Hua Hin Jazz Festival 2006

His was

the eye

of a solid

sender

blues deeper than

the sound

of water

that spiritual sound

-the high

holy way.

An eye

(always an eye)

tender

but fierce

piercing

all seeing.

Hooded//lidded//shrew-shrew.

It was Arkansas, 20 acres

or more. In the holiness flame

of summer. Cutting junk up

with the gospel plough.

Five days sick

to kick it solid,

with a growl, couldn't tap

the horn.

Could not puncture the rim of it.

Five days thick

with spit to split the grip of it.

To punch through fever

to emerge reborn

like newborn wood.

Those Saturdays,

night roll of darker fields,

where those hymns

swayed across the land

from little churches

hid in bush.

Where the members sung



la da la da la da la

da da

la da la da la da

da da

whirling in the firmament of the spirit

It is the eye,

which listens.

Oh Dewey, the ocular.

Say-say, play what you may.

—he said, "Just play.

Call it anything."

Call it the bliss of it.

The times it was when black

was our name

and we were double-conscious,

ferociously black and real.

Black being

nothing but skin but

I was not

my skin.

1678 Broadway,

New York City,

1959

the new blues

came tumbling down.

The lip split, the blood

of Davis the third.

Press-wise

to the first, second and third valves.

Hey Dewey, the three

after the sun, the spirit lash,

the holy roll—the ocular.

I saw an angel and the devil

sat between two

cold priests, loas

of hidden frequencies,

I saw sour mountains of rotting

rice and red beans, saw secret colours.

But we had no power at all.

So we spread out our trinkets

our hot shirts, our very souls,

hip shake and moan, slid sideways,

moved

aloof like bop/in which the synapse

fluctuates with its concurrent

principle

while blowing a high C.

In Bird thereof, the high priest

of our tribe.

To follow the line he leads

is to get lost, to blush.

We were brutalised, our teeth

cut in half. Beat bloodied

even as our names

burned in lights above * Birdland *

—MILES —MILES—

wringing hot heat.

It were the eyes

that stayed black and bright,

stayed hard and tactical

and unafraid.

Them was those

knots and levers

of our rage.

Of maggots,

of brain coral — of foam.

Vampiric//light can't touch

his eyes.

The kink of him.

That eyeball beneath the rim

beckoning.

And inside was dim lit, a mess

of sheep skin jackets

and knee high boots, waistcoats

in leather, suits never worn in daylight.

We had entered the house of the demon, the snake,

The prince and poet of darkness under islands,

standing there smiling

with cock in hand.

New York City. 1979.

Miles

thereafter

emerging

as flame

as arcturus the star

as any vision//parallax rubric

slick

as a brokedick dog.

Sharp as

the grinning

edge of

a beloved

blade.