side of the room; i had lost him again.

 

poor child doesn't have a clue. that's why he's looking all pitiful at me. i couldn't find a way to unfold the whole to him. i wanted to say more but their language couldn't make the changes. he will probably write a treatise on the downtrodden negro in tomorrow's paper.

 

sho-nuff, next day--quote:

 

 So-and-so is an incredibly gifted Black American animal. People were actually crying in the audience when she howled "No Body's Bizness" in the voice of a neutered dog. This reporter is a registered theorist on why White people are fascinated by listening to the sounds of their victims' pathetic crying. I had the rare opportunity to interview the jazzy chick.  Although she was not very familiar with the basic principles of grammar, I managed to get a few words from her illiterateness once she took some dope which I had been advised to offer her.

I asked her what harmonic system she employed? My publisher had authorized me to offer her music lessons. I quote her answer verbatim.

"I sing because, like the Funky Butt Brass Band used to holler, you got to open up the window and let the bad air out."

That was it. When I turned off my voice stealing machine, she said "I got a lot of s--t in me. If I don't get it out, I'll die."

If she doesn't die first, there will be a concert tonight. Cheeri-O. 

 

unquote.

 

i couldn't wait to get back to the motherwomb...

 

But, just as I was about to fly, I woke up. I was cuddled next to Nia's nakedness, her back to me, my arm embracing her breasts, and my leg thrown up in touch with the arc of her thighs.

 

I stared into the deep acorn brown of her braided hair. I couldn't see anything in the unlighted room except the contours of the coiled beautiful darkness of her braids. After a few seconds the sweet familar scent of the hair oil she used began lulling me back to sleep.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough sleep time left to continue my flight dreams. And I spent the rest of the day trying to decide... no, not decide, but remember. I spent the rest of the day trying to remember whether I was a human who dreamed he was something else or was indeed something else doing a temporary duty assignment here on planet earth.

 

 —kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

Jevetta Steele

 

            "Don't look at me that way. I tried to warn you. I told you, 'don't love me.' You would not listen. I'm a cardinal, just a red flash through the dawn and then gone. Morning breeze disappeared at noon."

            I remember those words. The sound of the words. The way you spoke. The purse of your lips when you were thinking or silently asking for a kiss. Wide lips. Big lips. The taste of your breath. The aroma of your words. You were that close when you said them. I smelled each exhale of syllables.

            My sheetrocked wall remembers. The carpeted floor does too. My wristwatch could tell you the time. Sometimes you wouldn't wear your watch when we went out. When you were getting bored I could always tell because you would always want to know what time it was and then I would know what time it was.

            Like when we were sucking on those crawfish and you were telling me they tasted O.K. but they weren't worth the mess of cracking open those muddy red crustacean shells. I tried to tell you the trick was to suck them rather than rip them open.

            You opened your mouth and laughed. You opened me and laughed. I could see your teeth, your tongue, your gums. The palate of your mouth. The half chewed pieces of crawfish. Your laugh. Then you closed your mouth, smiled, leaned over and kissed me, the salty flavor of the shellfish still on your lips.

            I wonder how I tasted. Once you kissed my genitals. No, it was more than once, but I remember that specific "once". Just like that "once" when I hit a high fastball home run further then I had ever swung before. Although we had no fence and the ball was being chased down by Pop-pee with his strong right field arm, I still didn't even have to run. I trotted and clowned slowly around second base backing into third watching Pop-pee pick up the ball and knowing, no matter how strong he was, he couldn't get the ball all the way home before I shuffled across the plate. I'm not a fast runner but that's just how hard, how far I had hit that ball.

            You laughed in my groin, coloring my pubic hairs with the paint of your smile. I got hard like long ago when I was at the Golden Pheasant Lounge dancing close with Inez who told me, "if you don't hold me so tight I can move better."

            I didn't and she did. I don't remember what music we danced to but I remember her hips and the locomotion of the ocean. I was in way over my young head but didn't care.

            The closest I ever got to the red bird was fifteen feet or so, and then it was gone a streak of red ribbon in motion. I grabbed your arm once, not meaning to stop you or pin you down or anything, but just to momentarily delay you. As hard as I held you, tight like my bat, I still hit nothing but air. Even though I held you I completely missed you. You hissed like the swish of the bat fanning the air and the thick thud off the ball burrowing into the catcher's mitt. Or like a snake warning me you didn't stand holding.

            I think all I really wanted was for you to look at me, admiringly, just like I looked at that ball shooting off high into the atmosphere off my bat, which I still held in the tingle of my left hand, the wood's vibration massaging my palms. When I hit it I could feel it.

            Inez hardly seemed to be moving. I looked down as best I could at her pelvis, at her hips to see what she was doing but I could not see anything. No motion that suggested how she extracted the excruciating pleasure her subtle unseen motions were awakening in me. The warmness in my pants, the throb, and the absolute let down of the three minute record ending an hour too soon. The rest of the night sitting around the table talking, they drinking beer and me drinking a soft drink. All of us taking turns dancing, although Inez was not my girl she had rolled on me and taught me not to hold too tightly.

            I had seen the pitch coming in high and outside and I knew I could hit it, knew I could reach for it, knew I could. When I started swinging, even before I hit it, I knew it would be gone. It would be out of here.

            Sure enough, I call you three days later, or however many minutes later and the sound reverberates around in emptiness because there is no you to receive it. Your ear is not there to catch my call.

            The telephone wires don't care. The cardinal's red is so strong that even after it is gone I still see red. I once saw the dull red blotches on the edge of the sanitary napkin you had folded and thrown into the dark brown trash can in the bathroom. The blazing red of the lipstick you threaten to wear just to tease me knowing I don't like the taste and feel of lipstick on my lips or yours. The vermilion red of your blood the time you cut yourself. The emergency red of the pain of you almost doubled over suffering the cramps the same day I saw the leavings in the trash can. The succulent red of that watermelon and its translucent red juice dripping down your chin. The off-red of your gums, and of course the moist fleshy red of the inside of your vagina. The indistinct red of your eyes one night when you hadn't had much sleep in two days. The primary red colored ticket for William's party that neither of us went to even though we were both invited. This was before we got together, and before we broke up too like the way one pulls a round loaf of bread apart. The messy red of the pizza sauce with the sliced tomatoes and the brownish red of cooked bell peppers on it. Some of it stained your sleeve. Common red at the stoplight when you were in that borrowed car and took off with the wheels spinning and smoking I imagine, but because I was inside the car grinning at how you reveled in the power behind the wheel I didn't see the rear wheels raising up.

            What other red was there? I can't remember. The cardinal is gone. "Don't love me," you said even though you never directly said those words. What is this the twenty-eighth time I called you. I don't know. You don't know cause you're not there to answer, or if you're there, you are not answering.

            Red is such a different bird color, you always remember a red bird. You remember the way it flew. And fire. Van Gogh with his hand in the flame ready to settle for seeing her only as long as he could hold his hand in the flame. Gordon Liddy in prison scaring hard timers with his ability to hold a cigarette lighter to his arm and let it burn. The red of the flame burning hairs on Liddy's arm. And burning skin on Liddy's arm. And burning flesh on Liddy's arm. And burning up the blood on Liddy's arm. And the other hand, Liddy's other hand steady holding the flame steady. Not just standing the pain without a hint of what was going on reflected in his eyes, in fact holding a conversation about something he had read earlier in the day. Some of the hard timers dodging his eyes fascinated by that flame burning up that arm but more fascinated, and, if the truth be told, not only fascinated but also frightened by those eyes that were somehow disconnected from that arm. Any eyes that were not part of the body not only could not be trusted, but that body could not be trusted either. He probably could cut his hand off and throw it away with the other hand while steady talking about the weather or the cost of airline tickets going up. Liddy's other hand steady holding that flame, keeping the tab on the lighter depressed so the flame wouldn't go out, so the flame would burn his arm up.

            My hand was in your flame and I thought I could stand it. I could stand it. I could take your red and paint my life with it. But I couldn't hold it. I couldn't keep it. Your red had wings and my ability to stand pain only had feet.

            I got cocky and stood nearby home plate, waiting for them to relay the ball and try to throw me out. I knew they couldn't. They knew they couldn't. I had hit that ball. I thought I had hit you like that, high into the sky, but your red arm was faster than my feet.

             What is this, the thirty-ninth time? Really it's the last time even though I don't know it's the last time. I'm still thinking I'll see you. You never know when you'll stop looking for the red bird, but you do. Soon the memory is not red. Soon? No, not soon, but eventually.

            It was almost evening as I remember it and the sun was going down. The sky was rouged on the horizon like a cardinal streaking cross the edge of the world. I guess you're not going to answer me are you, even though I keep calling you long, long after the red is gone.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

         

BIRD'S SOLO

 

"Ornithology,”

Birdland, NYC June 30, 1950

Charlie Parker – alto, w/Fats Navarro (aka “Fat Girl”) - trumpet, Bud Powell - piano, Curly Russell - bass, Art Blakey - drums.

 

I see no one from the bandstand where I stand I see no one, a little to the side from me next to me but a ways off  Fat Girl giggles silently, shows his famous smile to someone in the audience I do not bother to look at, deep Bud Powell sits astride a piano and waits to slaughter any key I call or do not call any key it is not really a wait because there is no expectation on his part, he is supreme supremely confident and wildly cool, cracks no smile, his eyes half closed do not even let on that he is here, he sits there like he is not here, who is on bass?, I sense Bu ready to blow, Bud starts without asking, without saying, we blow the head, god, Blakey drops bombs better than anybody, no not better than Max but better than anybody else, head time, I will give you something to play Fat Girl, play this play this play this play this and behind my solo play whatever you think.

           

Now.  How do you, do I, does anyone take a sunset and make it more beautiful, beautiful than the beauty it is in both the now and in the eternity and in the medium of expressing this searched for more beauty that the artist seeks not through thought but through god.

           

Once you have witnessed a sunset's beauty that beauty will be in you not just the memory but the beauty will be in you as long as you are you, the artist seeks through god.

           

Thought is being.

           

God is creating.

           

Man thinks.

           

Gods create.

           

Are we men or gods?  Can we be both or merely one or the other?

           

Artists are men who aspire to be god so they create work more beautiful than original beauty, more beautiful than the idea of beauty, more beautiful even than the ideal of beauty, more beautiful than a thought of beauty.

           

Things are ugly.  Things are beautiful.  Things are things.  Ugly and beauty are not things.  The most lasting beauty is that beauty that lasts only as long as it is beautiful and than submerges into the listener's head, damn, Blakey plays beautiful music is the only art that dies the moment it is created and must be constantly created over and over in order to and over to live I need music I need music I music I create I music I music create I need create I need I I need music.

           

Records.  Tapes.  Are not music they are a representation of music, merely an approximation of what music sounds like when sounded.  Limited approximations. Very limited.  So limited that everytime you play them they sound exactly the same but music never is exactly the same not music every time it is created especially when it "sounds" the same, our stomachs have different contents even when we listen to records, on some days we play records and don't even hear them on other days we play a record and hear things we never heard before even though we've listened to that record fifty, forty, a hundred, once before, in fact usually the first time we hear it we don't hear anything but our reactions so busy reacting we are paying attention to our reactions that we don't hear what is going on on the record imagine and that is only a reaction to a record so how can we really hear music? we can't, we can watch it with a distant eye, see what it does to us too does to others observe the various parts or we can experience it, submit to it, be a slave to the rhythm become the music rather than the listener to the music rather than merely try listening to what we can't all hear can't hear all of anyway.

           

Or we men.  We are men can be gods.  What gods do is make men aware of godliness and make men aspire to godliness and create beauty and men aware of beauty if they are really men want to create beauty and show beauty to other men want to be gods too.

           

To help a person move from someone who is just here occupying space while the sun shines, moon moves, crickets and cars cry in the twilight with yellow beam eyes and warm houses flow and row on row of apartments with radioed music, move from just being, attaining no more consciousness than a rock or grass receiving a dog's golden shower letting everything wash over us and not understanding who what when, why or where because the newspapers are words of men who want to be men and not men who want to be gods, beauty, gods helping persons move to gods ahhhhh.

           

Art.  Art animates.  Art is the breath of gods, moving, art moves us from witness to participate outside to inside creating pass passive recipient to active conspirator when we look at Picasso's bull's head without seeing the handle bars and the bike's seat we have seen nothing but when we see both the handle bars & the seat as well as the bull's head then we have seen everything for art tells us that it is possible for everything to be everything for the inanimate to become animate or rather for the inanimate to animate within us whatever potential we have to create, god is bull's horn from man's bike handles without man making bull without god making bike handles with both being beautiful, Stravinsky would dig this if he could hear, god, Blakey is beautiful for the blind to see for the unknown to become knowable to know what you did not know you knew for Monk to take three notes three notes three notes you have heard before and before and before and sound completely like something you don't know not by changing the notes but by changing the way those notes are perceived that is what we mean by genius or how to make us see the extraordinary qualities of things, common things extraordinary in common like life how to make life extraordinary.

Now.  Fat Girl.  Let's hear what you have to say...

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

 

Emilio Santiago

 

I woke up, slowly, or I thought I woke up. Maybe I was still dreaming. Next thing I knew I had quit my job at the factory, and at the office, and on the assembly line and I was sitting on the warm ground with my father fishing in City Park. We both had on freshly washed jeans and old shirts. His had a torn pocket and a hole in the left sleeve, mine had chocolate milk stains on it from that morning when I went to drink the milk and missed my mouth.

 

My dad was showing me things he never showed me when he was alive, or maybe it was things he showed me but things somehow I was unable to see then even though he tried to show me. I smile as I see myself learning stuff from my dad. I was 13 and I was learning how to smile like a man.

 

When the sun started going down we walked home. He walked slowly enough that I could keep up without rushing. I was holding the poles and the empty bucket, we had released all the fish we caught. Daddy had said there was no need to take what we didn't need, we had food at home. I asked him why had we come fishing then, and he put his arm around my shoulder, loosely around my shoulders, and kissed me on the nose.

 

Fully awake now, I look over at you. You are still sleeping. The windows in our room are shaded but the morning light is spread around the edges like the crust on bread. You make a very light whistling sound as you inhale while sleeping. I don't want to turn the TV on. I don't want to see anymore hostages. If I turn the tv on I will become a hostage too. What does your mother think of me now? I am in the middle of my life and there are no bells on my shoulders, no post graduate degrees on my wall.

 

I can hear the traffic in the street outside. Where do people think they are going? I wish everyday I could go somewhere I've never been before, touch the doors of houses I've never entered, walk in the wash of seas that have never wet me. I start to wake you and ask you the last time we walked along in the park wandering hand in hand through the flock of ducks or when was it I most recently kissed you in public. Over all I'm pretty satisfied with our furniture, it's just the nagging thought that we didn't really need a leather sofa and glass topped coffee table to be happy, but it's just a thought.

 

I see the shape of you beneath the thin sheet pulled up almost to your shoulders. The radio has come on automatically, and as the jazz filters into the room and into my consciousness I realize it's on WWOZ and someone is on the radio saying that this is a gorgeous Monday, that Mondays are the best days of the week. I look at him queerly. The music is nice.

 

Suddenly there is this sound, this song that doesn't quite sound like the average song, it sounds so, so, so I don't know, so lonely, no not lonely, so incomplete, unfinished. It sounds like he is in my head, or I mean that music is music that is inside me, and somehow he saw it. Did my father tell him to play this music? And then the track is over. I listen for who the artist is and the DJ calls my name, but I never made any music. I never made the music I wanted to, maybe he is trying to tell me something.

 

The next song that plays is a ballad in some language I don't recognize but I clearly see myself singing this foreign song on a red tiled patio early in the morning with five freshly cut yellow roses in my hand.

 

I stand up to listen to the music better. Both my hands are on top of my head with my fingers interlaced. I am nude. You wake up. I can feel you watching me. My eyes are closed.

 

When the song ends you ask me what am I thinking. I tell you I don't know and you kiss my hand, the hand with which I reached down to touch your thick dark brown hair.

 

Is this still a dream? No, my fingers are wet where you kissed me. The music is filling our bedroom. Maybe I am supposed to be an artist. Finally I tell you as much of the truth as I am able to understand at this moment, "I was just listening to that music and it made me think about a lot of things I've always wanted to do...."

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

Another Duke Ellington Story

  

The dance had ended forty-some minutes ago but no one seemed to be in any rush to go anywhere. Though they usually clamored to be on the road, quickly gone from these hick towns after they played, tonight the musicians were casually strewn backstage; some even cradled their still warm horns, occasionally sounding a very soft note or two. Duke grinned inwardly. Collectively, these men were his instrument and it made Ellington feel good when they felt good.

 

As always there was a coterie of jazz aficionados, aspirant entertainers, and non-music-related hopefuls who lingered in the hallway that led to the rear parking lot in which a bus waited to take the band back to the train depot where Duke's private pullman car was parked, well-stocked with appropriate food and other road comforts almost unknown to most musicians who crisscrossed America.

 

One gentleman stood at the end of the slow moving queue crawling along the wall outside Duke's dressing room. This small farmer recently turned salesman patiently awaited his turn to thrust the evening's printed program into Duke's hands so that Mr. Ellington might grace him with the gift of an autograph and, hopefully, also a flash of that fabulous love-you-madly signature smile. A stone-faced woman stood stiffly at his side. She had had a long day, was tired, and was the only audience member not displaying a beatific expression.

 

Unfurling the seduction of his whiskey-tinged baritone, Duke graciously received this last couple. "I am Duke Ellington. With whom do I have the pleasure of making an acquaintance?"

 

"Ah, Squire, Joe Squire. You can just put: To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Squire. Please, I mean if you don't mine."

 

"Mister. And madam. Joseph. Squire. Thank you so very much for gracing us with your appearance tonight. You, your lovely wife, and all the other audience members made each of us feel at home." Duke shook hands cordially and paused to sign the program that Joseph Squire had tentatively proffered. As Duke finished his inscription with a flourish, he turned to the woman who remained starkly still looking as though it would have pained her to move. "Mrs. Squire, I'm sure you have a lovely first name. Might I inquire what it is?" Duke held his gracefully manicured right hand waist high in front of Mrs. Squire.

 

Mrs. Squire was slightly taken aback by the man's forwardness. She had not touched many negroes before and though she appreciated his musicianship she was not interested in any personal contact with this mister Duke Ellington. But he spoke with such manners and deference in his tone, and he bent at the waist slightly in sort of a half bow, and his smile seemed so sincere; her hand floated forward more drawn by Duke's personal magnetism than guided by her own will.

 

"Her, her name is Rosemary," Joseph Squire spoke up on behalf of his silent wife. Joe knew that Rose was past ready to go home and she had begrudgedly accompanied him backstage in his quest for Ellington's autograph. Now that Joseph's search had been successful, they should go.

 

But, she hesitated: Ellington's handshake was so smooth, so warm, so tender as he courteously held Rosemary's farm-roughened palm. "Mrs. Rosemary Squire would you please allow me to show you something stunningly beautiful which I have just recently discovered? Please indulge me. It won't take but a small moment of your time."

 

Duke gently released Rosemary's hand after slowly guiding it back down to her side. He turned to the small group of people surrounding him. "Excuse us one moment please." Without hesitation Duke cleared a path with a regal sweep of his left arm. He touched no one, instead everyone instinctively melted back like room-temperature butter retreating from the radiance of a heated knife. With his right forearm Duke smoothly pushed open the dressing room door.

 

The first object Rosemary admiringly focused on was Duke's stage shoes: a pair of gleaming patent leather pumps which sat languidly atop the dresser table next to a half drunk demitasse of tea--between two slivers of lemon a chamomile tea bag lay beside the china. Had Rosemary glanced at Duke's feet she would have spied black lambskin loafers, but at that moment Rosemary's nostrils flared as she inhaled the fragrance emanating from a spray of cut flowers which freshened the atmosphere as the bouquet lay beneath the over-sized dressing room mirror.

 

Duke sensibly had left the door wide open. At a discreet distance Joseph Squire and a few other people peeped into the room hoping to also see whatever was the beautiful something Ellington had promised to show the tight lipped woman.

 

"Rosemary Squire," Duke guided her forward with the faintest touch to her waist, "regard. Behold something beautiful." She turned to look at Duke. What was he saying? Duke nodded toward the mirror. She turned again. Duke stepped sideways so that he was out of the reflected line of sight. "Notice the elegance of the eyes. The determined jaw line which undoubtedly reflects a willful and passionate personality. But above all, the clean symmetry of the facial plane and the...aghhhhh," Duke intoned wordlessly, "but oh, you can see as well as I." Then Ellington stopped speaking.

 

Someone nearby gasped almost inaudibly. Rosemary virtually transformed before their sight. What had once been a cold mask of tolerance warmed into a tender visage of contentment. And as she started a smile, Duke picked up his pair of shoes from the dresser and backed out of the room. In the hallway Duke paused and touched Joseph lightly on the shoulder, " Never forget , your wife is beautiful. Though youth may leave us, beauty can always find a home within. Sometimes beauty slumbers but even then requires merely an appropriately gentle nudge to reawaken."

 

Then, on padded feet, Duke glided noiselessly down the carpeted corridor just behind Johnny Hodges who was already blasély ambling toward the back exit. Clark Terry had been patiently leaning against the wall opposite Duke's door; he grinned as he too shoved off to take his leave. Terry had seen the master do this many, many times before. Duke was casually adept at reading people and adroitly drawing out their best qualities regardless of how they felt at any given moment.

 

Exhibiting a rainbow of diverse complexions, a small knot of people stood outside the auditorium's rear egress. Sporting their best coats and warmest hats, the locals huddled in the chilly Indian summer night exchanging murmured conversations with Ellington's worldly array of well traveled musicians.

 

"Excuse me, the time of our departure draws neigh and I'm afraid we must bid you good night." Disappointed but understanding sighs drifted through the frosty air as Duke strove to extricate himself from the thinning throng. A lady who would not be denied sought Ellington's attention—an attractively tall woman, slightly darker than cinnamon. Duke signed her program "love you madly" and then climbed into the vehicle, the beginnings of a melody capering in and out of his consciousness.

 

Suddenly realizing where she was, Rosemary Squire pirouetted in slow motion searching the dressing room for Ellington. Ellington however, by then, was reclining aboard the bus. Rosemary's gaze fell directly onto her husband. Joe was a bit blurry as Rose squinted at him through partially damp but very happy eyes. He smiled at her. She beamed back. And they walked off hand in hand.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

Horace Silver

 

            Where is the orange pumpkin face with the lit candle inside? Where the wide snaggle tooth smile like the one Ma'dear used to beam at us? But she also used to bust our butts and that warm smile would turn to a grimace just like the one you got now, and just like I never pleaded with Ma'dear to slack up on whipping us, I'm not going to beg you to stay.

            You used to glow radiant like you were plugged into god's bright light when you first came here in that happy yellow dress I liked to see you wear. Although you arrived in December, in winter, your aura was so unwintery, plus you had yellow shoes with spaghetti straps. From the beginning you were always munching fruit.

            "You like jazz?" I asked. You nodded. I gestured toward the sofa and dropped a record on my system. You sat listening attentively to Horace Silver blowing the "Tokyo Blues." I don't know why I chose that album to play to you, or why I asked did you like jazz, or even why I invited you over.

            You were so thin, thinner than any woman I had ever been with at that time. I don't even like thin women, so I mean you were already way ahead of the game. Maybe it was the geisha girls on the cover with Horace sitting between them that caused me to pause while flipping through the stack searching for suitably impressive sounds to play. Maybe your bright red lipstick, the rouge tastefully spread on your cheek, and, of course, your quietness reminding me of the way I imagine Japanese women are, and your carefully painted fingernails, and the small amber ring you wore, with matching earrings, your legs crossed listening to "Cherry Blossom," saying you had that record in your collection.

            Before the LP was over you looked up at me. I was standing tall. You smiled and then sat back and looked away briefly, then looked back and gave me a full, big eyed stare like you had already figured what you wanted out of this. I was just steady looking at you, at how small your breasts were and trying to think was this going to be worth my time. If I knew what I know now, I never would have cared about you, but I didn't know. You let me fall in love with you, and now that I do, you don't care.

            I still remember standing in my living room the evening of the first day. It was already December dark even though it was only like a quarter to seven. You were admiring my African sculpture that my sister gave me from her trip to Ghana and I had on a cranberry colored sweater. Horace Silver was spinning exactly at 33 and 1/3 revolutions a minute. The orange lights on the turntable gauge where perfect squares standing still. I remember all that. I just kind of stood there listening to Blue Mitchell's exuberant trumpet calls and was wondering what all this was about.

            Yeah I'm a little upset. I mean I care. Yeah, I would prefer if we worked this out, if you would glow like you used to when you looked at me with your huge brown eyes telling me about some book you had read or how you liked the way I touched you, glow like you did that first evening when I was standing surrounded by Horace Silver's hip sounds washing over us and you returned your face to me and told me, "I don't want anything serious. I want this to be light. I want us to enjoy it. I'll stay as long as it's light."

            I suppose I was supposed to kiss you at that moment, but Horace was playing so beautifully I had to be more subtle than that. So I squatted in front of you, touched your knee briefly and simply said, "yeah, that's what I want too. As long as it's good." I never intended to really, really love you. I mean you wanted it "light," and I imagined this could be very convenient, us seeing each other and seeing other people too.

            I asked you if you wanted something to eat and you held up the apple you were chewing and smiled. You never liked to cooked. I never met a woman like you that was so open about not wanting to cook, about refusing to cook. I cooked more than you did and I can't cook, and my surprise to learn you were a school teacher. I guess I thought all school teachers were also supposed to know how to cook.

            You never corrected the way I talked so I couldn't imagine you an English teacher but I guess you had to be something. I never really knew you before that day you came over and right now I'm realizing that I have never really got to know you since.

            It's only a few months later. The weather has just turned to spring, nevertheless, here you are intoning in that husky voice of yours (a sexy huskiness that first attracted me to you, a voice which initially sounds too deep for such a petit body, that voice which tipped me off that maybe there was more to you than it looked like there was), here you are saying "Harold, it's not light anymore."

            When did it stop being light. It's still light for me. For a teacher you sure do get a lot of stuff backwards. Winter is heavy, spring is light. Look at you right now, you're hunched into that frog position you like so much lately: your heels pulled up on the edge of the chair, your arms wrapped around your legs, your chin on your knee.

            "Is this because I don't want to drive to Atlanta to see Nelson Mandela?" You answer "no," dragging out the short response, but it sounds like yes to me.

            "Was it about that AIDS walk I didn't want to go to and you went by yourself?" You answer me "no" but here we go again, it sounds like yes.

            "Is it because I don't want to use condoms? I mean it's mainly you and me right..."

            You slowly close your eyes.

            "I mean you did say you wanted this to be light, right?"

            I can hear you not listening to me.

            "What do you want? You want us to live together? You already said you don't want to be married. What, huh? I don't understand..."

            I looked at you. You are fading before my eyes. I reach out to touch you, to hold you. My hand goes right through your body and touches the back of the chair.

 

—kalamu ya salaam

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

haiku #210

 

soft morning rapture

slow kissing your naked back

your smile in my hair

 

—kalamu ya salaam