POEM + AUDIO: GIVE ME YOUR COORDINATES

photo by Alex Lear

 

 

 

Give Me Your Coordinates

 

the rush of heaven felt in the flesh

the tingle of sparkling particles of your laughter

dancing on my eardrums, tearing through

grey matter, shredding rationality into a salad

of ebullient emotions, you caress my genitals

and i let go of every restraint, some people

think i write about sex too much but

this is life, we're exploring the world, the universe

 

i am old enough now not to worry about making it

secure enough to believe in myself, wise enough to know

the self is all others, both the gotten with & the avoided

 

i am about to go out to meet someone but first i had to write

creativity is the highest form of living, life ragingly extended

into whatever is possible, sometimes even approaching the impossible

like the way trane sang, or how i just sat down

& let these words tumble out of the vast nowhere

of my consciousness, nowhere

now

here

 

—kalamu ya salaam

 

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Musical composition: "Jackie-ing" by Thelonious Monk

 

 

Kalamu ya Salaam – vocals

Stephan Richter – clarinet

Wolfi Schlick – tenor

Frank Bruckner – guitar

 

Recorded: May 31, 1998 – Munich, Germany