Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker by Williams Christopher Komunyakaa Yusef Evans Sandy Zolin Miriam Feinstein Sascha

Author:Williams, Christopher, Komunyakaa, Yusef, Evans, Sandy, Zolin, Miriam, Feinstein, Sascha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 2013-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

TESTIMONY

I

He hopped boxcars to Chitown

late fall, just a few steps

ahead of the hawk. After

sleepwalking to the 65 Club,

he begged Goon for a chance

to sit in with a borrowed sax.

He’d paid his dues for years

blowing ravenous after-hours

’til secrets filled with blues

rooted in Mississippi mud;

he confessed to Budd Johnson

that as a boy playing stickball,

sometimes he’d spy in a window

as they rehearsed back in K. C.

It was Goon who took him home,

gave him clothes & a clarinet.

Maybe that’s when he first

played laughter & crying

at the same time. Nights

sucked the day’s marrow

’til the hibernating moon grew

fat with lies & chords. Weeks

later, with the horn hocked,

he was on a slow Greyhound

headed for the Big Apple,

& “Honeysuckle Rose”

blossomed into body language,

driven by a sunset on the Hudson.

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