Ode to Utah Phillips

No one could ever be so blessed
With the complete lexicon
Of an entire history,
The complete experience,
Of those whose roots
Are salt and coal,
Steel and timber.

Generations of working folk
Live inside his grandfather’s beard:
Their songs of struggle,
Songs of solidarity,
Form the solitary
And singular
Purpose of this library
Built upon a railroad.

His life was an echo,
A reverberating remembrance,
A bridge to the past
That he dedicated his life
To building,
Bringing years, centuries,
Life and death,
Together in unison,
Reminding us
That the past
Is still in our hearts
In song.

Ode to Robert Johnson

The awkward shy boy
Walked down the dusty road
And found his soul on fire
At the crossroads.

The smell of BBQ, brimstone,
Whiskey and sulfur,
Seasoned the howls
Of the hellhound on his trail.

He returned from his obscurity
With a bottleneck
Sliding along steel strings;
With a voice of copper mash
Piercing holes in your spine
He dragged the devil out of a guitar
And shredded his heart
In pursuit of salvation,
Trying to draw the shine from the moon
With the crying shout
Of his haunting heartache.

He tore the eyes out of despair
And scraped the flesh from sadness,
The shrill knife of his vocal lament
Carved a hole from eternity
That was flayed upon the flames
Of his smoldering strings
Ringing out across the Delta.

Ode to Susana Baca

Her throat is a loom
Spinning vocal fleece,
Songs like silk,
Milk and honey,
Sweet like surrender,
Giving in to the breeze
Only she sees
When parting her lips
To whisper her sensual
Secret
Softness.

Ode to Jimi Hendrix

Lightning
Liquid
And
Laughter.

Electricity
Only accentuated
Eccentricity,
It was all he had to do
To plug his brain
Into an amplifier
And let fall his liquid soul
Dripping from his
Octopus’s fingers,
Laughing that electric
Liquid laughter
So comical because
What he was doing
Was opening the sky
And letting his listeners
Glimpse the secret purple
Heart of the muse.

It wasn’t the LSD,
That liquid inspiration,
That only dissolved
The barriers of reason
That he kissed good-bye.
What was it he had,
What possessed the man
Like the devil had gotten into
His hands and was dying
To live upon the air?

What would you do
If you had the most beautiful
Woman
In your hands,
She who would do
Whatever you asked….

Music was not an art form
But love itself.
Six chakras strung upon a guitar,
He was the seventh, lining them up,
Dressed in flames,
Burning down the church
And making an altar
Out of the bed where he
Performed the divine sex act,
While he kissed the sky
And left a hurricane
Echoing in his wake.

Ode to John Coltrane

He comes dressed in scales,
Robed in blue notes
And riding a dragon,
Bringing chaos
And dragging order
In chains,
Reshaping the destiny
Of form.

At times
He seeks the purpose
Of the soothing seas,
Casting soft undulating waves
Creeping onto aural shores.

His voice through the reed
Trickles in like a stream,
You don’t know
What is around the next bend
But he guides you
Through the stepping stones
Until you arrive
At the waterfall.

And there waits the train
That runs ahead
Where none had dared venture,
And his voice becomes a sword,
A frantic assault on reason;
His instrument becomes a weapon
That tears into the consciousness
And lays waste to the calm,
Leaving you in tatters,
Wondering how something so terrifying
Could be so liberating.

Ode to Famoudou Konate

An ode to the man I consider my primary drum teacher. Now in his 70's, for me he is a sage that speaks with his hands. In a tradition like djembe drumming that has a hell of a lot of ego attached to it in both person and playing style, Famoudou is a djembefola ("one who makes the djembe speak") of both magnanimity and humble grace, a true master whose style merely accentuates the beauty of what he does rather than dominating the music.

Water flows from mountains
Rhythmically,
Merging sky and earth.
His is a wordless poetry,
Phonetic beauty
In beats.

If drums are fire
And drummers are lightning,
Then his purpose is water
Shaping the thunder.

Joy is simplicity,
His joy is simple:
Take what is already there
-the apparent beauty-
And make for it an altar
To exalt the dusty feet
Of the dancing earth.

Remembering Jigar

I wrote this the night my beloved maternal grandmother passed away in Los Angeles. It happened to be Memorial Day. Jigar is what my sister and I called her, it's Armenian for "liver," which might sound strange but it is a term of endearment since liver is a delicacy. In her life she lived through, witnessed, and was directly affected by two world wars, the French and then American involvement in Vietnam, radical Islam in the Middle East, and the Civil Rights struggle in America. Thus, to me it seemed rather ironic that after nine and a half decades of human misfortune she gave up her tiny body on Memorial Day. My mother and I were not present when her heart finally stopped, but we were there shortly after to give our prayers and blessings, my mother in her Christian way and me in my own way. It will always be one of the most profound experiences of my life. I will always remember Memorial Day for my own reasons.

May 29, 2006

This is a day of memories
Strewn red with blood
Under blue skies
Pasted over white skin,
Life fleeing from life.

This is a day of death-
Remembrance of those forgotten by god,
Those children who grew up too fast,
Sacrifices upon the altars of democracy,
The altars of communism,
Religions, nations, natural resources;
But you, dear Jigar,
You are my natural resource
And now I remember your depletion,
The completion of your life,
The cease-fire of your strife-
You have called your truce with pain
Your suffering is not in vain
So long as my veins carry your rivers
Until I too will merge with the sea.

The moon is a crescented bull horn,
A celestial megaphone beckoning your soul.
The sun will rise without you
And without your voice.

I will carry your memorial day
Until the end of my days.

The land is full of death.
Your ultimate breath fills the air
Pushing the circumference of a hospital room
With the warmth of your ethereal fire;
I see your tired body,
Spent,
No longer subject to sinking
Just floating
Waiting for the ashes to be brought forth.
For the last few years I have known
Only your eyes
And the primacy of your throat,
Long gone has been your voice calling me
-“Bala”-
Did you acknowledge in your silent way
When I finally cut my hair?
Did you realize your legacy to the world
In the flowers I presented to you,
Your great-grandchildren?
Yes, they are great and grand children
And they will know your name
For all it’s worth.

I wonder
Who came to meet you
At the crossroads?
Did you recognize their light?
Beyond ceiling tiles bleached white
And the mechanical lifelines,
Did you recognize your fatigue?

Only death clouds my eyes
Amidst the concrete and steel of this city-
The piles of trash and airless air-
I see flowers rich with meaning,
I see tropical abundance and life
In these plant teachers of the urban wilderness,
But only death clouds my eyes
The way life was a cloud in yours.
I see your mouth agape
Perched upon your head like a mysterious cave,
I see your body’s husk
A seashell adorned with the bells of death.

Still your hand
Grip tight no longer
Release the decades of your misfortune
Into my amethyst rocks
Rolling in amber tides.
I will watch for you this night
I will speak a spell
To illustrate the door of your departure
I will anoint your noble brow
With the oil of frankincense
And bless you where the world neglected you.
I crown you queen of the dead
And I declare this day for your passing,
You need not be a stranger amongst the dead,
Our ancestors have awaited you
And now a thousand eyes of a thousand years
Converge upon your crown
Flocking like hummingbirds to your Kali flower
Drawing forth your life into fourth dimension fruit.