Jazz Poems

MOOD INDIGO


it hasn’t always been this way

ellington was not a street

robeson no mere memory

du bois walked up my father’s stairs

hummed some time over me

sleeping in the company of men

who changed the world


it wasn’t always like this

why ray barretto used to be a side-man

& dizzy’s hair was not always grey

i remember         i was there

i listened in the company of men politics as necessary as collards

music even in our dreams


our house was filled with all kinds of folks

our windows were not cement or steel

our doors opened like our daddy’s arms

held us safe & loved

children growing in the company of men

old southern men & young slick ones

sonny til was not a boy

the clovers no rag-tag orphans

our crooners/  we belonged to a whole world

nkrumah was no foreigner

virgil aikens was not the only fighter


it hasn’t always been this way

ellington was not a street

NTOZAKE SHANGE

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

SUITE TABU 200

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