by Kevin Young
& tithing. We offer
our voices up
toward the windows
whose glass I knew
as colored, not stained—
our backs
made upright not by
the pews alone—
the brown
wood smooth, scrolled
arms grown
warm with wear—
& prayer—
Tell your neighbor
next to you
you love them—till
we exit
into the brightness
beyond the doors.
FIELD RECORDINGS
Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here together to get through this thing called life.
—PRINCE
THREE
Night Train
James Brown at B. B. King’s on New Year’s Eve
The one thing that can solve most
our problems is dancing. And sweat,
cold or not. And burnt ends
of ribs, or reason, of hair
singed & singing. The hot comb’s
caress. Days after
he dies, I see James Brown still
scheduled to play B. B. King’s
come New Year’s Eve—ringing
it in, us, falling to the floor
like the famous glittering midnight
ball drop, countdown, forehead full
of sweat, please, please,
please, please, begging
on his knees. The night
King was killed, shot
by the Memphis moan in a town
where B. B. King sang, Saint
James in Boston tells
the crowd: cool it. A riot
onstage, heartache
rehearsed, practiced, don’t dare
be late or miss a note
or you’ll find yourself fined
fifty bucks. A fortune. Even
the walls sweat. A God-
father’s confirmation suit,
his holler, wide-collared, grits
& greens. Encore. Exhausted
after, collapsed, carried
out, away, off—not on a gurney,
no bedsheet over
his bouffant, conk
shining, but, boots on,
in a cape glittering bright
as midnight, or its train.
Fishbone
[ CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STARS ]
I found your first
record yesterday—
it looked like the past
& sounded
like the future—
that combo platter I love best
of all. The black grooves gave
way to moans
of horns, yelps,
bass that leapt
like you did
on the cover—bald,
mohawked, knotted
& dreaded, bespoke
& be-hatted, daytime shades
& handkerchiefs
like a bank robber—
plaits & plaids on tweed
like gangster professors.
One of you grins,
most the rest
in mid-air soar.
[ CHECKERBOARD VANS ]
The apocalypse sounds
like this—
black men breaking in
to steal back the thing
once stole
from them. A drum
trash talking, trombone
tossed from off
stage into Angelo’s hands
less slid than shoved—
swift notes
swim past—then he throws
the horn back
like a salmon
into the wings, careless,
rehearsed. After Murphy’s Law
& the Beastie
Boys open the show
even Fishbone’s keyboard
player dervishes,
his body flung
like an epithet
into the fourth row’s
wishbone arms.
[ CREEPERS ]
Declaring nothing,
we’d cross customs,
dreads tucked
under our hats—
once inside
Spain or Paris, London
or some club, we’d let
loose & dance.
Give me the cheapest
thing they have,
says Davíd
so I bring him bitters
which even the bartender
declares undrinkable.
Davíd refuses
to say so, tries choking
down the pint
like pride. We never ate anyway
sitting down, Davíd always
looking for a cheaper
bite elsewhere, our stomachs
knotting & our hair. Eyes
mostly open,
Philippe & I drank & swam
through the dark waters
of Camdentown, high
on spliff & curry
our new friends cooked.
We black folks
invented all music
say our Australian-
Pakistani-British
friends. Everything then
shone in the blacklight—
our teeth
turnt violet.
We drank at the End
of the World,
pints three quid
& bitters far less—
would catch a taxi home
with those suicide
doors, watching the dawn
leak early above the low,
unopened buildings—
facing backwards
in the cab black
& shiny as a hearse, staring
at the wherever
we’d been, we slid
at every turn.
[ DOC MARTENS ]
Once I saved the bass
player from Fishbone
from getting his ass
handed to him, but not
before the fools bloodied
his lip & turnt
his pockets inside out
like a wish. All because,
Kendall, you refused
to rumble in that late night
chicken joint
where Philippe & I thought we’d die
as the regulars tried
picking a fight
with your bright
red coat, dreads
against your shoulder blades
like epaulets. The club we’d all been
now shut for the night—
the one Philippe & I had waited
outside of an hour, trying not
to beg. No one’s getting in—
then a posse with locks
longer than us & worse haircuts,
which is to say, cooler,
part the ropes—
Fishbone!
in London to play a show
so we sneak in
behind them, for tonight
just another
of the crew.
Every dread danced.
Starving, after, we enter the shack
&n
bsp; to find you taunted
by locals, loudmouths
who nick your change
& call you names.
Yankee, one says, shoving you
who refuses, you say,
to battle another man
who’s black. Once his crew
jumps you & runs through
the street, we reel you in,
Kendall, stop you from chasing them
into the night, insulted
as much as anything
to be alive—Back home, South
Central, you say, I’d be dead.
Your breath itself
a rebuke, passport
a passing memory.
In the cab we hail
& pay to ride you
back to your hotel, pacifism
gives way—
wounded not just
by the blows, you fume—
angry at being
here but no longer
whole. In the lobby,
we take your manager’s
payback & his promise
to leave us passes
for tomorrow’s show.
Was it shame,
honor, or disbelief,
didn’t
let us go?
[ JOHN FLUEVOGS ]
Months later I caught Fishbone
in New York at a church
turned into a night club
trying to film the video
for a song I still
don’t know. The one
we’d saved now gone,
decamped across Europe
believing in something
no longer. Neither
did you all, it seemed—
the gleam gone, everything
upright, no diving—
nothing cockamamie
or incomplete. We clap
on cue. Lip sunk, you must
repeat the song over
& over so the shifting camera
can capture you. Where had all
the altars gone?
Even my girlfriend an ex.
Even my memory like the mic
sounds faulty.
Feedback fills the air
& we exit early, back
to our little boxes
before the song is done—
come morning,
our ears will still
like church bells toll.
Lead Belly’s First Grave
is grey, plain, lowdown.
You have to crouch
near the ground to get
your picture made
beside it like Allen Ginsberg
& Robert Plant did, pilgrims
to where the music gave way
or starts. The stone’s
simple dates—birth, death—
shade the close-cropped grass
& the small pale flowers
someone plucked & offered up
or planted here beneath
a tree. The stone, silvery,
could be lead instead—
soft & heavy as his voice
& as deadly, slow.
His new tomb’s
tall almost
as a man—black,
sleek, costly.
Alongside it James Dickey
grins, elbow resting
on the stone like the shoulder
of a friend. The marker’s not
inelegant, the sepulcher
not quite the sheen
of the suits Lead Belly wore
soon as he threw off
the chains of the gang
for good, string-ties
& not the prison stripes
Alan Lomax would have him wear.
Huddie Ledbetter’s
second grave lists
his legend, has this
slab with a guitar engraved
& a black gate
to keep out the green—
hard to reach, easy
to read, there’s now
no need to kneel.
It
It’s rained for days.
He used to hate
hanging upside
down, now he can’t
get enough,
my son. At the bank
of elevators he bets
which one will arrive first
& is most times
right. He’s nine. Tonight
another neighbor
& good friend
called him nigger. I hear
the boys were all playing
a game called Lovie—
the point
is to call the It
names—bitch,
motherfucker, ass, they say,
& now nigger, who only he
dare not be.
The good thing
about this rain is that
his hair curls
even more & looks lush
& untamed. The bad
thing: this rain,
the wrong elevator
dinging down.
Ode to Big Pun
I’m not a prayer
I just wish a lot
De La Soul Is Dead
A ROLLER SKATING JAM NAMED SATURDAYS
We were black then, not yet
African American, so we danced
every chance we could get.
Thursday & Saturdays we’d chant
The roof! The roof! The roof
is on fire! We don’t need no water
& folks’ perms began to turn.
We had begun to dread
or wear locks anyway, our temples
we’d fade. We said word
& def, said dang & down & fly—
we gave no goodbyes,
just Alright then, or Bet.
No one was dead yet.
PEOPLE WHO DIED [ JIM CARROLL BAND ]
No one was dead yet.
Not that some didn’t try.
Often, friends of mine—
These are people who died
died—weekends drank too much
then broke into the pool & swam
though I was barely good at that.
The bottom I never did touch.
Home, almost dried, we’d listen
for the dawn, or to Mista Dobalina,
Mista Bob Dobalina—gloryhallastupid—
doused in eyeliner or lycra
& that was just the boys.
Our favorite song was noise.
JUNGLE BOOGIE [ 24-7 SPYZ ]
Our favorite song was noise.
Or Public Enemy turned up
past 10, a hype we’d not believe.
To get hype was the point—
to light out as sexy Star Trek
or as Scooby & his snacks, to chant
Black Music—Black Music—
& drop down as low as we can.
Fight the Power. Fuck
tha police. Break the grip of shame.
We’re 24-7 Spyz—who the fuck
are you. Tomorrow in flames,
we’ll rouse & march—tonight, play
Jungle Boogie, hoping someone will stay.
IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND
Hoping that someone would stay,
we readied tape decks & dubs
that flipped over to play
all night, like love—
that word we didn’t dare speak.
Why else did they invent drink?
except to excuse each mistake,
each deep kiss or steady rut
who, for days after, you’d duck.
Fire alarms were how we knew
who was zooming who. Or whom.
Morning’s for sleep; late night we’d talk;
dinner was for getting dressed at last,
anything, so long as it’s black.
EVERYBODY [ BLACK BOX ]
As long as it is black,
the record cut
like a dj track—
those 12-inches we spin
then quit dancing only
to re-arm again. Everybody,
Everybody, Everybody,
Everybody, O Everybody—
this was back when
we were almost African
American & black was just
who you were
not what you did. Or who.
And the night was black too.
THE SCENARIO
The two of us, black, met one night
dancing alongside each other to Tribe
at a party in the world’s smallest room.
Someone from Carolina brought moon-
shine & over the beat, the clanking heat,
Philippe leaned over his date
to say, Hey man, we should be friends.
What you know yo. And that
was that. Popping the caps off brown
Red Stripe bottles with his teeth
he’d drink out the side of his mouth,
sly. We heads kept ours dreaded, crowned—
a decade later he was gone.
The Scenario, our favorite of 500 songs.
FUNKIN’ LESSON
The Scenario. They Want EFX.
Fu-Schnickens. PRT. X-Clan.
The humpty dance
is your chance. The Funky Diabetic
Five-Footer rapping, I like em brown
yellow Puerto Rican & Haitian—
& Brazilian & Jamaican
& Maori & half-Nigerian
& Cablinasian & Perusian—
we can get down we can
we can get down. Queen