Whitman’s Sampler redux

Since I’m going back through the poems in my first book, here is my *final* revision of the book's first poem. Shout out to my boy T for his genius suggestion that I begin the book with this poem. It not only transformed the arc of the manuscript, but of my writing arc since that then. 

WHITMAN’S SAMPLER
a DJ Reneg8d remix

To begin with, take warning, I am . . . 

far different from what you suppose;
I do not ask any . . . delight, 

I swim in it as in a sea. 

Then the eyes close . . . 

and . . . speed forth to the darkness.
Mind not the old man 

beseeching the young man,
Entering but for a minute . . . 

see a sight beyond all the pictures 

and poems ever made,
ebb stung by the flow 

and flow stung by the ebb, 

love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
O I think it is not for life I am chanting . . . 

my chant of lovers
         . . . it must be for death . . .
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, 

and of the shore, and dark-color’d sea-rocks, 

and of hay in the barn, which too long 

I was offering to feed my soul.
And what I assume you shall assume;  

Stop this day and night with me, and
you shall possess the origin of all . . . 

But I do not talk of the beginning or the end,

held by this electric self out of the pride 

of which I utter poems.

I too but signify at the utmost 

a little wash’d-up drift, 

A few sands and dead leaves to gather, 

gather, and merge myself as part 

of this mystery—

here we stand

in the mystical moist night-air,

and from time to time, 

here, take this gift . . .

A tesseract not of text, but texture.

 On the off hand chance that anyone was wondering—this is currently the definitive version of this poem. 

SUBTERRANEAN NIGHT-COLORED MAGUS 

theme & variations on a phrase from Amiri Baraka’s “Wailers”

“Subterranean” implies

miles deep in a mine shaft 

of being—cored by minor intervals 

or subtext rich with King Oliver's ore 

once bourn from the motherlode 

as if indigo undersongs 

or seismic solos 

on a tectonic trumpet 

dissolving into Richter’s scale 

til You're Under Arrest

for spelunking funky rhythms 

or scaling Seven Steps to Heaven

to paint Sketches of Spain

all up under the canvas 

til it bleeds

All Blues out the other side 

I hear the son of a dentist 

doing rootwork with a hoodoo horn 

hollering Bebop toasts 

was you Petey Wheatstraw 

Satchmo’s son-in-law?

maybe a signifyin junkie 

with a monkey on his back 

perhaps Shine below the Titanic’s deck

shoveling until 

you could blue like Bird 

or freight like Trane 

early like Bird 

then night like Trane 

wing like Bird 

yet rail like a Trane 

rumbling underground. 

“Night-colored” implies sable 

as a mile of tamped tarmac or 

a nocturne rising on raven wings

jet in the sky Round Midnight 

or a cast iron kettle with a Bitch’s Brew funereal past the repast

so black, it's Kind of Blue 

maybe not slick as black ice 

or cool as black snow 

but sweet as black cherries

on the Downbeat 

like a blackjack 

black jackhammer 

black Jack Johnson 

black Jack 

of all trumpeting trades 

three shades past inkblack

to Vantablack 

or oilblack 

cinderblack 

kohlblack 

bootblack stomping

the bottom of the hole black 

indecipherable prints of darkness

is that a black tube cutting off blood

to one arm—black ring 

darkening a woman’s eye 

do I see a keloid fraught with

what you fought with 

your black turned to the audience 

bleeding coolly into colors of night. 

“Magi” implies muted druid

of the blues

Traveling Miles

to follow charted stars

Miles in the Sky 

O Dark Magus, keep us minders 

of the metronome On The Corner

O soloing Sorcerer with E.S.P. 

O high priest of improvisation

testifying in a funky Tutu 

about 5,280 feet 

climbing 1.6 klicks 

in search of Amandla

electrical Live and Evil 

blowing East St. Louie's Blues 

but In a Silent Way

to take Blue in Green from Bill 

or cast a net of knotted cords 

around Bag's Groove

O Magi buried in imagination

say So What and make Milestones

crash the stained-glass windows of jazz 

have mercy, Man with a Horn

O style more joyful noises till we

rehearse more verses of Sufi Blues 

and Orisha run the Voodoo down 

to rework our square roots 

into modal scales or ghostly notes

as we waif in this water 

wholly dark and deep 

with miles to go before we sleep 

with miles to go before we sleep

Another look at Lonnie’s Lament

 The following poem was partly inspired by one of my favorite Coltrane compositions. It appears in the NJ public television documentary I did and in my book “Ideas of Improvisation”. Here is a revised version of the poem that is much closer to what I was always trying to do. 

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION WITH SUSPENDED CHORDS

( for G.S.)

 

Mainly because

it was a Thursday

(which was her Monday),

and she was walking by

as if bent by something 

too heavy to be carried

in her hands,

and I thought I heard 

her sigh like a parchment

unscrolling in the wind

and recalled Lonnie

(who you might not know)

not Lonnie who pawned

his wedding band 

to feed the penny slots

nor Lonnie from The Hill

who always seemed

half a slice short

of a sandwich,

but Lonnie from

'Lonnie's Lament'

—and here she

cocks her head and

wrinkles her nose—

maybe because 

whatever seemed to slant 

Lonnie’s rain so sideways

also caused Coltrane 

to raise his saxophone

and vanish into a wail

that nearly matches 

the indigo swish

of her Monday motion—

those legs almost legato 

as piano lines

or her bassline

of hair that plunges

like a black Niagara

when she turns

and shakes it free—

and now our eyes 

briefly meet—

which she can't know

unzips the earth underneath

and makes me want 

to kneel & pray 

to spend the rest of my days

trembling and naked

in a maple barrel—

falling forever through 

her obsidian mane.