Bob Holman
Jazz a Jagged Dream
for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Parker
Not so every often, as soli
Slide solid behind ah! Sunflower,
I’d put on my jazz sweater heading
For downer towner. Don’t listen
At your own risk, Bob would say,
Make my way subway catcherall
Clattersmack, the only virgin in the room,
Baby. Whereupon Thelonious’ finger splints
Split notes into facets, a fractured chord
Yields a harmonious flow, a moment
That’s wanting it to happen. I’d walk right
Back there, post-gig Village Vanguard 1969.
That’s when Dexter leaned over and laughed,
“My man. Always end at the beginning.”
Pandemic Shorties
Ask not for whom the siren wails
That’s you in there
(March, 2020)
Why get out of bed?
You just have to get back in again
(March, 2021)
It happens every 100 years.
Get used to it.
(March, 2021)
After a Hard Rain
praise poem for Steve Cannon
he’s gone from the hillside
that demands reparations
he’s gone from the interchange
that never stops changing
he’s gone from the poem
that will never be spoken
he’s gone from the gathering
where all tribes are represented
he’s gone from the future
that he was already living
he’s gone from the emails
that delete before receiving
he’s hammering the verses
on whalebone and cardboard
he’s drifting in consciousness
where no one can find him
he’s hearing your words
before you can speak them
he’s making love in the sunshine
with sunshine brothers & sisters
he’s inventing new ways
for the galleries to blast off
he can’t believe he has to repeat
his slogans of simplicity
he refuses to understand
your system of logic
he matches your bet and
he raises your anti-
he manifests his destiny
inside of a flower
he takes truth to the limits and
leaves us there gasping
he can’t stop the world so
the world closes around him
he ran off with his lover
when no one was watching
he climbed the tall mountains
and fished us from deep waters
he lifted up the wasted
& wanted the wanted
his victory will always be
us just sitting around
time is an anchor
he just tossed overboard
equality was his breath and
he breathed it continuously
there was something about him
that we’ll never know
he was that way in all ways
and we always knew
he never let on and
we’ll never know
his boots were leaking
and his body was swaying
they stopped his breath
but his beat keeps on beating
his life was the question
that answered the answer
his rigorous approach was
masked in a carnival
shut-up you dullards and
give him the floor
and give him the ceiling
the windows and door
and stay out of his way as
he mows us all down
and he keeps on walking as
we all lie down
and we kneel at his gravestone
but don’t heed his demands
he was asking of us to
give the way he did
now you must decide how
your life you will live
he had nothing to die for
but he died for us anyway
he had everything to live for
but he gave it all away
now that it’s over
he says you begin
now that he’s gone
you welcome him in
there’s no one like him
so it must be him
and the tribes are all gathering
and we sit on the rim
on the edge on the verge
as we gather around him
(the tribes are gathering
and he belongs to them all)
your communities need you and
steve is beside you
ride off in the sunset and
and pull the night o’er you
take off your blinders
sing a new horizon
there’s nothing more to say
so now go ignore him
and he keeps it going
in the silence that follows
he keeps it going
in the silence that follows
This Is What Democracy Looks Like
Bring Back Bowery Project
Bleeker than Bleecker, barer than nada y nadie
A plywood desert out my window on The Bowery
A siren of silence, blind leading the blinder. Looters, cops ruder
Brutes, systemic collapse and a sick rose, slashed tire
Tiredness, buffeted by pandemic waves, Racism
Pulls nerves from our bodies using iron stupidity clips,
Fascism a-laying hot macadam on our wounds,
The “leadership” (HA!) is Tyranny…
And then the Artists got ahold of it.
Sprung rhythm art garden splash
Walls blossom Black Lives Matter
Many’s the days and many’s the ways and many’s the time come before
As the dead and the dying and the violent lying
Wait COVIDly, patiently, next door
The Bowery resurrects — now there’s a next
See there’s a lot more to go than’s before
And the art that you see lifts infinity
As you stop dead in your footsteps and roar
Up the ladder with the brush and rush
Yes there’s hardly a clown in the sky
Scooter’s punched em in their plywood nose
So stop yr gab and chatter, spell out “Black Lives Matter”
The flowers beckon, a “Good Luck Spot” I reckon
Emmet Till – Here Still
Dressed in colorful crack, a blessing for the homeless
Bowery Mission sidewalk is tattooed with poem’s shadow
No one shall utter the debt owed to Wonder
All together now: call out the name
That’s not anonymity’s face on the Wall of Grace
George Floyd is breathing again
More art than’s ever been seen before
It’s a gift, it’s capitalism’s grave
There’s no one to recall
Bounce back from the fall
Into summer heat’s saving grace
There is no Justice in America
But it is the fight for justice that sustains you
Baraka says, cross from his pad on Cooper Square
Where Hettie still lives, and the murals that give,
Sustain us on the street where we live
Individual power dies twice every hour
To be born down in utopic Foley Square
I saw you on your bike with your mask and your strike
And the placards that gleamed in the pools of your dream
O Artists! indefatigable rascals of love
The looters and shooters and dumb ass computers
Lie down in the middle of the street
But BLM keeps on marchin, it’s the Bowery’s fortune
And the past is the future again
Don’t tell us what to do
With the nail and the screw
With the paint and the roller
Bucket and rags in a stroller
Dance on the graves of the rich and enslave
Those who’d profit from sweat that’s not theirs
Lift your horn
Life your voice
It’s for you
Make the choice
It’s the people’s history
Free art on the Bowery
The Garden of Power
Contemplation’s Bower
Down on the Bowery —
Where Art knows how to Live
Original Slam Master and a director at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, creator of the world’s first spoken-word poetry record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury, and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, Bob Holman is the author of over 20 poetry collections (print/audio/video), including the recent India Journals, released in conjunction with the documentary Ginsberg’s Karma. He is a co-founder of the Endangered Language Alliance and has collaborated on the award-winning PBS documentary film, Language Matters . Other poetry films include The United States of Poetry (PBS) (International Public TV awardee), Khonsay, a poem in 35 languages (winner, Saddho Prize), and Poetry Spots (WNYC-TV). He lives on the Bowery in New York City.
Back to issue no. ten poetry section table of contents
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