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David Murray



Last Updated: 12/16/2009

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State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 8/18/2006

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009 

Category: Music



THE SISYPHUS REVUE, A BOP OPERA







As part of the history of the United States, there is a sort of recurring and laborious movement of time endured by Blacks. Every time they win a battle, they lose it again a few years later. Like an eternal starting over…

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois calls that the Sisyphus Syndrome. Dubois, a major African-American activist known for fighting all forms of racism and discrimination and a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP – the largest and oldest civil-rights organization in the United States), said that the struggle for the liberation of Afro-Americans could be defined in the same way as the Greek myth of Sisyphus. In that tale, the son of the Wind God, Sisyphus of Corinth was condemned to death, but when deal came to find him, he resisted, claiming he saw no reason why he should have to meet that end when he was still young and strong. The Gods then punished the impetuous Sisyphus. The famous king, too avid and greedy, was condemned for eternity to push a heavy rock towards the top of a mountain that he could never reach, because the rock would always fall back down before it reached its goal.

“Dubois was saying that every time Black Americans succeeded in rolling the rock of what is represented by civil-rights equality to the top of the mountain, the cruel gods always pushed that rock down the mountain, so that Sisyphus’s people had to start the struggle over and over again.” As if “the gods” added to the weight of this rock segregation, discrimination, the Jim Crow laws (which strengthened the old slave culture of the Southern States) and the Ku Klux Klan.
I therefore tried to isolate the historic tendencies of the struggle movements acting positively and those marked by tragic defeats for black people. So the end of the anti-slavery struggle is logically a part of an ascending tendency, while the founding of the Ku Klux Klan or the Jim Crow laws are part of a backward movement. I envisioned this work through the history of African Americans in the United States, using key movements, events and characters in this history.”
Amiri Baraka and David Murray explore the contemporary aspects of the Greek allegory of Sisyphus, symbolizing American society’s constant struggle to maintain and develop the democratic space, and more generally representing the fight of the “many” against the “few”…
Working on a selection of ten poems by Baraka, Murray has composed music that complements and gives life to this work.
The project was first presented at the East Side Center in Oakland, California, in May 2008, with the composer and the poet in attendance.
A musical review was inspired by this initial stage, adding a chorus out of the great singing tradition of the very Baptist Church of God of Christ, which for the occasion will trade in its holy repertory for these inspired by the poems of Amiri Baraka. The famous meeting of the sacred and the profane.








LINE UP :
Amiri Baraka – poems and readings
David Murray – composition / direction, tenor sax, bass clarinet
Boots Riley – MC
Aamil Islam - Skeleton
Ranzel Merrit – drums
Jamaaladeen Tacuma – bass
Longineu Parsons – trumpet
Mingus Murray – guitar
Thorston Hudson Jr. – organ
The Deep River Gospel Choir – choir




Links to the official extracts from "The Sisyphus Revue - A Bop Opera" by Amiri Baraka, music by David Murray:









AMIRI BARAKA



THE GOD OF PAIN (Dr. Du Bois’ Song from The Sisyphus Syndrome)

There is a creature called  The God of Pain
 who hovers dead above  us,  but lives
as the twisted frown of a  mask
Not a fallen angel, but a  twisted angle
The life of the up side  down. The reflection
of life that only exists  because of what is real
The No that lives with Yes,  the Down that clings           
To Up, the death knell  sealed in the baby’s wail
The evil that is the  backwardness of its own name.
Falling out of the sky,  called the fall of man was
The rising of what shd be  dead, what has died, but
Lives as the unclarity un-  resolved memorized evil
Of the tortuous climb up  the ladder of all good change.
The beasts the bush savages  that fight against the coming
Of humanity, like the  beasts who refused to climb the tree
Of life and thus look at  the sky and see the beyond and
all that we all will be,  where we had paws we made hands
Where before we had growls  so we  made the A the E the  I
the O the U, & the DO  the RE the MI the FA the SOL, till we
cd sit with our family in  the tree of our humanity and laugh
at the beasts on all fours on the ground,  who wd never stand erect,
never see the stars, the  distant oceans, wd never talk and sing!
And in the ark of our  rising, the beast was its reflected opposite
And what it could not do,  it wd hate, and turn the bread of life
Into Pain.


DEAD PREZ

Lincoln was  murdered
Kennedy too &  after
Each time there was a  Vicecracker
Name Johnson, took  over
The  Crime !
 
John/ son, the head’s  chile
The toilet’s  baby
The bathroom’s  boy
Son of the Shit  house
Born in the Men’s Room
 
You cd always tell where  they be
Place start smellin like  doo doo and pee
They open they mouth to  talk and such
You know somebody forgot to  flush
 
House  Dicks
Like Nixon who approved  Aids as Population Stabilization
His name was his game, Nix  On, so the jigs cant turn
Like Monk and dig they  soul, the sun.
 
Whose Johnson was  they
Lynchem and Andy  J
Andy, young monopoly’s  pecker
Would have been a  hero
If they had impeached  him
But he was the doodle  imperialism wacked
With a ripped rubber dunce  hat over his lips
Which only allowed  drips
From his unattractive  Coming.
 
The poor whites  waited
Happy that niggers was  hated
But when they put the  boohoo on they face
They was so sorry, they  still thought it was about race
Was these house dicks for  the poor whites
Oh No Oh  No
Was they against the  niggers
Oh Yeh Oh  Yeh
 
Aint nuthin gonna change  this nation
North or south, until some  people
Figure this  out.
 
Its hard to  figure
Why some folks cant tell  Roy Rogers
From  Trigger
 
And with each of  them
Our future got more  grim
And whatever they  said
What ever we  read
We could feel, wasn’t  real
They worked even harder  than the dead
For the big dog  instead
 
So what was the  link
Between
JFK
&  ABE
what sealed their  mutual
fate hooked up  their
actual  doom ?
 
Now everyone together say  Negroes
If you ask both house  dicks
And the horde of ignorant  Americans
They might say it this  way
Both guys made too ùany  mistakes
In dealing with the  benighted snakes
And got wasted by god or  you know whooooo
 
Dr  King
The same  thing
& Malcolm X  too
all wasted by we know  who
 
(Spoken and Sung like a  Round)
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A  SECRET GOVERNMENT
In this  Nation
Who rule by lie, trick,  bribe
And  assassination
 
We was the  tricks
In the Florida  Coup
Reincarnated a son of a  bush
As Jeb, a confederate  general
To overthrew the  union
So the south cd rise  again
 
All made  possible
By we know  whoooo
 
& CIA Black ops was  used
the cops & low life  stooges
so the far right cd  advance
while covering the crime  with the dance
of Tom Ass Clarence in a  classic house Negro

trance, used to be called  the jerk
but it was more democracy  since
in the worst  hypocrisy
it was not only black folks  who was sold
but whitey should be  told
that he was equally sold  out
too.
Is Clarence a Negro or an  N-word ?




THE STONE FORCED UP

The stone forced  up
By your  desire
Then at the peak
The goal you  seek
Cannot be  reached
The stone hurled  back
Into your  teeth & now the air
Atop
the Mount is torn apart
And like a fount rings an+  insane cry the laugh of the beast
 DON’T CALL ME OUT MY NAME
ONLY THING I HATE WORSE  THAN GOOD
 IS YOU, I AM THE ANGEL OF PAIN !


I AM THE ANGEL OF PAIN !


 


SAY GOOD BY TO THE DEAD

Say Goodbye To The  Dead
 
The Good Dr  say
As he  reflected
One  day
The majorityof the world is  colored
And the future of the world
Is what colored people
Do and  say
If that is  thrilling
That we gon’ be  here
Despite the great  beast
Killing
 
Then say, « Oh yeh,  that’s right ! »
 
We is the majority of  humanity
And we gonna fight  (x4)
 
But be that as it  is
As long as it  stay
The world, oh  enemy
Aint always gonna be that  way
 
Nothing, except the
Tons of bull  dookey
You got soaking of the  world
With lies
 
You already got sea  of
Words hiding and covering  your crimes
Giving you  disguise
 
But be that as it  is
As long as it  stay
The world, oh  enemy
Aint always gonna be that  way (x2)
 
One day you will  know
One day we’ll make  certain
You got to  go !
Oh  NO
That’s where it’s  at
One day you gonna get your  hat !
Or NO, you got to go OH  YEH, OH NO !



THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE

Was a name they gave
To our  confirmation
The  rejuvenation
The 20th century entrance

Of the Afro American Nation
 
Why, They said « Good  Bye !»
To us, from The Devil’s  band
Thought we’d get wasted
By Slavery and the Klan

That they could wipe us  out
Black children, woman and  man
 
But we too old to go like  that
We was slaves before they was even white
And them ancient slave makers
 Ain’t in sight
 
We was slaves, yeh, and  down on our knees,
How many times in bondage how many times
Had to fight to get  free
 
They say what goes  up
Must come down
You was laughing before
Now you frown
 
But what is  true
What must be learned
Is no matter
The defeat
The tragic
Downturn
We still get  stronger
Stronger than we was
We still come back
Our strength returned
 
So aint no  future
Of permanent  losing
They tells you that to  plant confusion
 
Unite don’t  split
Don’t conspire and  intrigue
Be Open and Above  Board
I got that from the  Chinese
 
History is a mammy  jammer
Our story a tale of turmoil  and drama
 
The future belong to those  who will be
At one with the world of  humanity
 
Those who propose to  enslave the world
Very soon will be  trying
To climb out of the  hell
Where they have been  hurled
 
The People surge  upward
Held back by  backward
Only a beat or  two
 
Our story is  long
Struggle not  new
 
« Unite the  Many
to Defeat the  Few ! »




UNITED FRONT SONG

What why what why why  why
 
What why what  why
That we can’t stand by that  we can’t unite
Two giants of the the  race
Who seldom spoke face to  face
What why is that that makes  it like that what why
Is it like you and I, you  nationalist
You socialist, you  Christian, you Muslim, what why, you black Jew, I can’t get along with  you ?
 
You Democrat Negro,  Republican
You intellectual, you  activist, you moor, you father divine,
We can fight all the time,  but why can’t we talk, why can’t we walk
You preacher, you miner,  you truck driver, you teacher, you dock worker, you social worker,  you
Union brother sister, why  do we resist us,
Like Great Garvey and  DuBois
Malcolm and Dr King, would  they could embrace, for the strength and future
Of the race. What they said  what they did, in their heroic lives
For whatever they did  hunt
How much stronger would we  be
With a black united  front !! (vamp)
 
So we struggle to unbuckle  the chains of slavery discrimination the racism
Of national oppression, for  if we are a nation, then the most basic foundation,
Is that unity in struggle,  that unity to struggle, that political basic need
For our struggle to  free us  that unity of focus, not monolithic, but  a
Unity around issues, a  unity based on struggle, not uniformity but  principle
Yeh we’ll argue without  lies, and won’t have to compromise, but in our  freedom
Hunt there is one factor  that must precede is a black united front.




THE UP & DOWN OF BLACKNESS

This morning we sad  thinking of what we thought
We had
& so the Stone rolls  back, from the power of the
Devil’s counter attack
But see, no one else will  be responsible for our
Lives but we
The Masks of Life with us  beyond time & eternity
One a smile, the other a  frown
Just when we turn our path,  our being off the ground
The Devil at the top, force  the rise to stop
& our happy face  reverse back to a frown
 
Remember then what the old  folks say
 
«  I may be  wrong
but I won’t be  wrong
Always
The sun gone shine in my  back door
One  day ! »



RENAISSANCE GONE

The Renaissance ended on  dead out lived
What hear ye then, the sound of splitting money,
Coin, join was it whether a spot a what
Perhaps-
But at the market, fishy, at the empty
Waving merely wishy. Love  something now
You can touch the why why  cryin’
 
We stand or was you under  that
Shadow bridge learning
Disaster ? Who asked was
Recoming becoming you are uncertain
& so what is clear  appears
 
It’s a dead thing. How can it fight ?
The dead fight best they have no fear.
They already dead. That is their strength
 
You know that veil, yet can’t dis your fear
A saw, garbage can ventriloquist with
No legs, instilling its smell as begs we remember, nothing but  desire
And the old black ditch  where
There was fire. But that  was higher
 
We was earlier new  matches
But if there is still alive in you
What brought you greenly what
 
Blew, the world inside you
Stuttering to recall itself as something
We knew. Perhaps.
 
We put on the black face
The way of
He who can be slapped.
That’s coins falling  through the sky
Millions of flaming devils
 
Dr. Jeckyl mocking  shekels
Need the books clout inside
The deluge. The crime, the
The gift, the  time. Awake dreaming
Silent screaming, a prison
Of scheming, you Shine,  where is
Your gleaming, what gives with
Your people, your roll up
Your thousand dances
Your dittoed towers
Your thought up  power
Your  visionaries, your triumphs
Your tongues, Your Hypnotic
Gestures, your Sambos & &Lothars are  they
You when  you arrive, out of breath
Dead on your feet, whipped, pooped             
Your heart gone to college,  your
Soul sold with your  knowledge
 
I love you for  real
I still love you,  man
If I could only find  you
If I  only had a mind to
If I only wanted to laugh again
If I still  remember how to sing
If I was still  I if youcould
Remember  Why
Why we loved each  other
Why we needed each  other
Why we  could be each other
Why we got removed from
Ourselves, got  split, got
Bit, hit, quit, pouted
Growled in the dumbness
Of last last our victory shouted
 
That’s money, coins & kings, ethnic
Confusion,  books paid with confusion
John  on the island, screaming in
Silence. The three horses comin’
Over our head, the  one fixed above
Us looks like a cloud, a crowd,
An arrow, A cross bow, a King, a
A boat,  an absence, a concert, a
Curtsy, a question
A quest shunned
A who,  spinning
A raped city
A theory
W/ 3 legged 2 headed
Rushing above  us & going
No more rains only colored  knees
The color of nothing
The whooo whoosh wailin
Oh hoof beats hoof beats
 
& we thought it was just the
radio, Vaughan Monroe  singing
Ghost Riders In The sky
 
When we got older
That make believe ballroom
Could make us cry. Again
Again Again Why
 
 
It’s Hitler               -No
It’s Hitler               -So What
It’s Hitler               -Hey, Mussolini !
It’s Hitler               -Bilbo Stennis
It’s Hitler               -Yellow Menace
It’s Hitler               -Mississippi
It’s Hitler               -Oh, Eastland
It’s Hitler               -Plantation to Concentration
It’s Hitler               -Black You & The Jew
It’s Hitler               -V for Victory
                      in  Europe Double V
                                      For  over here too !
It’s Hitler               -Alabama
It’s Hitler               -Auschwitz near Atlanta
It’s Hitler               -But Duke just left
It’s Hitler               -What that mean ?
It’s Hitler               -911 at the Reichstag in 1933
It’s Hitler               -1939
It’s Hitler               -Ask Auden
It’s Hitler               -When do we fight ?
It’s  Hitler
Born in America
Got famous in Europe
 
Killing Niggers ain’t  nothing
But he start killing  Jews
It got to be news
 
It’s Hitler               -Not just one Dude
It’s Hitler               -Krupp, Farben, Volkswagen, Dulles &  Lindberg
It’s Hitler               -The
 
Hitler arrived like he  grew
On a tree
 
That was back in the  thirties
But that was not the  end
 
Fascism in  America
Has a different
Name
 
The American word  for
Nazi
Is American
(But the meaning still the  same)
 
& that hanging  tree
the Fuhrer grew on
got burned to the  ground
 
But look again by us  grows
An ugly Bush
Turned that  maniacal
Nazi sound
To  a  hush
 
But now if you listen &  look
Near by us
There is growing
A hideous Sieg  Heil
 Bush



NOTE TO BE PASSED FROM SWEATY HANDS

Beware these fake  distances
These sectarian boxes
Resemble coffins
 
If we  are  correct
Let  it also save
Our neck, do not be
So correct, suicide
Is your reward
We said, if we could, to Liebnecht
& Luxembourg
fleeing the Social Democrats
with more energy
than the garbage
on fire eyes
of  the padded cell
nut  who approaches
to kill you both.



KNEW NEST

We thot they was magic
We thot they was ghosts
We thot they had copped us
To make us a meal
How wrong you can be
& still be right
 
We thot they could pull off they skin
That’s why they was white
So when yo boy JJ return
We thot he was us
& we couldn’t get burned
 
How right you can  be
& still be wrong
 
The cracker didn’t eat  us
But he tried to
 
The Negro lie & betray  us
Made us cry too
 
How right you can  be
& be wrong or wrong you can be
& be right
 
got no never more horizon  to cop
no destiny by a midget hide  in the sky
no remorse which is money&shiny bone
No loss, no death, no  smile, no
Jive heaven  child
Just yo self peepa black  colored Negro
Just we self us & them,  you & me
& them, all all (who  aint eat child
the criminal bush cannibal vampire
 
all color except hate blank  none swell
all language, except BS the  unkempt gibber devil
all place, except hell bomb  square lame town
all mind, except No  Mind
All soul, except No soul or  sould out
All size, shape, gender,  splendor, talk, sing, dance
All what is what do be  happy live is
The truth & beauty. All  Truth All Beauty
A Woman, A Man,  A Child, A  Whooooooooo



WHY OUR LIVES (The song of The Sisyphus)

When they kill our leaders, divide
The rest, the world ain’t over
It’s just a test

We were full of the  joy of  struggle
When  we forced the huge stone up the mountain  high
Young  people felt immortal
We  felt so strong we could never die

But the trick of  the world is  rhythm
The  space between worlds
Like  the chasm between Be & At
As  old as we are we were halted
Old  as we are we went
For  that.

But we are a line  of infinity
Our  faces change like places
Our  being transform like
Time  & space

 But  the Blue Streak of coming
The  Black  past of our always home
The journey  through  life’s spectrum
Our touching of the  coming and the  unknown
Speaks to  the everness of our being
The  neverness of the not,
The  world of time without end  

You minds and souls  of the Wholly  World
You presences &  images & ultimate  matter
Of what is, you are  the was, the is,  &
The will   be.

As  you pass sing for us that song
Of  ourselves. As you rise &  change
With  the moon & stars, the sweep
Of where  & when

The  Hello, that rings through the everywhere
The  Hey Now! That robes whatever becomes
The  Blueness of coming The Greenness of
 Growing,  The Red ness of  Well.
It’s  all right, like you still so hip
You  go back to the Black, we hear you
We  hear ourselves, we is after all
Everything  Now & Will be.
 
 
Is the UnAmericans The Real  Americans ?
(50’s Spike Jones Nonsense  tune, with horns, whistles, gongs)
 
In the fifties there was  two famous dummies
One was Charlie the other  was Joe,
Joe emerged like  a
Giant termite, to chew up  the flag
To a deadly  white
 
Our blood was  evil
Because it was  Red
And we ourselves is  Blue
So that had to be took out  too
 
The problem was the rise of  democracy
Fighting fascism in the  second world war
Exposed the American  dream
As White  supremacy
 
Imperialist  ventriloquist
Raised a red  scare
To cover a democracy that  had never been there
 
So our red allies in  WW2
Were demonized by Flunky  Media
Before the bourgeoisie was  through
 
Some WACK  politicians
Stooging for the  dead
Attacked all who opposed  them
Accused them of Being  Red
 
Finally people began to see  the strings in
Joe’s  wooden head
& peeped the puppet  master
by where the strings  led
 
Joe was in the capitol,  representing capital
Crouching at his master’s  feet
Who pulled his strings  directly from
Wall  Street
 
Meanwhile the Hollywood Ten  went to jail
For making flicks that  wouldn’t make you sick
Dashell Hammet, the Thin  Man searching for
The Maltese Falcon was  jailed because he was a private I
Not public lie, Alphaeus  Huton, Dr Du Bois’ man
Got jumped when they busted  the Dr and  Robeson
For refusing to deny that  America was Poison
 
The movies aint been much  after that, and finks like Kazan,
Got great careers and Larry  Parks got paid to be Jolson
Imitating the  Darks
 
They got people fired, got  snitches hired, made punks out of erstwhile intellectuals
Made haughty, academics  quiet and ineffectual, Robeson under House Arrest,
Du Bois passport seized,  Richard Wright turned Right, Langston got shaky,  Reagan
Became an FBI informer,  lobotomy for Frances Farmer, Zero Mostel, caught  hell
He wouldn’t tell, Lee J  Cobb kneeled, Sterling Hayden squealed, Jackie  Robinson
Stole home by putting down  Robeson, Canada Lee was blackballed  he was  already
Black, it became a crime to  think, they called it the Smith Act, so they cd  send
The CP leadership  to jail. And skunks, and fools, and betrayers and naysayers,  and
Whores and Winchells, and  Red Channels and Hiss dismissed, insanity passed for vanity, and knives were  plunged into backs all across this land. And when the  final
Ugliness of this purge of  democracy from the fake  democracy  plummeted to its
Lowest there, they framed  the Rosenbergs and had them murdered in the  electric
Chair.
While the Bilboes and  Ennises, and Thurmans and Stennises and Klans and Kleagles, and hideous fat  appetites passing for human beings burped and  farted
And grinned and rested easy  in their greasy.
 
All the time lynching and  beating and robbing and cheating and character
Asassinating us and the  poor and working people and truth
 
And the country settled  back, it thought, to an oatmeal constipation, a baldhead, half grin, toy  soldier, who whispered military industrial complex just before he  died
To try to get into heaven.  But as punishment his son married Nixon’s daughter,
So God knew he  lied.
 
But that was not real, this  tense gobbledygook puddle of America spelled  mediocrity.
The man in the Grey Flannel  suit and Ike had been secretly feeling on other women.
 
But the Reflection on  Insurection, The Invisible Man from 54, was ultra  violet,
Began to appear viewed  under certain instruments, the ultra violence of  Mississipi
Called money which is made  by slaughtering niggers for rapping Miss America with
They words they eyes they  ideas they needs they existence. Emmett Till  smashed
Head in Jet, the undigested  nigra hope answered with bullets and rope, a 13 year  old
Boy.
 Miss America’s uncle chose to destroy and  we saw in that colored magazine
That the cracker was evil  and obscene and we declared war somewhere in our  places
On the enemies of sweetness  and cool, the barbarian vandals who had sworn to  make
Out lives always and  forever their commode fill, whose laughter was always a  beacon
Of terror whose fatness or  wealth or cribs or rides or degrees or ease had always
Been scars on our  consciousness. Whose haughty insincerity even while being  kind
Was nothing but a minstrel  show
If only we would kill, but  we would not, we are too old, too advanced in life to  be
Murderers, otherwise they  would be memories even to themselves. But we hum
We watch. Our eyes swing,  our hands sometimes tremble, we stumble, we throw the
Hook shot, slide into  second, touch each other and laugh, pray inside ourselves that  we
Will not have to take these  maniacs’ lives.



RUN UP THE MOUNTAIN (SISYPHUS BOP)

Don’t be ‘fraid
The Beast is never strong
As he said
 
Charge into your  future
Of destiny to come
Don’t hesitate
Submit or succumb
 
We are the world of  what’s
Coming into being
It is a new life
You fee and be

Seeing
 
Don’t doubt your  strength
Or the wisdom of your  heart
Resist Triple Six &  his
Mulitple faces, Don’t  Believe
Or be tricked by the
Slickest of Racists
 
We are the people who
Created  civilization
Now our highest  art
Is to make the world
One Nation !
 
Go On, fly if you need,  Climb, walk
Run, Fight,  Rush
To the height, stalk, talk,  do what
Is Just, Swing, Sing, do  what we must
There is nothing more noble  than humanity’s
Being, re-being, go higher,  on fire, the
Sky past desire, move fast,  sail wail
Stay up, out last, educate,  mobilize
Don’t let ourselves be  trivialized
 
Get in, Get out, make a  fist, just insist
Look out, See in, speak to  all, never fall
The road is long the path  zigs and zags
Some who are friends might  become drags
Be clear on what you hear,  be certain
What you see, always know  your enemies
As well as you know your  friends.
 
Don’t be slow, but don’t be  too fast, it’s
A protracted struggle, we  got to last
But learn the world, and  all its looks
Be able to distinguish the  wise from the crooks
Learn from every thing, the  sky, the earth,
The people, animals, and  the church
Listen to people who work  every day.
Listen to what everybody  tell you
For free, they not getting  paid. Learn
From every, watch  the moon
& read books, look at  flicks, watch
the dancers, check the Singers,  dig
the music, be full of  poetry, understand old
people, learn from the  young, babies got
something to say, even if  they can’t say it
old folks’way. The sun is a  teacher
clouds are question marks,  the stars
their  periods. Ask the question  nobody
understands. Think up  answers they
will. Be for life. Against  Killers,
& People Sellers, and  the fake good willers.
 
Be Christ on day, Buddha  the next, Krishna
When you Blue, DuBois when  you true
Be Marley when you sing,  Langston when
You rap, Douglass when you  speak
Ho Chi Minh when they try  to sneak.
Be Fidel & Kick They  Booty, Roumaine when
You need Beauty, You can  act like Zora
Running the aesthetic of  anthropological
Colored Hip. You change to  Margaret Walker
To Valorize the people,  Jimmy Baldwin
To hyke the simply evil.  You can be
Cesaire & talk about  the entire island
Of the soul. You can speak  immediate
Wonderful Spanish, &  then you’ll be
Nicolas  Guillen
You is all the Africans you wanna
Be You was Diop yesterday,  Sembene
This morning. I heard you  in the bathroom
You was Marvin  Gaye !
Any one you love you can  become
Instantly, you was Malcolm in the  evening
Dr. King afternoon, just a  little bit later
You was talking like Robert  Williams
& your mouth became a  gun
 
Was you Robeson on the  weekend
I heard that Thunderous  voice, I knew
You was Nat Turner when I  saw a serpent
Burning. Somebody said you  was Lorraine cause
They saw a raisin risin’  & wondered was that
You who brought them slaves  up north on
A greyhound, they saw yall  getting off.
 
You was talking like Miles a minute ago,
Layin Bird’s crumpled vine  across a chair, said to square,
« So  What ? » Waiting for Trane to come…
I know you been Monk from  day number one.
 
You was Billie & Sassy  & Ella & Johnny Hartman
I heard you being Louis  & Buhainia
Dont blame ya putting  down
Lames paid talking about  Art,
But ain’t Blakey nor Farmer  and it sure aint
Tatum. You is them all the  time.
 
You the real President even with that  counterfeit
In your residence. No  Splivs in The Caucasian Crib.
But you is the only Rabbit,  the only Ben Webster, and I aint saying
You a predictable spook,  but I knew all the time
You’d show up as  Duke.
I ain’t crazy, I even  expected Basie
Anybody with the facts  would know
You’d come