Jazz Poems

ELEVEN

From Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth

There ain’t/No word

I ain’t/Heard

ain’t/No word

Bird/Ain’t heard

Language is an/Inventor’s

>Privilege

I/Blow psalms.

I/Blow sinners’ deeds.

I/Blow prayer before death.

I/Blow curses.

I/Blow laughter.

I/Blow vocabulary of my axe.

You can’t/Hold

folks/Down who Be-Bop

but you/Kin hold

them/Up.

Every Be-Bopper/Renew

his/Subscriptions

to/Genius when he riff some

thing/New on his axe.

STERLING D. PLUMPP 

 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

SUITE TABU 200

 

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