Jazz Is My Religion
BY TED JOANS
Jazz is my religion and it alone do I dig the jazz clubs are
my house of worship and sometimes the concert halls but some
holy places are too commercial (like churches) so I don’t dig the
sermons there I buy jazz sides to dig in solitude Like man / Harlem,
Harlem USA Used to be a jazz heaven where most of the jazz
sermons were preached but now-a-days due to chacha cha and
rotten rock’n’roll alotta good jazzmen have sold their souls but jazz
is still my religion because I know and feel the message it brings
like Reverend Dizzy Gillespie / Brother Bird and Basie / Uncle
Armstrong / Minister Monk / Deacon Miles Davis / Rector Rollins /
Priest Ellington / His Funkness Horace Silver / and the great
John coltrane and Cecil Taylor They Preach A Sermon
That Always Swings!! Yeah jazz is my religion Jazz is my story
it was my mom’s and pop’s and their moms and pops from the
days of Buddy Bolden who swung them blues to Charlie Parker and
Ornette Coleman’s extension of Bebop Yeah jazz is my religion
Jazz is a unique musical religion the sermons spread happiness and
joy to be able to dig and swing inside what a wonderful feeling
jazz is / yeah boy!! jazz is my religion and dig this: it wasn’t for
us to choose because they created it for a damn good reason as a
weapon to battle our blues! jazz is my religion and its
international all the way jazz is just an Afroamerican music
and like us it’s here to stay So remember that jazz is my religion
but it can be your religion too but jazz is a truth that is always
black and blue Halleluiah I love jazz so Halleluiah I dig jazz so
Yeah jazz is my religion
Poem for the Dull Brainers
BY TED JOANS
thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
said John Keats 1795–1821
Ode to a Nightingale
is where John Keats scribble
his hip-right-on riff
and ole Johnny roared on:
“no hungry generations tread thee down;”
a warning to the unhip
whose polluted pop pained brain
has yet to relax an ear
and sincerely hear Bird (in flight)
sad plight for those
whomwear hippy-freak title
they worship the robotized
electricity noise manufacters
a violence disguised as music
(there is no difference
between Patti Hearst and Patty Smith)
daughters of sons of bitches
born poor or within materialistic riches
decadence is it’s most extremity
Ah, inspite of the noise
Bird shall prevail
his wings of wisdom
cast cool forgiving
black shadow of benevolency
across the guilty and ignorant brows
of the square him and unhip her
Those who never knew
that Armstrong, Bechet, Prez,
Ellington, Hawkins and Holiday
eternally blew and their
wise wind of sounds
is not yet (not never) through!
Yes, John Keats was really Right-on
with his righteous riff before
our black Bird was born
“thou wast not born for death immortal bird”
4 May 80 Berkeley California
O Great Black Masque
BY TED JOANS
O great black masque that is me
that travels with me in spirit
your big eyes that see tomorrows
saw yesterdays and gazes at now
O great black masque of my soul
those ears have heard the clink
of slaves chains and the moans
of sorrow of our past but those
same ears can hear our now
O great black masque that is me
you who copulated with Europe’s science
and now dynamically demysterfies Europe
O great black masque who is our
ancestors with your cave mouth
filled with sharp teeth to chew
the ropes that bind our hands and minds
O great black masque you that grins
you that always wins the thrower of
seven cowries and two black eyed dice
O great black masque who says that it
half past pink since white is not a color
O great black masque that carried me from Bouake
to Alabama and back From Mali to Manhattan
O great black masque that dances in me day and night
O black masque of urban guerillas and forest gorillas
O black masque that screams in joy at childbirth and
opens up to the rays of the sun O great black masque
your sharp blade tongue burns war makers buildings
You who stand guard to African breast and soul
O great black masque give us our blacker heavens/
release our minds from borrowed white hells/ O great
black masque of Africa O great black masque of all
black people O beautiful black masque Our own black
truth
Surreally I Is
BY TED JOANS
these poems are not just another batch of black
poems from the pen of an afroamerican poet
who deliberately creates at the service of the black
revolution which has aided in the change and some
transformation in the world of today
no, these poems are the poems which are fully
liberated from ‘servicing’ any cause other than the
poem itself
therefore these poems are the only pure poems that
this poet has published recently
the black poet has always been straddled with
“functional” traditionally
that of servicing the cause of his people and often
submitting to write ‘up or down’
this collection of liberated poems has the real and
beyond the real in which to travel therefore one
will soon see that the poems move in any direction
that the reader’s imagination chooses to adventure
the basic inspiration for this small but important
collection of poems is love the vital force of eros
magic that keeps these poems from being ‘nihilistic
avant-gardism’ and the poet’s natural sense of
humour destroyed through loud ‘laffing’ at all
intellectual academia
————————————————————
Ted Joans
Poetry Chicago
September 2026
