Would-be angels, rejected or returned

to earth, ever eager to share their secrets—

which, suspiciously, all sound the same—

tend to talk about that white light

we’ll all stride toward, transitioning

from here to there, the strangeness

of dead lovers and famous names

(now friends) guiding them forward,

into some impossibly bright beacon.

And why does it always have to be white?

A white god with a white beard dressed

in white (never mind the poor souls

taught to run the other way whenever

they saw men in white robes), looking

like a slick car salesman saying No way

I can make a better deal on this trade-in.

Or consider the revelation of Malcolm X,

reading the dictionary from start to finish

as he bided time in the purgatory of prison,

unlearning what it takes to stay on the right

side of iron bars, figuring out as he did why

they say those who win write our history,

and why white makes right and the wrong

people get blackballed—according to a code

baked into words by the white pie in the sky:

a place where all will be revealed, baptizing

non-believers with the light of white, hot fire.

What did Albert Ayler see when he wept

into the East River, that night he disappeared

forever, having been driven more than halfway

to distraction by the voices that wouldn’t stop,

and why didn’t the Lamb of God put bread inside

his basket when he played the ecstasy of saints

marching in? Did he see a reflection—of himself

or the absent savior who died for his sins—or else

the void of all color & sound as a weary moon hid

behind the clouds, unwilling to witness one more

force majeure (holy ghosts keeping off the record)

amongst martyrs, the Devil, and the deep blue sea?

(*Avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler made albums at once decidedly—even provocatively—non-commercial, yet deeply spiritual and ecstatic, and like many other jazz musicians, despite being critically acclaimed, he ceaselessly struggled to make a living. In 1969 he wrote an open letter describing his apocalyptic visions and, after being asked why he was wearing a fur coat with his face covered in Vaseline in the summer heat, replied “Got to protect myself.” Ayler was found dead in New York City’s East River on November 25, 1970, a presumed suicide.)

Be wary of anyone filled with confidence,

insisting that everything was better before

the world went insane, suddenly too small

to satisfy the untold exigencies we inherit.

For one thing, humankind has always been

unbalanced: people with skin in the game

seldom tire of telling us it’s good business

having the powerful slice the pie of society.

And few of us feel unfairness more keenly

than artists caught between buying bread

and selling their souls, our markets incapable

of sustaining those who bear beautiful gifts.

To create one needs to live, and staying alive

means feeding the machine, so it’s impossible

to find peace, unless you abandon your Self—

believing that The Creator Has a Master Plan.

He licked it, not like a lollipop, but with intent,

the burden of royal tasters, back in bad old days:

tongue artists whose job was to absorb poison

and ensure it was palatable for noble appetites—

Wolf’s music his way of explaining: I asked you

for water and all you’re giving me is gasoline.

He would lick that mouth organ as if eating

the blues, taking a bite out of this hard life,

as a Black man living always under suspicion

of the same things he sang about: killing floors

& moaning at midnight, white eyes expecting

you to play the fool—or prove your innocence.

He licked the harmonica only because he had to

spend the rest of his time swallowing the gristle

of separate but equal, and all the things awful

about the South—and North; no safe haven then

(& now); either sitting on top of the world or else

you’re going down slow, one spoonful at a time.

(On May 31, 1959—as she lay dying at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York, aged 44—Billie Holiday was arrested, handcuffed, and put under police guard for possession of narcotics.)

This busy bee, at the end of a life like clockwork,

a symphony of service to everything but herself—

wings snatched in a world blinded by the way it is—

slowly expiring in the sweet nectar of stillness, stung

with bittersweet poison, an alchemy of blinded faith.

And even this they could not abide.

Their white-hot burden, unappeasable,

like anti-gravity drawing light inside

its sense of self: righteous, obdurate,

enfeebled from all their inherited fears.

Who are these men that know nothing

about the blues? Inspiring jinxed history

with officious ink—corrections bled red

outside the margins, ignored or overcome—

their shared voice, warning: Be more like me.

Or worse still, stay separate, apart, unheard;

entitled or at least allowed to live: strange fruit

that rots inside dark spaces, or gets torn down

from trees, weeping their weary psalms of silence,

caustic smoke signals blown from burning crosses.

What do they know about beauty, their hatred the only thing

honest about them? What do they know about the helpless

ones: helpless for song, helpless for love, helpless for a fix,

helpless for joy, helpless for hope? God bless the child that

backward men would scorn, ignore, or erase—if they could.