The jazz organ
makes a face — rather,
a lot of faces.  A twisted smile
followed by an upraised chin,
closed eyes with movement
under the lids,

and then the saxophone, the poking finger
demanding entrance into the reverie —

time to break one stride, find a new one.
Eveyone sprinting together down a road,
perhaps in North Carolina late at night,
toward a dilapidated church that hides
a still.  Party in the sacred space —

bass and drums,
sidekicks, strong and soft-spoken,
peek out from beyond
the circle of light from the fire.
Drift over there, see what their take is
on the goings-on.

This music has a face.
Eyes open, calm intelligence.
A darkness that resists
the incursion of obvious message —
says,
it is what it is.  Sit down
and listen, don’t speak to it
unless it speaks to you.

— for William Parker and Cooper-Moore

It’s Thursday night at Hardy’s Basement
Furious Intent’s slopping over the edge of the stage
Debbie Scenestealer’s drunk and hooting
by the soundboard where if signs are correct
she’s sleeping with Ronnie again
On stage Bobby’s saying he’s gonna cold-cock Gil
if he fucks up one more change
Spooky the drummer can’t keep time
with the apocalypse going on in front of him
Sandy’s E-string is a half cent flat
and that makes her bass sound like a sick foghorn
They’ve all got pawn shop specials to play
and someone’s got a blown tube
so there’s fuzz all over everything
and it’s starting to get painful
but at least we’re not breathing the smoke
from the patio when we’re in here
breathing the fire roaring underneath the noise
Spooky counts another one off
and it’s Dead Boys time
like we need a cover of Sonic Reducer
to crank this up any higher
but tonight they’re faster and louder
than usual
or maybe they’re finally drunk enough to play
Sandy’s finally reached up and tweaked that string
Gil’s finally keeping up with what Bobby’s putting down
and Bobby’s finally putting EVERYTHING down
gonna spend it all right here and now
every speck of how pissed he was just before this
showing in the veins ripping through his neck
and there might be blood on the strings
considering how much blood is in the song
and it seems all at once that we do
need another cover of Sonic Reducer
if Debbie Scenestealer’s gonna have anything to say about it
when she comes Docs first across the floor
and is onstage with the band
Bobby hands her the mike
and damned if ninety-five black leotard and eyeliner pounds of Debbie
isn’t turning into tornado awesome right before our eyes
as Furious Intent slops tsunami dagger fire over the edge of the stage
and Hardy’s Basement becomes the best damn hellmouth on earth
for two minutes and thirty nine seconds
right before the house lights come up
and Ronnie starts telling us to get the fuck out
we don’t have to go home
but we can’t stay here
as if we thought anyone could
or should
stay here
for any more time than it takes
to burst into flame

This poem was written and performed to open a concert in Worcester, MA, on October 2, 2010.  Musicians playing:  Mike Connors, Charlie Kohlhase; Cooper-Moore, William Parker.  An astonishing night of creative music….I was honored to be part of it.

Note: This is the text I carried on stage and worked from, but there was much improvisation from the text.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we are free
we do not need to dream of flying

When we are free
we are unlabeled

When we are free
we are in all places at once

Think of a city

Rusted fire escapes
frame dawn bright night
and car horns align
with shouted calls to neighbors across courtyards

Sunday churches
spill their God-seeds into the streets
to praise the day
alongside Saturday night’s hangovers
dew-eyed sleepy children
soft-cored hustlers
sad ancients
bewildered and strong
and rich and poor

In this city of now built on past

one may look up thirty
forty fifty stories
rise to the heights
look down at the rushing street

Think of rivers
cliffs
and
music

Think of a canyon outside the city
cut through to the roots of earth

where a woman sits
at the bottom
by a cook pot
near a carving river

She looks up at the walls
still dark at mid-morning
and thinks of climbing

Water in a pot
just ahead of boiling
sings to her

Listening only to that water voice
she must turn as it commands

Her eyes screwed shut
she leaves her chores
scales shadowed rocks
toward sun above

Climbs
with
that boiling song
in her ear
to the cliff top
and sees the city ahead

Begins to walk

Inside every song
is the voice of water

Water carving stone
Cold water warming
Water above fire
Water just before boiling
Rain on the streets
Rushing down gutters and drains
Fluid clockwork rocking time
that has no need of schedule
Quoting the nameless voices that burble
underneath

Everything we know from books
Everything we know from others
Everything we know
is water

The woman reaches the city
Enters the liquid violet energy
Walks hard streets
Stops before windows
Alleys echoing party chatter
Piles of boxes behind bodegas
Dinosaur rumble of trains and buses
Horns bouncing echo off echo

Night comes in
Ghost fog a redemption
for the punishing day

Think now of a night club
with its far corners dim and busy
crowded with remainders of dinner crowd
Slick aficionados
Novice joy chasers
Students and mages
All in watchful attendance
upon what is to come

Saxophone asters
Trumpet roses
Ivory key-bones
Starflung bass
Grown in fertile underlying soil
of swift sifting drums

The woman stirs with understanding
Water song singing inside her

The woman remembers the tree blown down in the storm
striking the ledge
tumbling down the cliff
into the water
which cried out as it entered

The essence of horn is in blowing and blocking
The essence of string is in striking, permitting, and stopping
No one needs to have explained to them
the essence of the drum
rush of shaken skin
thrumming in ear canals

Look at the shocked eyes
and the odd remastered ears
back in the startled corners
The dinner crowd saying
This is not what we came for
This isn’t what we thought we’d hear

The woman tells them

Do not give this a name you know already
Don’t try to manacle it to the words
harmony
melody
rhythm
Don’t think of formal labels
Don’t limit your attention to its purpose
Do not kidnap this
or hold it for ransom
It is a crime against Essence
to clap music into confinement
There is a trial going on here
This is just the opening statement
This is a broken dam
Just
Know
This
Voice
that is under all
Cutting shape out of raw time
examining the sound of its bones
eroded by current
exposed here
in the banks of the river

She hears the tree crashing
to the ledge unseen crying
The water In the canyon
The water in the pot
Just before boiling
Herself on the cliff side
not falling
singing

And she knows
She need not go home to the canyon
The canyon is an inside song now
Needn’t stay in the city
The city is an inside song now

And you now
Think of yourselves
Soaked in this
Think of the ocean
you’ve plunged into
Inside you now
Think of yourself
So moist with music
Inside the song

Play in the rough surf
Ride the rivers threading into the stone roots of earth
Follow rivulet into silent moss vanishing
Reemerge a spring on granite
Follow the essence of clear
The drum bossing the air
The horn crowning the fire
The bass bursting the earth
Keys and strings damp with music

All flooding all

When it ends
you will know the woman
you will know her as Mother
you will know her as Music
You will know her
as you know yourself

When she turns to disappear
into the healing fog
of the night
To walk past the churches
and the buildings
The neighbors and the blare of horns

When she chooses to climb
back into the heart of earth
back to the pot on the boil
back to the simple river carving beside

You’ll know what she knows
that the Song chooses its Singers
Its Listeners

Now

Think of the doors
you walked through to enter here
The water lapping against them

Outside these doors
when all is done

Altered ears will listen to the shell
you have lifted from the shore
of this new world

and then
you will
know

know Freedom
know the Song

Blue music, blue walls,
blue light in a steeple
by the side of any road
through any town.

Could be a low building
by the road, could be tall and slick
but mostly it won’t be.
It’s always church, though,

inside the blue steeple;
blue walls echo blue music,
blue church is calling out —
and I’m just a passenger

on this bus that won’t stop
as it passes by blue steeples,
so I’m singing along in my sleep,
blue pillow under my head.

I call any place I can hear blue music
my church.  That’s not far wrong,
in fact it’s just right —
hear the rafters knock?

That bell?  That glory of
singers?  That sound
of walls holding in
wholeness, holiness —

and on this bus too, a holiness.
Time means nothing on a bus
full of blue music that’ll end soon
though it will return.

I won’t wait up for it.
Will tuck my head into the pillow
and sleep a while, the song
in me, midnight ringing on for hours.

Tags: poetry, poems, music

you are this
note in a crowd
of one hundred thousand notes
roared in connection
with the roar on stage
and hoping that your voice stands out
with every ripped bag in your lungs
and torn vocal cord
you roar as loud as you can
never to completely drown the amplifiers
the boulder tumble of drums
or stomach shaking bass
but what is in your chest now
comes out to join with those
for this is the animal of Mob
jousting and feinting at gallop
with what lends itself to your urge
to be a part of the struggle
that spends itself into a wave
rolling out from stage to you
and the cells that form the Beast
all around you
the blood and liver and skeleton
of the music
not truly real until it is played
live before its potential
gathered sweaty and prepared to lose itself
in the totality of
the Show