By Kim Hunter
for faruq z. bey
1
a dark tall stranger than most
breaths life
into a question mark shaped
like a horn of plenty
hendrix quipped
you can’t call home
on a long distance saxophone
or was it you can’t go home
except long distance
the plutonian sax player
asked me why
hendrix sounded like he did
i mentioned the stratocaster’s
harp like transparence
even through a wall of electrical charges
and mountains of overpowering amplification
there was the sound of light
and it dawned on me
how they rose in the same generation
their brotherness otherness
the muslim as constructive hedonist
and it dawned on me
the fluid mechanics of jupiter’s clouds
was what he strained through be bop
a dark tall stranger in the night
skids along on a reed shaped rocket
thank god he had his helmet
a book of theory
to answer the question
why home seemed such a distance
measured in coltranes
mapped in volcanic whispers
dislocated in oceans of now
what happened was things
what happened
things were supposed to get better
what happens when
the outlaw becomes the law
and nothing is law but out
if there is a criminal element
i am of it
2
learned as a child
before childhood
before the eye separated
from the tongue and the ear
words from the tongue for the ear
motor noise
or how sirens call from cities
where ambulances scurry
like rats on a drowning ship
measured in coltranes
the blue reed
slick with black ice
the bell of the horn
tolling for thee
the keys as valves for
steam released in the birth process
circular as breath
in the century of my birth
a building had been leveled and cleared
on a city block
left for residents
mostly the descendants of slaves
there was no one else
and there he stood
in the municipality with the largest
percentage of africans in north america
stood calling through the volcanic whisper
come out dark citizens
and citizens of the dark
we’re going to jerk the twist
like junkie the bird
wave albert ayler’s cleveland cataclysm vibrato
found in a foreign river
drowned with blood
drawn from the map in his head
stood on the leveled city block
bell of the horn
open as sun
i like to think i was there
slapping my forehead in applause
howling at the alternate moon
the horn was just another
way to breathe
