OLDIE BUT GOODY

 A CRY OF IMPROVISATION AT 33 ⅓ RPM

(for Eardrum)

First hold your lover's hand—

the needle.

Then lower it slowly

to tongue

a curve

            of the record's ear.

Maybe cultivate 

           what sweet beats

seem to bloom in the valley

of the groove

Next laugh at folks

who try to make requests

Because what Chef would let

the diners determine

Which entrees 

make the menu? 

Young boys

think it's about

            quick flicks of the wrist

            or transforming scratches

But could it be about 

            knowing the beat

            of every rhyme

like a mama knows 

her child's cries?

Or filling the page

            of the empty floor

with a cursive language

of dance?

Suppose nobody cares 

           how fast you scratch 

Cuz it ain’t 

            about soothing

any itch,

But about how many hairstyles

are still standing

At the end of the night?

Cabo Verde na Copa!

SEASCAPE WITH VESSEL

(for Cizè)

Because tonight—

even before you wrinkle

your nose and mouth 

with the sound of Sodade—
what craft in your tone
invokes ten toes of melancholy

on the Atlantic’s azure carpet?
What rasp in your Mindelo dialect

insists that if 

my name is Dias-Porter,

then surely I was born

on the 11th island—

the diaspora.
From this distance

I sip a liquid paradox

as the single malt 

of your amber timbre
spirals ever higher—

a passarinho’s blue tale

passing the echo 

of an old proverb—

“Si txuba ka bem, morri di fomi; 

si txuba bem, morri fogadu."
I know why

you plucked Frutu Proibido
to ripen in the night

with the ease of a girl
pulling seaweed from her hair.
But I don’t know how

you charted a Destino Negro
from a path between stars

with the skill of a boy
dribbling a ball of rolled up socks.
The wailing harpoon

of your contralto 

could also be aimed

at your sons working docks 

in Rotterdam,
or your daughters 

waiting on tables 

in Brockton’s taverns.
Is the hope 

of a rising hull

what kept your eyes squinting

towards the horizon?

Yes, fate can be prickly

as the arms of a pear cactus

and I recall how you burned 

through your gift

like Pico Grande’s molten lava 

through a new carton of Marlboros,

but for us whose only birthright
was a Gerbera daisy

in a dusty wind,
you meant

both morabeza 

& despidida.
Perhaps that’s why

if there is no rain
syllables of your song
settle into our soil,
or if there is no grain
kernels of your choruses
can sprout in our mouths.
Why your voice seems to circle 

into the shell of a turtle 

yearning to return us

to those ten rocks
whose ruggedness

wrinkles the aqua silk
of our sea.

Revision of a really old piece.

DIMINUENDO AND CRESCENDO IN BLUE

Brothers and Sisters,

Today I want to share

something with you 

from the Book of Ellington

about a dilemma

old as blue-green algae.

About what brings me

nightly to these crossroads,

black as a blueberry under

the heel of a stiletto,

blue as a Jay with its 

feathered crown in disarray.

Brothers and Sisters

—why must I sleep alone

while Cupid tickles me

with a blade of bluegrass

to draw my lapis laughter

like bath water til I’m hot 

under the cobalt collar?

I know some of yall

know what I’m talking about tonight.

It’s a question as electric 

as the Devil in a new Givenchy dress,

a question that’s had me waking up 

in a doorway on the avenue,

blue as five frostbitten fingers

glued to a Thunderbird bottle.

If you understand

what I’m talking about tonight,

—Somebody say amen.

Brothers and Sisters,

It makes me a muted trumpet

against a cloudless sky,

the crushed cornflower 

in a Viking's eyes.

Brothers & Sisters

please don’t cry or laugh,

but it’s a blue ribbon

around the neck of the fatted calf.

Can't you see through 

these Woolworth shades of blue,

something's stuck to my shoe,

and it aint paper money.

Can I get a witness.

Why must the new moon rise

and leave me St. Louis Blue,

with a gangster lean in a leaky canoe?

Why would Yemaya leave me

with a Leadbelly,

blind as a Lemon,

Howling like a Wolf

with a thorn in its foot?

Brothers and Sisters,

please hear this whole note

and come in from the misty blue,

before you too crumble into 

a porcelain plate of funky cheese.

I’m not saying it’s a hand

in a thumbscrew,

will outlast your teenaged tattoos,

or lock you into a rubber room 

with no view.

But it may have you 

progressing through 12 bars

that all overcharge 

for their Mermaid Lemonade.

Raise a hand if you hear me tonight.

Brothers and Sisters,

Some might say it’s turned me 

into a bluebottle fly 

flitting between purple and green,

wings tattered as a pair of old jeans.

Merci beaucoup,

It’s even had Winnie the Pooh

doing Voodoo in corrective shoes,

I hear it tracked two muddy boots

through the front yard of his heart

and left blueprints to an asylum 

in the freshly snowed parts.

Oh Heavenly Father,

why can’t I cordon these blues

I know that the geometry

of poetry is hyperbolic,

but can you tell me

if this is just the illusion

of a soul in a tuna meat suit?

Because it’s universally known 

to be cranky as a blue crab,

itchy as a new scab,

and scientifically proven 

to lower your IQ.

Somebody say amen!

Brothers and Sisters, 

listen up carefully tonight because 

the Postman always rings twice

to deliver this news—

Love mails all of its letters 

with the postage due.

Now, can I get a witness?