#avanjordan

[poemdaybook]

Public Radio Plays Eddie Harris

Clouds stand in protest of morning.

I wonder should I cross this picket-line sky and go to work.

The 70 bus stood me up for our 8:32am date.

Headlines say I voted for a man who cheated on his wife.

By 2:00pm by body is at war with a virus.

I am now blue fire.

My throat is lined with cactus.

There was no mention of this in the morning paper.

I crawl back home to my room; my bedsheets are cold.

At 10:00pm a call of bad news from my family:

Something about a car and my brother.

Doctors say he may never dance again.

This chord of bad news accompanies today’s riff.

Folks have gone on strike in heaven.

Sweat pours off the shoulders of the night.

No need for liquids and drugs, I’m already dead.

If WPFW FM can’t resurrect me, Lazarus was a liar.

Thank God, they’re playing Eddie Harris.

I have friends who are atheists.

I have ammunition for our next argument:

They play four Eddie Harris tunes in a row!

Faith healers are tuning in.

I’m all but cured when they make the announcement:

Eddie Harris died today.

Thoughts tornado over my bed.

It pirouettes over the city with hips like my mama’s.

Eddie always said there’s no such thing as a wrong note,

Only bad connections to the next.

I put the alarm clock under the sheets.

In the morning it will sound like music.

-- A Van. Jordan, published in Rise (2001, Tia Chucha)