Elveesta Proustley sweeps wit his muddah's fishnets
still wearin his strat straps and a badass pompadour,
he splayed a mean gutfuddle naymah Madaleene
blankateen the wine-dark see with escradrilles of funk
on the qu'est ce que c'est imperium of silence,
siren songs remembered for not be'un dere
like Bunk Johnson and Buddy Bolden
whose note we nevah hoyd
still haunts us from the g-string air,
das invenshun de da bloozes,
the flatted fit Leadbeller drank
like your rootabeggah milkshake
at the Memphisifto boogie jernt,
the great chain of bein' po headbongers boys and mosh
the toof will turnip doe'cha'no baggas can't be toobers
the nastyurchin dus mah blooms be wheezing da woof
from down on de parchiment firm, papyrus
of the pen-men in tunestiles booweeviladdled
oyning while they boyning, the HP
Floydcraft and Blind Blake Popemobile
who shoe'd nuff gnew each other's tails off wo back when
as cool, muddy howlang berrylee perceptigreatballsoffeefoofumfifosuh
gerontion greetonions of cool, Son House
of Common Placeyear bets at the still wife with white King
Biscuit and Blind Lime Watermelon
Tipperaree and Ticondewoga two
as the woof baynes moonly (alice) going fur-word.
Not even our own Sappho Smith
and her lesbyanest torchslongs
that drove mencattle crazy
in dem Storyville hovelles
primitif like Anakreon
with Umaygahd minacigarets and injun gizzards
and kitchin kinky straightener stench
went temporarity like Thomas Dylan
slumming like he Charley P on
Lady Montagu's pig farm.
Pre-Raphaelites and their mellotrons
conjure megamanic middle earth in
Arkestral Minervas in the Dork
axes n irish war pipes fifes and lambeg drums
straight from Egypt and Morocco
via Saturn and the Dog Star
laying down sum fuzzy Phrygian modes
of mystical gematria
as mariachi oompah bands
serve up jigs of irish bluegrass strains
and Samarvinotis Keats trills lonely
so sweetly that you'd think
he rilly fer rill didinna disappeared
before he so young died.
Old Squool they call it nah
but when Li'ul Richud and the Faerie Queeneries
traipsed through England fair back in the day
wearing the kick of war machinery pants
Satanic Jerusalem's pleasure Zeppelins
decreed a pleasing trobar by Cavalcanti
on snowblind Milton's Sabbath Black
who's red next the scriptures too literally
and the graduate axekicksers descended to madness
because they factoscrips have no rebop.
William Butler Morrison
bean from Belfast and all hated all the
Whiskey Irish Catlicks
and therefore all mankind
but still he brought like suds at dawn
the sound of Gawd a knocking
on our door with a brogue and tarot calling carob
a heavenly Primitif Baptist choir.
Percy Brian Jones he drowned
in a Cinqueterre swimming pool
after learning that the world
was not the way he wanted it to look
and even though he could be swiving
with any betty he laid his blond blue eyes upon
he was tortured for hizz suckexcessness
by the Olde Rich Young Mick Byron
and Keith Frankensteininscensed
who sold dey sools to the
process church to be immortalized in stones
jes' loyke the Bard o Liveopool
who ruled de commun tunguncheek
with rings of justice, blings of love
and Johnnie be Donne could lay down
deadly but not proud guitar
like unringing the bell and crossing
state lines with an angel in a rented
tuxedo blue sonnet cadillac.
Meanwhile in Amorica Thelonious Dickinson
with no cabaret club license to speak of
cleared the room
with hisher devil's intervals
heshe called them cool
til everybody knew enough
to keep the funk away
or maybe it was that all-white
porcupine pie hat that swayed as heshe flayed,
and good old Walt Waldo Zimmerman
who made his living out of chiseling
the devil at his own redemption game
saying black when it was white outside
and white when it was fashionably black
and even cheating death by motorcycle assassassignation
while saying sayings only Jeezuhs
could get away with saying, nome saying sore nuft,
and my homey Edgar Franz Costello
who never said anything straight-up
it had to esccollate rage all the ways to the top
to ambiguous post-god heaven
and thunder to earth back in ribbons of giggles
every word a lie or as Jolson said
thank you black america
when he was done.
