Untitled (link to poem at 3 Quarks Daily)

Thanks to Jim Culleny, poetry editor at 3QD, for posting this!

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/05/thursday-poem-267.html

 

here

 

the great imploding world view

cascading light particles

you count them

1...2...                    here's another!

3.    three particles of light

and you are full

the aggregates of mind

the foundational delusions of ego

crammed in a space

the size of a baby raccoon

your brain feels so light

as light as your conscience

your pineal gland secretes

primps before its blazing mirror

I have found you

this is no illusion

we breathe, 

therefore

we're here

Qumran/Cleveland

 15,000 fragments

from 530 scrolls

found in a cave

built into a hillside

the Dead Sea swishes

quietly peers up 

at the gaping cave mouth

she walks into my room

in the psych hospital

lays a book on my bedside

says, "I thought you might 

get something out of this."

I pick up the book

read one sentence only

"life on Earth

is a battle between the Sons of Light

and the Sons of Darkness"

blood drains from my face,

I imagine

the days pass

like kidney stones

in this tenement

of the accursed 

reality

 

 

on Earth, no more life

in sleeping pods, dreaming this

already on Mars

what is jazz?

       I

jazz

the most American of art forms

the will to play together

an argument

with the attempt

to work something out

   

-         Wynton Marsalis

 

      II

somebody tried to kill it

I know who it was

somebody brought over British musicians

to cover us over

just like a blanket

-         Abbey Lincoln

 

      III

the first album I bought

not under the auspices of my older sister

was the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl

a rip-off of a rip-off

a band-aid over a blanket

 

       IV

my friend threw me a life preserver

jazz was a linking of hearts

a community of two, we had

jammed on fakebook favorites

a new door opening

another hanging in the balance

 

      V

watching Ken Burns jazz, episode 10

assassinations and wars

Viet Nam, MLK, JFK, Medgar Evers

the war on America’s blacks

footage of regime police

beating them back

Mingus, Roach, Art Ensemble of Chicago

the boom-boom-buh-boom of the heart

weeping, screaming soundtrack

a wound to heal us

but first, to tear us apart

drew a poem

and I drew

a poem,

its arms extended

like a child

sees a gull

and wants to fly

who says he does not

fly?

his little imagination

as big as the ocean

of space and the stars

that drown in it

 

Go Juice

Love anger passion abandon

Go juice for poets

Vindictiveness? Never seem to need it

Jealousy? No one wants to read it

But, despair? Even the immovable Buddha statues

Perk their ears