Jazz Poems

ALABAMA, c. 1963: 

But

Shouldn’t this state have a song?

Long, gliding figures of my breath

Of breath

Lost?

Somebody can’t sing

Because somebody’s gone

Somebody can’t sing

Because somebody’s gone.

Shouldn’t this landscape

Hold a true anthem

What

You can’t do?

Whom

You can’t invent?

Where

You can’t stay?

Why

You won’t keep it?

But

Shouldn’t this state

Have a song?

And shall we call it

My face will murder me?

And shall we call it

I’m not waiting?

CORNELIUS EADY

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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