radiating
street lamps
ionized the
indigo blue
haze charging
the night air

sparking the
city’s eclectic
currents coursing
through the
abandoned raceways
and empty streets

energizing the
phantoms of
the city’s
restive spirits

the ghosts of past
Great Falls Fests came
jitterbugging back
to life

transparent
veils lifting
and falling
with it, a voltaic
indigo blue
billowed out of the
abandoned stadium
pouring smoking
oboe moans
into the cavity
of the great gorge

“I was one of the last
to perform at
Hinchliffe Stadium”
Duke proclaimed
with his usual  
distinguished air

“it was also one of my
last concerts”, he added
with a tinge of
sorrow in his voice

“the band was rockin
the Art Deco tiles,
splintering and shattering
into bits of earth toned graffiti
the last vestiges of
a bygone Jazz Age
dissolving into the
disco fizz of the
Seventies”

the indigo mood
clamoured off
the rocks absorbing
the sonorous waves
like a stand of
hallowed
sequoias

“I’m trying to
remember what
my last tune
was that night.

was it Caravan?
or a Prelude to
a Kiss?  No no
too mellow
we always ended
on an upper
a real crowd pleaser,
I recall the boys swung
a medley before the grand finale
that medley included
Mood Indigo, Caravan,
Sophisticated Ladies,
Prelude to a Kiss.
We opened with Kinda Dukish
Rockin and Rhythm
we closed with
Satin Doll
Yes I’m quite sure
I waltzed them
off the floor
that night with
Satin Doll”

Duke ran his
fingers through
his processed hair.
He grabbed my shoulders
raised his baggy eyelids
And looked me straight
In the eye

“Yes, we followed
Tito Puente, he killed it
we upped our game
He was just starting out
But at this time Silk City
was going Caribe
Juan Tizol was
out of his mind that night,
I thought him and Babs
we're gunna jump ship
and join the Salsa Circus
Yeah El Rex and Celia Cruz
were that good

El Rex had the place
jumpin and jivin
it was a glimpse of the old days
livin in the here and now
just like the old days
I couldn't compete with that
so I waltzed them off
the floor with Satin Doll
a little cheek to cheek swoon
maybe some guys got lucky that night
and maybe some girls fell in love
Yeah Paterson was changing,
the ***** Leagues long gone
the last ****** Auto Races
crossed the final finish line weeks before
when the raceways in the stadium
replaced the raceways to the factories
we knew it was coming to an end
and with it all the good paying
jobs, whatta shame
just like me and the boys
watching El Rex
the Duke was dethroned by a King
just like Silk City
we had our day in the sun too
a Satin Doll Sun
Those were some good times,
sometimes”

Duke scratched
his head,
and he looked down into
the swirling noise
of the Great Falls
“on a night like this
the mood indigo
takes you into the
darkest hues of blues”

fragment from
Silk City PIT 6:
The Great Falls

Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins
Mood Indigo




Oakland
3/30/13
jbm

(FRAGMENT WORK IN PROGRESS)

Part 6 of extended poem Silk City PIT.  PIT is an acronym for Point In Time.  PIT is an annual census American cities conduct to count the homeless population.  Hope and Labor is the city motto of Paterson NJ, nick named The Silk City.

The other night, I swore I gazed into the past. I saw a kid who was selfish. Not caring, never stressin. Never knowin I saw a teen, who didn't fit. Didn't make the cut, who never made anything grass hopper complex? Then I saw a man, whose hurt.

a goat encounters a lion. normally the lion sees the goat as food. instead The Lion offers shelter warmth theo goat offered protection awkward that a four-legged hooved animal could protect the queen of the jungle protection together they stood both natural leaders both immature in the ways at the time neither wanted to back down from the other but that's what made it work despite the goats dexterity and natural stubbornness in his ways the lion SAT and ate with the goat. years and years they feast upon the golden ducks they collected at the rivers which they traveled odd as combination is professionals know that that is not even a combination amongst the food chain but fore a while they dined peacefully. the lion roared bloodthirsty the goat while being the loner the leader willfully back down from the lion scenario has a goat beat a lion. The goat couldn't bear the lion parting ways the goat be that as it may just wanted his own way but the goat has to learn sometimes the best win is to back off not every wall is meant to be broken especially that of a lion and her pride so the lion beautiful as ever smirked as if we were the prey and the goat knowingly put his head inside her mouth I'll let you tell it

sometimes I think I'll be playing myself reminiscing about everything that happened looking back wondering where I f* ed up at. you know if you take love for granted it doesn't take you something out at younger me. I used to be a fool for deception. now deception prays on me. if we're living a lie I gladly accept my consequences. which means you lying down with someone else. If i said he's not better than me and I'm just hating, envious, jaded. ever so green I envisioned us traveling the world together at one point. this is merely stuff I can't see. so I travel alone looking for mere traces of you the mirror don't even feel the same. out the corner of my eye were like the stars at night. just like that in the cloudy evening nowhere to be found. I've seen the earth move. I've watch sunsets not appreciative of what I had and have not knowing what I've lost, is worth more than any dollar known to man. the next pull of my cigarette fills my lungs I know it's bad for my health but, it makes me feel not even half of what your smile gives me and your goofy *** laugh. punk *** I once wrote a lyric i try and I try.I don't know sometimes the way the Sun light connects with your eyes. it's just something about it I couldn't even describe. we both got lives I live in yours I wish you lived in mine.
dear selfishness,

to the women of my life. Im ashamed to say I've done some things that never should have done. leaving you stranded at the first sign of trouble. not being there when needed at the most. taking you for granted thinking you always be there, how forgetful am I. the times we shared. the time I should have spent. all the gifts given to me foolishly spent as if a young kid with money for the first time. You know that first time you bought you own clothes. my mother would slap me for you. my grandmother would have loved you. I wish you were here my brother speaks of you often. we both wonder where are you hopefully living. miss your punk *** too. don't get f* up you know I love you. I miss the way you subtly flirting with me I'm miss you lying. I respect your ways and failed to recognize the fact you respected mine. all of us have secrets. some of us wish to share more. yeah I'm still selfish in my ways into a matured understand the old cliche goes you never know what you have until you lose it. knowing what I know now we were just Batman and Robin Bonnie and Clyde bye bye blackbird. it's too bad sometimes my mother taught me way better than that. my sister would have disowned me not I'm a little more mature there's no second chance cuz the second hand is broken thus I leave it at that the woman of my life.

I wake up thinking of ways to entertain her and please her within the spectrum our existence. even through all the flaws and setbacks I have yet to accomplish or obtain any mastery of loving or living her what's so to speaking of her. I want to be her morning breath. I want to be that first cigarette a smoker who has smoke for 10 years has in the morning. That first pull. That first inhale that first exhale. I want to be that sudden change that urge to quit. Yet the same reason she can't turn away. somehow I still struggle with the mastery and the ability to obtain the way of loving her entire being
renee.

I wake up thinking of ways to entertain her and please her within the spectrum our existence. even through all the flaws and setbacks I have yet to accomplish or obtain any mastery of loving or living her what's so to speaking of her. I want to be her morning breath. I want to be that first cigarette a smoker who has smoke for 10 years has in the morning. That first pull. That first inhale that first exhale. I want to be that sudden change that urge to quit. Yet the same reason she can't turn away. somehow I still struggle with the mastery and the ability to obtain the way of loving her entire being
renee.

I wake up thinking of ways to entertain her and please her within the spectrum our existence. even through all the flaws and setbacks I have yet to accomplish or obtain any mastery of loving or living her what's so to speaking of her. I want to be her morning breath. I want to be that first cigarette a smoker who has smoke for 10 years has in the morning. That first pull. That first inhale that first exhale. I want to be that sudden change that urge to quit. Yet the same reason she can't turn away. somehow I still struggle with the mastery and the ability to obtain the way of loving her entire being
renee.

Dream of the Melbourne Cup by Banjo Paterson
Bring me a quart of colonial beer
And some doughy damper to make good cheer,

We pass the
walled incline
of Barbour Park

during the day
a foreboding
patch…an open
air market for
the slave merchants
hustling crack and
**** drippin ****
that's been stepped
on so many times
its a wonder the cut
can still chide a high
out of a wrangled soul

the park’s
modest elevation
is an advantageous
lookout for
runners dealing
dimes while
petty ante
gangstas
daydream
gun blazing glories
of their next big job

not long ago
the park was
refurbed with
an industrial
strength plastic
Jungle Jim,
soon after
the park was
condemned
as a no go
zone for kids,
the litter of
hypodermic
needles and
mounds of
lead spiked
soil, deemed
a public health
risk for youth...
quickly
repurposed
as a crib
for ballers…

back in the
day, the shady
pocket park
lifted Paterson’s
citizenry off
the heated
pavements of
a bustling
thoroughfare

a respite from
the pulsing
tensions of urbanity,
a secular sanctuary,
balancing the urgent
industry of commerce
with the propriety of
residential life

compacting a
brief escape
from the clanging
metronome with
a viewing stand
offering elevation...
a heightened
perspective on
life’s parade
marching
up and down
Broadway…

this urban
oasis planted
at the center
of Silk City’s
grandiloquent
boulevard,
occupies
the most
democratic
equidistant
transit point
between opulent
Eastside mansions
of livin large tycoons
at one end….
and the
industrial district of
The Great Falls,
rising at Broadway’s
western terminus,
assiduously
manufacturing
dollars for the darlings
of fortune and
subsistence for
workers yearning to taste
the crumbs of
prosperity that may fall
from the tables of
opportunity

the park once a
pleasant face of
the landlocked
4th Ward filled
with homage to
a nation's greatest
citizens, Hamilton,
Rosa Parks,
Lafayette,
Madison, Fulton,
Montgomery and
Franklin has
denounced the
virtuous pursuit of
their aspirational
yearnings

now playas
feast on
the mead
of sustenance
harvested from
emaciated streets

commerce has taken
up full residency...
the wards cottage industry
cannibalizing
homes, hoods and
homeboys

as the
4th Ward
grows ugly,
the healthy
matrix of
bustling
street life
breaks down
the peeps
weakened
lay prostate
offer veins
to blood *******
predators
roaming
distressed
going south
neighborhoods

wise guy
knuckleheads,
get busy
gaming
the system
short changing
themselves and
hustling game
to get by
in the sweet bye
and buy of life

at night
a back lit
Barbour Park
floods with the
yellow haze of
blinking Fair St.
lamp posts
and the pulsing
halations
crowning the
Baptist's
of St. Luke's

sentient figures
shift between
park benches
flitting among the
black torsos
of skeletal trees
blending into
the faded
complexion
of abandoned
swing sets

I swear I see
Hurricane Carter
shadow boxing
dancing
around a gangling
Elm, jabbing
away, lifting
a sweet uppercut
working combos
of left hooks
and right crosses
hoping to drop an
intractable
presence
banging away
at a body politic
forming the walls
of taunting
inequities

Hurricane stays
busy delivering
body blows
to burst
through the
prison bars
surrounding
Barbour Park

Music selection:
Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Paterson
01/30/13
jbm

A fragment from extended poem Silk City PIT.  
Published today to honor the death of Rubin Hurricane Carter.
May he find the freedom in eternal rest that eluded him during his lifetime.