“First Fire”
This way. The road is not there except when you move toward where it needs to be. This way. The place changes like you do. The day changes, all the time. How old are we? This way. Watch out for the stump. The lie there congealing with a man’s head. This way. The dawn beats toward us. No. This way. Look. That shimmering image is not real. What is it? Nothing. A cluttered rest. The absent voting, the silence dancing. Dangerous eyes. This way. When we get to the bottom of the hill, they’ll be singing. Behind that gray mass of early trees. The singing. Black in blue. They hear you. Despite the howling laughter. They see you. They heard you for awhile. They want to know what we will do. This way. Now when we get there, make sure everything is ready. Cleaned. Loaded. That group of dead people sitting at the table making decisions are dizzy with success. They love being dead and wonder when we will finally dig it. But we aint. This way. Dont stop there. I know the sun is shaking itself the shadows scanting the new light. But don’t stop. Just keep on. The way is lifting with the newness. The way is clearing with the brightness. Can you still hear you talking to yourself? Will you answer questions? If you will, ask yourself where you are, and why. If you know and it’s the truth, that will be the next information you need. This way. OK. Thats right. Hear them singing. This way. See the mountain there. The old king died here with the tumult of hell he wore like a ring of comets. Not there. Watch. There, see, they coming out of the brush. The blue jackets catching the emerging day. They with us, we they children, their sons and daughters. They waving. Wave back. This way. The last bit of ground to cover. That rumbling from the mountain top is, of course, Satan. When we get where he is exposed, kill him immediately. Empty the weapon into his frightful head. And dont be frightened by the storm of rhythm the sky turns into, let it tear into you and sing whatever comes into your heart. OK, now, this way.
“Funk Lore”
Blue Monk
We are the blues
ourselves
our favorite
color
Where we been, half here
half gone
We are the blues
our selves
the actual
Guineas
the original
Jews
the 1st
Caucasians
That’s why we are the blues
ourselves
that’s why we
are the
actual
song
So dark & tragic
So old &
Magic
that’s why we are
the Blues
our Selves
In tribes of 12
bars
like the stripes
of slavery
on
our flag
of skin
We are the blues
the past the gone
the energy the
cold the saw teeth
hotness
the smell above
draining the wind
through trees
the blue
leaves us
black
the earth
the sun
the slowly disappearing
the fire pushing to become
our hearts
& now black again we are the
whole of night
with sparkling eyes staring
down
like jets
to push
evenings
ascension
that’s why we are the blues
the train whistle
the rumble across
the invisible coming
drumming and screaming
that’s why we are the
blues
& work & sing & leave
tales & is with spirit
that’s why we are
the blues
black & alive
& so we show our motion
our breathing
we moon
reflected soul
that’s why our spirit
make us
the blues
we is ourselves
the blues
“History Wise #22”
Black Mountain Blues
Bessie Smith
“The only
railroad
guaranteed
not to break down!”
100 years
Before
The Col-
trane
The
real
sub
way
Ms “Moses'” Streamliner
John Parker’s Darker
Sparker
at Night
No light
but a far star
North
&wayoff
Like a whistle or a horn
The black night
fills
our ears
We gon’ go
has already
gone
“Choo Choo” is the translation
in somebody else’s
Station
#
Whooooooeeee Whooooooeee
Whoooooooooeoooo Whooooooooeeoooo Whooooeeeeoooo
is its real
sound
from way up under
the ground
Way
Down
Whoooooweeeee Whooooeeooooeeooo
Whooooeeeooooeeeoo
Thats it real
sound
Under Ground!
& then sometimes
if the night is cold
& bright
that whistle cries
like all through
that night
that whistle cries
& it moans
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyysssssssssss
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyssssssssssss
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
&c.
“The Pet’s Reward”
On Miss Daisy’s
deathbed
She told Morgan
Freeman
he was Her
“Best Friend”
So what about
The Dog?
“‘There Was Something I Wanted to Tell You.’ (33) Why?”
African Lullaby
Babenzele Pygmies, S. Africa
Revolutionary War
gamed
sold
out
The Tories
still in control
of the culture
English Departments
still
& the money & “culture”
in the “English”
accent.
The Green Mtn Boys
Tom Paine The Bill
of Rights
tried to cut
it
But then 19th century
Explosion, Free the
Slaves, Kill feudal
ism, Give rights
to the Farmer & Worker
the vote to Women
But that got blew
Hayes-Tilden, Bloody
Democrats
Traitor
Republicans
The Ku Klux Klan
(A murder Gang!)
& that leap, into industrial society
democracy they sd
Got all but Killed
tho murdered
many times!
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho
Fidel, Nkrumah
Martin, Sandino
& Malcolm X
Have all been
betrayed
All revolutions bear their own
betrayal, & betrayers
The world is complex
its reality materially
simple
It is the dying of the life
the quenching of the spark
the greying of the light
the cold whiteness of the recently
full of flaming inspired intelligent
heart! The dead entrail of our
collective traditional
enemy. Animal
connections. Metaphysics.
Greed. Anti Science
lives. Ugly in power
and uglying up our only
life.
The rot, the lie, the opposite
will always, if there is ever
that, exist. As life means death
and hot cold. Darkness lights’
closest companion. It’s twisted,
& rises as a spiral. It is No &
Yes, and not It for long.
Motion,the beat, tender mind
you humans even made music.
But, our memory anywhere
as humans and beyond, parallel
to everything, is rise is new is
Changed, a glowing peaceful
Musical
World.
What betrays revolution is the need
for revolution. It can not stop in life.
Whoever seeks to freeze the moment is
instantly, & for that instant, mad!
We are servants of life in upward
progressive motion. Fanners
of the flame. Resistance is Electric.
Fred sd, its measurable on every
block.
The wd be stoppers of revolution
are its fossil fuel
Winter comes
and Spring
We can sometimes
hear
explosions!
“X”
Everything we don’t understand
is explained
in Art
The Sun
beats inside us
The Spirit courses in and out
of us
A circling transbluesency
pumping Detroit Red inside, deep thru us
like a Sea
& who calls us bitter
has bitten us
& from that wound
pours Malcolm
Little
by
Little
“Monday in B-Flat”
I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.
But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here
in a minute!
“Wise I”
WHYS (Nobody Knows
The Trouble I Seen)
Traditional
If you ever find
yourself, some where
lost and surrounded
by enemies
who won’t let you
speak in your own language
who destroy your statues
& instruments, who ban
your omm bomm ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
own boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble
humph!
probably take you several hundred years
to get
out!