because of their deep conviction they thought they knew the true way,

  never mind the fact they had never been there before,

  but you knew, sekou so you just flashed a knowing smile when they got lost,

  called you back in time again for the right directions, you just gave up easy

  laughter, shook your head, ’cause you knew, sekou, you knew

  they didn’t like dancing with some meanings under certain words,

  like following orders, ’cause you knew they knew the history of the blues,

  which meant following some commands might leave a black man in deep,

  deep doodoo, confused, because of the history of being black in America

  but you loved them anyway, because you knew

  some of these people, who sometimes wore suits two sizes too small,

  with high-water pants showing tops of white socks everywhere they went,

  buttons straining, seeming about to pop off—though they never did—

  from the front of their suit coats, ’cause they thought it looked hip, avant-garde

  like ornette coleman, who wore bright red clothes when told to wear all black

  who took strolls in the park when asked to watch someone’s house

  & left the front door wide open, then scratched their heads, looked puzzled

  when they got back, found all the stuff in the house had just upped & left,

  who read twenty-page poems at readings of fifty long-winded poets

  when told they had no more than one minute to do their thing

  you knew why they always did it like this, sekou, you knew

  so we celebrate you in all your who-went-your-own-way voodoo,

  talkin’ about who copped the sweet bop of all the hipness inside the language,

  who hung out with mystery needing to put magic inside music,

  so musicians could take their imagination over the top

  so, solo, sekou, hello, we gonna miss you brotha, your sweet

  daybreak-wide smile, though we know you still doin’ the holy bop

  where your deep magical spirit took you, sekou

  wherever your deep, hip music flew, we will always hear

  your music, your solo, sekou, always saying, hello

  solo, solo with your sweet musical, poetic tongue,

  with your deep, humming mysterious voice, that was song

  TAPS FOR FREDDIE

  for Miles Davis, Freddie Webster, and Randy Weston, who told me the story

  when freddie webster died after shooting poison called “white girl”

  through his body/veins, that burned like fire back in chi-town,

  in 1947, he thought he was mainlining top-of-the-shelf heroin

  but it was strychnine,

  maybe battery acid—

  bad shit, meant instead for his good friend, saxophonist sonny stitt,

  who was beating everybody & their mamas out they money

  he came in contact with

  to satisfy his own big-time junkie habit,

  freddie was a junkie too, though he wasn’t marked for death

  like sonny was—though sonny didn’t know he was either

  when he passed on the “white death” to freddie, as a gift,

  freddie’s death hit everyone in jazz like a lightning bolt, especially

  miles davis, who was as close to freddie as a brother,

  so when he heard freddie had died he freaked out, became

  inconsolable like so many other players in the jazz, music orbit,

  now, sixty-one years later, down in gosier, guadeloupe, at the creole beach hotel,

  may 26, 2008, on what would have been miles’s eighty-second birthday—

  he’s dead, now, too, since september 28th, 1991—

  sitting out on the veranda, looking at the sea—the great jazz pianist

  randy weston tells me the story of how he, max roach,

  & the “prince of darkness”—miles davis—went out to coney island beach

  to celebrate, remember the short life of their friend, freddie webster,

  & miles (a junkie too, back then, like so many others

  during those dark, bright days of music & death in the time of bebop,

  during the reign of the biggest junkie of them all,

  charlie “yardbird” parker, whose example many were following)

  started walking to the edge of the beach, carrying his trumpet

  in a brown paper bag—he had pawned his trumpet case

  for money to satisfy his “white girl” habit—

  randy said miles walked slowly, deep in thought, head down,

  walked toward the sea, kicking up sand as he went,

  then he pulled out his golden horn, pointing the trumpet bell east

  toward africa, where he said freddie’s spirit was now resting,

  blew a mournful taps for freddie—who played a mean trumpet, too—

  as the atlantic ocean foamed in waves of dying bubbles

  like they bubbled from freddie’s mouth the moment he died

  MILES’S LAST TUNE LIVE, AUGUST 25TH, 1991

  when you listen to miles davis live on “Hannibal,”

  on his album, Live Around the World,

  at the hollywood bowl, you hear a memorable solo

  performed in a voice emanating from a unreconstructed leader

  cracking notes, sliding through changes elusive as hot

  mercury, breath slipping out of his horn as quicksilver nuance,

  perhaps he knew he was going to the other side soon

  not long from that smoggy summer moment

  perhaps though because it was his final performance live

  he knew, felt all his extraordinary gifts bleeding out

  from his once indomitable, mysterious spirit as if they were

  running water whirlpooling down the drain of a kitchen sink,

  he seemed too know the end was near—just a little over

  a month away—because his playing hinted at this

  in a very spooky, haunting way, even though

  he wasn’t ready to go just yet, had so much more still to do

  in his own calculations swirling around inside

  his restless, edgy mind embracing errançities

  but death don’t wait for no one—not even pure genius—

  it just comes when it’s time to pay its final visit

  like a stealthy thief, whenever

  it chooses to snatch away someone’s last precious gift of breath,

  but miles could go away thankful, knowing he had given

  so much enduring, magical artistry,

  had left so much beauty to enrich all our lives

  left so much great music to remember him by

  A POEM OF RETURN: CIRCA 2008

  1.

  there is something sounding like the ringing of bells

  when you arrive, its music clear in your heart,

  you feel the cleansing beauty of its wondrous tone rinsing

  through your weary body, carrying rivers of memories,

  sweeping over the familiar landscape

  until you come to the beloved place, the small house

  where so many moments are cascading waterfalls,

  moments shimmeringly green as guadeloupean mango trees

  are green after clouds drop buckets of rain, after the sun rises

  bright clearing the darkness with its brooms

  of gigantic, mystical beams of light flashing radiant

  & you are there once again inside your head

  where everything seems serene, in its place

  memories are seductive things, beckoning you back

  to the young women you knew—as you grow older,

  their firm, lissome bodies ripple with perfection in memory,

  evoke volcanic desires—as you wake up next to

  your wonderful sleeping wife holding your body firm,

  her tenderness a bell ringing beautiful as any

  you have ever heard, a waterfall of spirits

  cascading through serenading songs of wind chimes

  reminds you of a very deep space that always springs alive

  in her, gripping from the very first moment you kissed her

  so many moons ago, she still holds you there,

  even now, in her warm, magical place of voodoo,

  her deep suction pool of sweet love,

  even while she is sleeping

  2.

  there are moments within moments

  when you find yourself feeling at home,

  as in a smiling face of a stranger walking a road

  in st. felix, guadeloupe, on the boulevard st. michel,

  in paris, where you see an old black man beautifully dressed

  in white linen, a red boutonniere in his buttonhole,

  starched white shirt, red tie, a gold tooth flashing like a razor

  in the front of his mouth, underneath a wire moustache,

  sporting snappy two-toned shoes, a bowler hat & a silver cane

  counting off the beat of his hip stroll, two sleek,

  beautiful women strutting besides him, arm in arm,

  dressed to the nines, their four pointy breasts are invitations

  like the stiletto nipples of the women in wilfredo lam’s

  surreal drawings and powerful paintings

  the three of them seductive, remind me of brash men & women

  eye saw way back in childhood, in st. louis, missouri,

  in the good-old heydays of the 40s & 50s,

  when the riviera & peacock alley were jumping

  clubs, in high gear, with wondrously hypnotic people

  high-stepping it through galvanizing, innovative music

  pulsating clean to the bone of rhythms,

  when everything about being hip then was about style & timing,

  the promise of new days emanating—

  silver breaking from everyone’s eyes bright

  as scales of fish glinting sparks when sunlight,

  or moonlight glances off its back as it swam

  close to the surface of the mississippi river,

  before the stainless steel arch rose like an indian bow

  bent to its limit, ready to send an invisible arrow

  flying true into the heart of america’s tortured soul,

  eye hear crows caw-cawing now in the gray, fetid air

  blanketing the river’s slow crawl through muddy slime, see

  pollution in the form of oil slicks snaking toward the choking

  mouth at the gulf of mexico, where future katrinas are

  waiting to scream ashore in the soon-coming future,

  unleashing howling banshee winds & boiling water beyond

  anything—even the most cynical—had ever imagined,

  thirty-seven years after john f. kennedy came preaching

  the fresh, visionary good news at his inaugural, evoking

  dreams seemingly on the verge of really happening,

  before assassinations swept the giddiness away—

  john f’s brains blown out in a motorcade in dallas,

  on a cold november day, five years before martin was gone

  like a wilted flower in memphis, two years before malcolm

  was snuffed out in new york city, five years before

  robert kennedy in los angeles, california,

  too many others to mention here—before vultures

  flopped down slowly from blue notes of storms

  weeping all over schizophrenic america—

  land of the troubled mocking the millions un-free

  still, great american music inspired many of us with obama

  to move forward, into a new moment with gusto,

  we heard again the genius melodies, memorable as moonwalks

  sashaying through the air in the strut of barack’s language

  so original it began to spread like a great vintage wine,

  everywhere you could hear its intoxicating rhythms,

  its matchless vigor, its miles davis élan, its coolness, thought

  the nation had entered a new age, but we were wrong

  IV.

  MICHAEL JACKSON & THE ARC OF LOVE

  AUGUST 29, 1958–JUNE 25, 2009

  “He was a very fragile soul in a very cruel world”

  1.

  it was always about love from the moment you heard music michael

  love of hypnotic rhythm sound when it embraced your heart

  penetrated your spirit with a deep worshipping feeling love echoed sweetly

  seductive throughout your being with a resonance devoting you to the beat

  jumping out of jukeboxes, radios long-playing records singles voices

  witch doctors speaking to you in tongues became your hoodoo clan

  heroes pulling you into their orbits weaving glorious love

  the air pulsating there with magical signature breaths

  you heard all this enchantment before you were five in gary indiana

  listening to your older brothers sing in a group sucked you into the magic

  your sweet-singing mother katherine your cold-blooded gizzard-hearted

  father joe abusing you all with bare-knuckle beatings

  razor strops whipping you & your brothers into line hard

  with constant rehearsals—joe pushed everyone with ambitions of glory

  he could not reach as a part-time guitar player with a house full of stair-step

  children he had to bring the bacon home to working as a crane

  operator—though if truth be told joe thought his rigorous rehearsals/

  beatings were necessary acts of sweet love training y’all to deal with

  the treacherous people up ahead you boys had to face down the road

  you were a musical prodigy michael—a sponge soaking up everything

  you recognized innovation from jump—james brown fred astaire jackie

  wilson charlie chaplin sammy davis jr. diana ross stevie wonder elvis Presley

  smokey robinson frank sinatra were your mentors—you learned firsthand

  the complexities of love you picked up in your own house wanting to please

  with your genius you blew by your older brothers by the age of five

  so into entertaining you never had a real childhood so busy you were

  rehearsing you got so good so fast you became lead singer of the jackson five

  rocketing everyone with you to fame (your little sister janet watching

  in the corner of the family nest absorbing like you

  & who later would zoom to challenge even you hooking her own

  copycat power act of you to your dazzling shooting star/nova)

  from the beginning there was no question your coming was a gift

  a changing-of-the-guard in pop music merging the complex syncopated

  beats of james brown to the holy ghost spirit of your own magical pulse

  so genius it soon brought the house down with a new funk hypnotizing everyone

  to dance & move you left your four siblings in the dust

  because your singular musical juju required you go your own way

  without your blood brothers you flew so high with off the wall thriller bad

  we are the world dangerous man in the mirror memorable mtv videos

  shocked everyone with your breathtaking élan extraordinary to the point

  millions were amazed listening to you watching you work your high-wire act

  of vocal pyrotechnics coupled with gymnastic “hip-jabbing” dance steps

  grabbing your crotch you pirouetted singing billie jean a sequined white glove

  slanted like a snake’s head high above your head cocked your lithe body

  at an angle live on tv we watched you create your iconic moonwalk

  your silhouetted razor-sharp cutout image of black & white fingers saluting

  your hip-slanting black fedora hat in a memorable pose we can’t forget

  your dominance was complete after those mind-blowing images

  showed off your unparalleled hoodoo stamping your image into the air

  on stage your conjurer presence imprinted there in our memory

  mysterious as a sculptural magician—you carved out your space lived in it

  practicing a kind of musical cartomancy melody still your seductive secret—

  you had no need though to pronounce words correctly in songs

  you had poetic license to create neologisms spontaneous magic on the spot

  you improvised modalities you were a beautiful geegaw we all looked at fascinated

  until the shine began to wear off your bobble when you broke your nose in 1979

  then your hair caught fire in 1984 filming a pepsi commercial

  flames left the top of your head burnt bald as a cue ball consigned you to wear

  that weird-looking long halloween black witch’s wig in public forever

  after that your facial changes began—by 1986 your face was transformed

  changing the beautiful geegaw we all knew & loved into something strange—

  after all these tragedies your bubble finally began to burst

  first you were over-loved then totally misunderstood after your flower

  bloomed into something beyond comprehension for so many

  who knew nothing of the deep pain you were going through every day

  trying to find love—as your power turned special your image was ubiquitous

  everywhere suddenly you were no longer the cute little black genius geegaw

  boy you had suddenly morphed into a creepy man-child

  metamorphosing before our eyes you looked so otherworldly

  wearing the long black witch’s wig no matter it covered your scarred head—

  who knew why it was there the plastic surgery bleaching your skin from encroaching

  vitiligo those images of you carrying bubbles the chimpanzee around

  buying bones of the elephant man sleeping in that polio-looking oxygen chamber—

  you began to seem so out of step with everyone

  divorced from even those who still loved you & your music

  when you outbid paul mccartney for the beatles music catalogue

  everything began going wrong for “wheat” folk/critics—

  they started hating you—after all you were still just a little black boy to them

  they thought you were getting too big for your britches making boatloads of money—