C H A M B E R M U S I C
There might be someone you love, some one you
wanted to be with, and then, found your self
with, there were such things, such lives and
lovers. I am like that sometimes, I think, some
distant romantic wrapped in music. I wanted to know
myself, and found that was a lifetime's work, the
twists and zig zags, dips and turns, all could
disorient you, that you were no longer you but
somebody else masquerading as yourself's desire.
Rain could come. The sky grow light. It could even be
twilight, in a foreign town. Where you walked under
far noises of invisible worlds. But when you remember
all of your faces, blown now gone forever in the wind,
you'll see that you were always wanting to be you,
you were always wanting to know and love yourself, and you
found a few faces, a few names, that extended your life
into other lives, and as time marches, hours, days, decades
dance, you'll find your hand in someone else's hand, you'll
hear yourself thinking about some person other than you
and then look up and yes there will be some other person
some closeness and echoed tenderness, that makes us more than dots
under the far away, that make us more than split seconds of
light
___________
I' M N O T F O O L E D
This is still Slavery
Not fooled at all
This is still Slavery
Even with OBAMA, I'M NOT FOOLED
THIS IS STILL SLAVERY, NOT FOOLED AT ALL
IF IT WASN'T SLAVERY OBAMA COULD FIGHT BACK
HE'S DONE THINGS, GOOD THINGS, BUT
I'M STILL NOT FOOLED, THIS IS STILL SLAVERY.
So what you gonna act like Miles, tellin me "So What?"
Out yr brains closed mouth, and on the open streets
Not only so what but bump me, chump me, chump us all, you say
Actin like Miles but you ain't Miles, you the dressed up slave master ghost
Just as you always was. I ain't fooled. It's still slavery still is still is. I ain't fooled.
Excuse me
The fone ringing.
________________
A L L S O N G S A R E C R A Z Y
Some are beautiful.
Who could sing
All the songs we know?
How many of us that can, know
How many of those who sing know
What singing is.
So I who have sung and have heard song
Want to know the singers
And the song
I who have learned singing from the oldest singers
In the world and have sung some songs myself
Want to create that song that everybody knows
And that everybody will sing one day.
So what is left to do? That is how the song
Begins.
________________
O N T H U R S D A Y I F O U N D T H I S
I N M Y N O T E B O OK
When love is perfected, when love
is understood.
When love is the law
& the measure
The ruler & ruled & body of
of what is body mind of
what is mind
When love & the Soul
are uncovered
then you will always
sound like
Duke Ellington.
A M I R I B A R A K A
S O S
Poems 1961-2013
selected by Paul Vangelisti
Grove 2014
