Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker. Yusef Komunyakaa

& on power lines

      singing between the cuts—Yardbird

      in the soul & soil. Boplicity

      takes me to Django’s gypsy guitar

      & Dunbar’s “broken tongue,” beyond

      god-headed jive of the apocalypse,

      & back to the old sorrow songs

      where boisterous flowers still nod on their

      half-broken stems. The deep rosewood

      of the piano says, “Holler

      if it feels good.” Perfect tension.

      The mainspring of notes & extended

      possibility—what falls on either side

      of a word—the beat between & underneath.

      Organic, cellular space. Each riff & word

      a part of the whole. A groove. New changes

      created. “In the Land of Obladee”

      burns out the bell with flatted fifths,

      a matrix of blood & language

      improvised on a bebop heart

      that could stop any moment

      on a dime, before going back

      to Hughes at the Five Spot.

      Twelve bars. Coltrane leafs through

      the voluminous air for some note

      to save us from ourselves.

      The limbo & bridge of a solo …

      trying to get beyond the tragedy

      of always knowing what the right hand

      will do … ready to let life play me

      like Candido’s drum.

      THE SAME BEAT

      I don’t want the same beat.

      I don’t want the same beat.

      I don’t want the same beat

      used for copping a plea

      as well as for making love

      & talking with the gods.

      I don’t want the same beat

      like a windshield wiper

      swishing back & forth

      to the rhythm of stolen pain

      & counterfeit pleasure.

      I don’t want the same beat

      when I can listen to early

      Miles, Prez, Yardbird, Sonny

      Stitt, Monk, Lady Day, Trane,

      or the Count of Red Bank.

      I don’t want the same beat

      as I gaze out at the Grand Canyon

      or up at the Dogstar

      in a tenement window

      or at an eagle who owns the air.

      I don’t want the same beat

      as the buffoon on the turntable

      selling his secondhand soul

      to the organ-grinder’s monkey.

      I don’t want the same beat

      like a pitiful needle

      stuck in a hyperbolic groove

      at the end of The Causeway.

      I don’t want the same beat

      as only background

      for the skullduggery

      of Iceberg Slim on a bullhorn.

      I don’t want the same beat

      as the false witness,

      because I know any man

      with that much gold in his mouth

      has already been bought & sold.

      I don’t want the

      same beat.

      I don’t want the

      same beat.

      I don’t want the

      same beat.

      I don’t want the

      same beat.

      TO BEAUTY

      Just painting things black will get you nowhere. —Otto Dix

      The jazz drummer’s

      midnight skin

      balances the whole

      room, the American

      flag dangling from his breast

      pocket. An album

      cover. “Everything

      I have ever seen is

      beautiful.” A decade

      before a caricaturist

      draws a Star of David

      for a saxophonist’s lapel

      on the poster of “Jonny

      spielt auf,” his brush

      played every note & shade

      of incarnadine darkness.

      Here’s his self-portrait

      with telephone, as if

      clutching a mike

      like Frank Sinatra—

      posed as an underworld

      character, or poised

      for a dance step.

      Shimmy & Charleston.

      Perfumed & cocksure,

      you’d never know

      he sat for hours

      darning his trousers

      with a silver needle,

      stitching night shadows

      to facade. The rosy lady’s

      orange hair & corsage

      alight the dancefloor,

      all their faces stopped

      with tempera & time.

      The drummer’s shirt

      the same hue & texture

      as a woman’s dress,

      balanced on the edge

      of some anticipated

      embrace. The yellow

      feathers of a rare bird

      quiver in a dancer’s hat,

      past the drum skin tattooed

      with an Indian chief.

      IGNIS FATUUS

      Something or someone. A feeling

      among a swish of reeds. A swampy

      glow haloes the Spanish moss,

      & there’s a swaying at the edge

      like a child’s memory of abuse

      growing flesh, living on what

      a screech owl recalls. Nothing

      but