Bob Kaufman

Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/ Historical sound pictures on New Bird wings People shouts/ boy alto dreams/ Tomorrow’s Gold belled pipe of stops and future Blues Times Lurking Hawkins/ shadows of Lester/ realization Bronze fingers—brain extensions seeking trapped sounds Ghetto thoughts/ bandstand courage/ solo flight Nerve-wracked suspicions of newer songs and doubts New York alter city/ black tears/ secret disciples Hammer horn pounding soul marks on unswinging gates Culture gods/ mob sounds/ visions of spikes Panic excursions to tribal Jazz wombs and transfusions Heroin nights of birth/ and soaring/ over boppy new ground. Smothered rage covering pyramids of notes spontaneously exploding Cool revelations/ shrill hopes/ beauty speared into greedy ears Birdland nights on bop mountains, windy saxophone revolutions. Dayrooms of junk/ and melting walls and circling vultures/ Money cancer/ remembered pain/ terror flights/ Death and indestructible existence In that Jazz corner of life Wrapped in a mist of sound His legacy, our Jazz-tinted dawn Wailing his triumphs of oddly begotten dreams Inviting the nerveless to feel once more That fierce dying of humans consumed In raging fires of Love.

A terror is more certain than all the rare desirable popular songs I know, than even now when all of my myths have become . . . , & walk around in black shiny galoshes & carry dirty laundry to & fro, & read great books & don’t know criminals intimately, & publish fat books of the month & have wifeys that are lousy in bed & never realize how bad my writing is because i am poor & symbolize myself. A certain desirable is more terror to me than all that’s rare. How come they don’t give an academic award to all the movie stars that die? they’re still acting, ain’t they? even if they are dead, it should not be held against them, after all they still have the public on their side, how would you like to be a dead movie star & have people sit- ting on your grave? A rare me is more certain than desirable, that’s all the terror, there are too many basketball players in this world & too much progress in the burial industry, lets have old fashioned funerals & stand around & forgive & borrow wet handkerchiefs, & sneak out for drinks & help load the guy into the wagon, & feel sad & make a date with the widow & believe we don’t see all of the people sink- ing into the subways going to basketball games & designing baby sitters at Madison Square Garden. A certain me is desirable, what is so rare as air in a Poem, why can’t i write a foreign movie like all the other boys my age, I confess to all the crimes committed during the month of April, but not to save my own neck, which is adjustable, & telescopes into any size noose, I’m doing it to save Gertrude Stein’s reputation, who is secretly flying model airplanes for the underground railroad stern gang of oz, & is the favorite in all the bouts . . . not officially opened yet Holland tunnel is the one who writes untrue phone numbers. A desirable poem is more rare than rare, & terror is certain, who wants to be a poet & work a twenty four hour shift, they never ask you first, who wants to listen to the radiator play string quartets all night. I want to be allowed not to be, suppose a man wants to swing on the kiddie swings, should people be allowed to stab him with queer looks & drag him off to bed & its no fun on top of a lady when her hair is full of shiny little machines & your ass reflected in that television screen, who wants to be a poet if you fuck on t.v. & all those cowboys watching.

In the beginning, in the wet Warm dark place, Straining to break out, clawing at strange cables Hearing her screams, laughing “Later we forgave ourselves, we didn’t know” Some secret jazz Shouted,wait, don’t go. Impatient, we came running, innocent Laughing blobs of blood & faith. To this mother, father world Where laughter seems out of place So we learned to cry, pleased They pronounce human. The secret Jazz blew a sigh Some familiar sound shouted wait Some are evil, some will hate. “Just Jazz, blowing its top again” So we rushed & laughed. As we pushed & grabbed While jazz blew in the night Suddenly they were too busy to hear a simple sound They were busy shoving mud in men’s mouths, Who were busy dying on the living ground Busy earning medals, for killing children on deserted street corners Occupying their fathers, raping their mothers, busy humans we Busy burning Japanese in atomicolorcinemascope With stereophonic screams, What one hundred per cent red blooded savage, would waste precious time Listening to jazz, with so many important things going on But even the fittest murderers must rest So they sat down in our blood soaked garments, and listened to jazz lost, steeped in all our death dreams They were shocked at the sound of life, long gone from our own They were indignant at the whistling, thinking, singing, beating, swinging, They wept for it, hugged, kissed it, loved it, joined it, we drank it, Smoked it, ate with it, slept with it They made our girls wear it for lovemaking Instead of silly lace gowns, Now in those terrible moments, when the dark memories come The secret moments to which we admit no one When guiltily we crawl back in time, reaching away from ourselves They hear a familiar sound, Jazz, scratching, digging, blueing, swinging jazz, And listen, And feel, & die.

THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE SOUTH FOREVER, GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE FROM RED PLANET MARS CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR THEM TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL, THE NEGROES HAVE GONE INTO CRACKLING BLUENESS. CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL ARRIVE WITH THE BOSTON COMMONS, TO TAKE ELISSI LANDI NORTH, CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL BE LAYING ON BOSTON COMMONS, ELISSI LANDI SHALL FEEL ALIVE AGAIN. I SHALL CALL HER NAME AS SHE STEPS ON TO THE BOSTON COMMONS, AND FLIES NORTH FOREVER, LINCOLN SHALL BE THERE, TO SEE THEM LEAVE THE SOUTH FOREVER, ELISSI LANDI, SHE WILL BE GREEN. THE WHITE SOUTH SHALL GATHER AT PRESERVATION HALL.

Believe in this. Young apple seeds, In blue skies, radiating young breast, Not in blue-suited insects, Infesting society’s garments. Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz, Tearing the night into intricate shreds, Putting it back together again, In cool logical patterns, Not in the sick controllers, Who created only the Bomb. Let the voices of dead poets Ring louder in your ears Than the screechings mouthed In mildewed editorials. Listen to the music of centuries, Rising above the mushroom time.