PRAISE POEM AMIRI BARAKA

ON BIRTHDAY NUMERO SESENTA

  










Preface to A Rebirth Announcement Haiku

                                          for Amiri Baraka, on

                                          birthday numero sesenta

 

 

Voice volcanoes

 

    

               Its way into ear atmosphere

               Tearing its way, screaming

               Hurling memory's fireball direct hit

 

A little launch party, wiggling fannies into

Webbed and wickered launch furniture

Canapé chatter void branch into capillarious

Brunch fresheners, mimosaesque fingerlings utterly modulated

Excuse me no excuse me no me me me

 

     Hurling a

          Launching a

          Do we we have lift off

Roger we jolly well got the goddamn lid popped off

The Circulation of the Universe

     Just in time   (When else?)

Back at you

 

Stand and Solo in Reality Part I.

Newark's tarry stand and reflective universe of vocal stars

No snag but the heartbreak of lies to keep the phoney wires jiggling

Collect call for Mr Baraka, do you accept the whoosh

Orange sax blue cornet silver bone

Filtering the coffee of resistance

Through the handset

               The Receiver

                     Ain't no Deceiver

 

Standing with your finger out

Standing with your finger out

Standing with your finger out

Wondering which way the world's gonna turn

 

Had a vision in a Voice see

Sat in a chair, started to rock

Air rocked and rocked see

The rock rocked

 

Where you get whipped like a whirl into into

The Voice might have been gentler

Might have been a superduper hero might've

But whipping wind leaves uproot the damn trees, Voice!

One musical moment

Where the Voice is the music not the transmitter

Dididididitdit static in the attic, shake the groans, Bones

Keep moving here, Get your feet off the bench there

Do what the damn sign says

Damn sign says Fuck You Brother

Fuck you

 

Now the voice lagoon-like deconstructs "like"

Into a myriad of flash fishes

Millions of tiny whispers gonna be the wind again

Tickle the whiskers off that cat

Wind-up time, hey

Pitcher delivers

 

I'd be a dancing fool in Stalin's basement

I'd take the Poundian contradictions and slam

That dunk, Punk

All the right nows of Etheridge Knight Night hey

Don't you mend the blend, it ain't ripped (yet)

Do not so and so and so it

 

Who the hell stays up all night anymore anyway

Delirious jazz night, tender paper and rugged artificiality of E-net existence

And children crawling up and down the Bannisters of Midnight

The little darlings, living model of evolution

What school they gonna go to to learn something

 

While behind and around

     Up over and through

          Through all the all

And down the hall

     The Voice is singing now

          A shadow song unlocking movement

Capillary action of sweet rough

     Flow the blow, go on to the Now now

          You and your fingers the separate but somehow

Cooperating fingers around the throat of music

Voice music pops a corpuscle's muscle

 

Deeper'n'deeper'n'deeper'n'deep

Voice, where you lead us?

The way out Way Out

Song itself sings itself

Flying over scorched earth

What school they gonna go to to unlearn something

This has been Preface to a Rebirth Announcement Haiku

Amen Amiri Amen