Jazz Poems
ALABAMA, c. 1963:
A BALLAD BY JOHN COLTRANEBut
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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