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Song Of Praise
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 12:03 |
"blues to you"
for danny spencer
we wanted them to love us,
as a first term. to know that we knew,
& would tell them with our eyes,
& our pumping feet. would sit & stare
at the bandstand
or at each other, & grin. or get up from the chair
& walk smack into a pole
after 45 minutes of elvin jones. john coltrane
was a hero beyond legend, i mean
he was right there in front of us, right there
where we could see him, & know for ever
the whole thing was real.
or sit for days, literally days,
& play the records through our meat, & dream
of touching them, the musicians,
as they walked off the stand, & moved past us,
smiling, toward some secret place
we would never go. & loved them always
for a simple nod, as if we were really real.
we needed them to speak to us
of pure revolution. to put down their saxophones
& spout pure poetry, or our lives
weren't shit. were gobs of dream
splattered against the world.
oh we were young
& made of america. it made us
what we were. & are. &, if we are lucky,
we will live through it all. yes, & the music
will ring in our ears. & we will hear it,
& it will bring us through. we will wake up
singing
of a world of our own. a world
where they will love us, just as if
(& only if)
we are as real
as they are
detroit
january 3, 1967/
new orleans
december 22, 1993
/3.1.6125 |
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