Charlie Parker

-Charles Mingus

The grief fed night stumbles onto the Avenue 

like a bum leg joker tired of night’s silence 

and reaching for sound. He descends, head down 

spinning toward nausea as noise streams through 

gutters. Bird pulls up from shadow straight at 

swarms of angels warbling like Loons on a fog covered lake.

Weet deem waaaah, weet tao waa weem waaaaaaaaa. 

They say, “blow our voices through.” 

Blood and brass mix with spit and feather; 

with water and beak rise high towards a fragment 

of light.  Wings pull tight to the body as the bird falls 

like a dead weight focused on a single black spot 

in the center of the earth as small as a grave.  

On the dirty ground he builds a mansion, 

a melody, a new technology of pure audible prayer.  

It’s not blood now, but wine and dreams 

that pull us through. Two crows shadow the desert, 

a storm cloud circles the exact spot at the center 

of a woman which mimics his horn rising.

The air crisp and clean outside Birdland, 

and the tired club fills with smoke. Yardbird’s 

horn mourns the blue light of the living room,

the national anthem ends to snow, as the moon peaks 

the midnight sky and death reeks of cheap wine.