– Miles Davis 1926 – 1991
[That climate changing horn, breath and instrument twinned
after centuries of mating, since chance & genes
in consummation = 'the one' a Mary knows; like no sound on earth.
There, too, birth marked in (our) Kitch, Sparrow, Marley
Shadow (few since).
I mean the Miles sound, sinew & curve pristine
until he took off into 70s fusion, bored with gigs cool
& origins; playing back to audience bored
with audience; asking all to listen like birds
alight on power lines sensors gripping;
until he started chasing young girls' gold-
haired hits like Lauper's "Time After Time",
and you wondered: where's he going with that?
the hot breath quick of pretty young songs? new
hip swing for hipsters grown too old to rock?
In the ballads, I know now, he felt the tremble of innocence
& risk, heard chords immortal blue;
horn husks to dig for.
I hear Young Jeezy "Crazy World", Phoenix "1901";
and think: Miles would have loved vamping that
juiced up throng and throb; shoulders hunched to shaft in
for a sweaty duel or three then turn away;
streaming up a brew fresh as tomorrow, horn-
miracled; like no bitch on earth, yo!]-W.W.
THE SONG IS YOU
– Ella Fitzgerald 1918 – 1996
Now, more than before, we know
there is no song you have not
sung: we have only to think
of one for it to become
a bell whose tongue is yours,
moreso now in the silence
of its new dangling balance.
(from "Gift of Screws" by Brian Chan)
SONNY STITT'S SAX
A voice like a boy's sure scrawl
of question marks across a blackboard
of silence, a chalky scrape
whose tails fade to fine points as though they
are their own firm erasers.
(from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)
BIRD,
your silence of screeches lends me
the faith to scratch on the air one more
noise of us who fly without wing.
(from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 