Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker. Yusef Komunyakaa

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 a presence that fills up

      the mind, a replenished body

      singing its way into doubletalk.

      In the city, “Will o’ the Wisp”

      floats out of Miles’ trumpet,

      leaning ghosts against nighttime’s

      backdrop of neon. A foolish fire

      can also start this way: before

      you slide the key into the lock

      & half-turn the knob, you know

      someone has snuck into your life.

      A high window, a corner of sky

      spies on upturned drawers of underwear

      & unanswered letters, on a tin box

      of luminous buttons & subway tokens,

      on books, magazines, & clothes

      flung СКАЧАТЬ