Now and Then (5 page)

My life is one of movement

I been running as fast as I can

I've inherited trial and error directly from my old man

But I'm committed to the consequences

Whether I stand or fall

And when I get back to my life

I think I'm gonna give her a call 

She's been waiting patiently

For me to get myself together

And it touched something deep inside

When she said she'd wait forever

Because forever's right up on me now

That is, if it ever comes at all

And when I get back to my life

I think I'm gonna give her a call 

She didn't know, she could hardly believe

How much she means to me

She wouldn't know, she could scarcely understand

Why I cling so desperately to dreams

'Cause she's calmed me in the evening

She's calmed me in the night

She's calmed my fear of dreaming

And maybe my fear of life

My life's been one of running away

Just as fast as I can

But I've been no more successful at getting away

Than was my old man

But if you come to recognize the truth

And understand that the truth is really all

That when I get back to my life

I think I'm gonna give her a call

To say any words you ain't feeling

Don't seem to be what she needs

She's been hurt a lot and put down a lot

But she don't really need your sympathy

'Cause her touch is soft and her eyes are smiling

Though small-time people try and put her down.

She ain't done nobody wrong

The love she has is gonna keep her strong

(It seems like) long after love has abandoned you and me

You might see her running to work in the morning

Remember there's a whole lot on her mind

If you've got nothing to say

Why not let her go on her way

'Cause brother, everybody just ain't got the time

The artist lucked into a couple of good seats

And told a girl he'd walked around with for a week.

And when she spoke up saying that she'd like to go

It was like being nominated for his own double-O.

Because no exaggeration let's just say she was ‘impressive'

And taking her out would be considered thoroughly ‘progressive'. 

She needed someone who knew karate

And called a ‘Scott' from Scotland Yard.

And if you were into guarding bodies

She had a body you would love to guard.

Keep all the freaks and creeps out of her hair.

A holiday weekend knight in the middle of Times Square

And he put the ‘lean' inside of ‘clean'

And took the ‘cool' letters out of ‘school'

And the last thing that he would ever dream

Was being set up and treated like a fool.

No! ‘Set up' implies conspiracy,

A deliberately crooked deal

But you didn't need X-ray vision to see

That her family's shock was real.

No they weren't surprised that he was black

Or forgotten that they were white

This wasn't a formal marriage proposal

So that wasn't the issue that night.

The doorman walked him through the lobby to the back

But he was too fuckin' excited to even notice that

But riding up the shaft, it smelled a bit ripe in the elevator

Floor slippery, a helluva draft, that all came to him later.

The pulleys was whining and bitching

The whole box was bumping and pitching 

He was about to ask the pilot about ditching

When the door opened and he was standing in the kitchen

The family ‘recovered' it up like it happened all the time

The smiles were so bright the Artist damn near went blind

His face was on fire and he was relieved to be a brother

His red-faced embarrassment couldn't be ‘read' by the others. 

He was stammering as he met the adults

His heart was hammering as he examined the doorman's insult

He feels like he's made of plaster frozen there before- hand

He conceals that his mind is on the bastard, the
motherfuckin' doorman,

He pictures the broad-shouldered man, his tacky uniform sagging

Inside the basement cave with the maintenance crew

This sonofabitch is bragging

‘Some nigger,' he spits. ‘Goin' upstairs to date her

So I take him up there
in the service elevator!
'

The janitor and the elevator man laughed till they cry

Thinking about how their colleague just embarrassed some guy. 

The Artist wanted to explain that their plans for the night

Were no longer in effect

He wanted to complain that he wasn't feeling right

And had a terrible pain in the neck

Apologize quickly and not linger

Advise them to
‘Call 9–1–1 fast',

Leave them the tickets, they could go to ‘Goldfinger'

He would go back downstairs to kick some ass! 

Yeah! For two years he had hung out with the preps

But he came from
‘little San Juan'

And down there he'd once had a pretty decent rep

And an insult justified ‘gettin' it on'.

But doesn't it happen like that all the time

Brothers ending up on their way to the joint

If they don't damage your body they fuck with your mind

And you never reach no terminal point

It's not the one insult.

It's not the word ‘nigger!'

And each day is a little more difficult

Holding back the rage leaves you terribly bitter

And this was one the Artist managed to resist

Flexing his fingers, not letting them roll up into a fist

Because that would have hurt his Mom and everybody else

So he took the girl to James Bond and was humiliated by
himself.

 … because i always feel like running. not away,

… because there's no such place

…. because if there was

i would have found it by now

… because it's easier to run; easier than staying

and finding out you're the only one who didn't run

… because running will be the way your life and mine

will be described:

as in the long run or

as in having given someone a run for his money or

as in running out of time

… because running makes me look like everyone else

though i hope there will never

be cause for that

… because i will be running in the other direction:

not running for cover;

… because if i knew where cover was

i would stay there and never have to run for it.

not running for my life

… because i have to be running

for something of more value to be running

and not in fear;

… because the thing i fear cannot be

escaped, eluded, avoided,

hidden from, protected from, gotten away from,

not without showing the fear

as i see it now

… because closer, clearer/no sir nearer

… because of you, and

… because of the nice that you
quietly, quickly be causing and

… because you're going to see me run soon, and

… because you're going to know why i'm running. then.

you'll know then

… because i'm not going to tell you now.

Basie
was never really commonplace

He was always measures ahead.

Ellington
was more than number one

For the music and things that he said.

Bird
was the word back when tenors were heard

From Kansas right up to
the Prez

And
Billie
was really the Queen of a scene

That keeps echoing on in my head.

What it has will surely last but is that Jazz?

Miles
had a style that amazes and raises

The spirits from deep in your soul.

'
Trane
struck a vein of laughter and pain

Adventures the mind could explore.

Stevie
and
Bob
talk of freedom and ‘jam'

In their own individual ways.

Playing and singing as long as its bringing

A message in all that it says. 

What it has will surely last but is that Jazz? 

We overanalyse we let others define

A thousand precious feelings from our past.

When we express love and tenderness

Is that Jazz? Is that Jazz? Is that Jazz?
Is that Jazz
? 

Dizzy's
been busy while
Grover
gets us over

With notes that go straight to the heart.

Brother
Ron
gets it on with a baseline so strong

That the sounds seem to grow in the dark. 

I take pride in what's mine – is that really a crime –

When you know I ain't got nothing else?

Only millions of sounds pick me up when I'm down;

Let me salvage a piece of myself. 

What it has will surely last but is that Jazz? 

Ever feel kinda down and out and don't know

    just what to do?

Livin' alla your days in darkness, let the sun shine

    through.

Ever feel that somehow, somewhere you lost

    your way?

And if you don't get help you won't make it

    through the day.

You could call on Lady Day!

You could call on John Coltrane!

They'll wash your troubles, your troubles away.

Plastic people with plastic minds on their way to

    plastic homes.

There's no beginning, there ain't no ending

just on and on and on and on and …

It's all because we're so afraid to say that we're

    alone

until our hero rides in, rides in on his

    saxophone.

You could call on Lady Day!

You could call on John Coltrane!

They'll wash your troubles, your troubles away.

glad to get high and see the slow motion world,

just to reach and touch the half-notes floating.

world spinning quicker than 9/8 Dave Brubeck. we

    come now frantically searching for Thomas

    More rainbow villages.

    up on suddenly Charlie Mingus and Ahmed

         Abdul-Malik

to add bass to a bottomless pit of insecurity. you

     may be plastic because

you never meditate about the bottom of glasses,

the third side of your universe.

            add on

Alice Coltrane and her cosmic strains, still no

    vocal

on blue-black horizons your plasticity is tested

by a formless assault: THE SUN can answer

    questions

in tune to sacrificial silence but why will our

new jazz age give us no more expanding puzzles?

    (Enter John) blow from under always and

          never so that,

the morning may shout of brain-

bending saxophones.

    the third world arrives with Yusef Lateef

and

Pharoah Sanders with oboes straining to touch the

core of your unknown soul.

     Ravi Shankar comes

     with strings attached/prepared to stabilize

     your seventh sense (Black Rhythm!)

up and down a silly ladder run the notes without

the words. words are important for the mind/the notes are for the soul.

                Miles Davis? SO WHAT?

             Cannonball, Fiddler, Mercy

           Dexter Gordon, ONE flight UP

       Donald Byrd, Cristo

                   but what about words?

would you like to survive on sadness/call on

    Ella and Jose Happiness

               drift with

Smoky, Bill Medley, Bobby Taylor

Otis/soul music where frustrations are

washed by drums – come Nina and Miriam –

congo/mongo beat me senseless

bongo/tonto – flash through dream worlds of

    STP and LSD. SpEeD kilLs and

sometimes

music's call to the Black is confused. our

speed is our life pace/not safe/not good.

i beg you to escape

    and live

       and hear all of the real. to survive in a

          sincere second of self-self

until a call comes for you to cry elsewhere.

                we

    must all cry, but must the tears be white?