Talkin' All That Jazz

 

Miles, Mingus, Monk

Big band, Be-bop

Civil right funk

Art Blakeys’s snare

Hancock’s dream

Lift off – ascension

A love supreme.

Blue Note, Verve, Prestige

The Duke, Bird, Dizzy, me

Get on the soul train

With John Coltrane

To dark town Harlem scenes.

Trios, Quartets, Nonets

White plastic saxophone scream

Those trumpet tones

Whose voices blow

Pray for those in need

Harmoniously they sing

In unison if you please;

We must Let Freedom Ring!

We must Let Freedom Ring!

Earth Song

I met a pop kid from the streamed age
He sang: Two vast and trunkless legs of gold
Stand half sunk in the Thames. Near them on the bank,
A cracked, scarred mask stares, whose skin tone
And sculptured nose and smile of twisted command
Tell that its surgeon well those requests misheard
Which features still survive, stamped on this lifeless scene,
Amongst uniformed fragments, the gloved hand sparkles.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Michael Jackson, King of Pop:
Look on my back catalogue, the music , dance!'
Nothing beside remains, except self-indulgent decay
Of a once colossal work, timeless now overplayed,
The single and album pop charts disappear in a land far, far away.