Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker. Yusef Komunyakaa

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for his canvas.

      I hold your red shoes,

      one in each hand to balance

      the sky, because Duke

      loved Toulouse-Lautrec’s

      nightlife. Faces of women

      woven into chords scribbled

      on hotel stationery—blues,

      but never that unlucky

      green. April 29th

      is also my birthday,

      the suspicious wishbone

      snapped between us,

      & I think I know why

      a pretty woman always

      lingered at the bass

       clef end of the piano.

      Tricky Sam coaxed

      an accented wa-wa

      from his trombone, coupled

      with Cootie & Bubber,

      & Duke said, Rufus,

       give me some ching-chang

       & sticks on the wood.

      I tell myself the drum

      can never be a woman,

      even if her name’s whispered

      across skin. Because

      nights at the Cotton Club

      shook on the bone,

      because Paul Whiteman

      sat waiting for a riff

      he could walk away with

      as feathers twirled

      among palm trees, because

      Duke created something good

      & strong out of thirty pieces

      of silver like a spotlight

      on conked hair,

      because so much flesh

      is left in each song,

      because women touch

      themselves to know

      where music comes from,

      my fingers trace

      your lips to open up

      the sky & let in

      the night.

      WOMAN, I GOT THE BLUES

      I’m sporting a floppy existential sky-blue hat

      when we meet in the Museum of Modern Art.

      Later, we hold each other

      with a gentleness that would break open

      ripe fruit. Then we slow-drag

      to Little Willie John, we bebop

      to Bird LPs, bloodfunk, lungs paraphrased

      ’til we break each other’s fall.

      For us there’s no reason the scorpion

      has to become our faith healer.

      Sweet Mercy, I worship

      the curvature of your ass.

      I build an altar in my head.

      I kiss your breasts & forget my name.

      Woman, I got the blues.

      Our shadows on floral wallpaper

      struggle with cold-blooded mythologies.

      But there’s a stillness in us

      like the tip of a magenta mountain.

      You’re half-naked on the living-room floor

      when the moon falls through the window

      on you.

      Your breath’s a dewy flower stalk

      leaning into sweaty air.

      JASMINE

      I sit beside two women, kitty-corner

      to the stage, as Elvin’s sticks blur

      the club into a blue fantasia.

      I thought my body had forgotten the Deep

      South, how I’d cross the street

      if a woman like these two walked

      towards me, as if a cat traversed

      my path beneath the evening star.

      Which one is wearing jasmine?

      If my grandmothers saw me now

      they’d say, Boy, the devil never sleeps.

      My mind is lost among November

      cotton flowers, a soft rain on my face

      as Richard Davis plucks the fat notes

      of chance on his upright

      leaning into the future.

      The blonde, the brunette—

      which one is scented with jasmine?

      I can hear Duke in the right hand

      & Basie in the left

      as the young piano player

      nudges us into the past.

      The trumpet’s almost kissed

      by enough pain. Give him a few more years,

      a few more ghosts to embrace—Clifford’s

      shadow on the edge of the stage.

      The СКАЧАТЬ