Outside, Inside
Bird Lives
-for Charlie Parker
Charlie your death date
intermingles with the birth
and death date of my own son.
He died March 11th,
you died March 12th.
What was it
that killed you
at the old age
of 34?
Was it your own daughter's death--
she with the hole in her heart,
died at 2 years old
before they knew how
open heart surgery could save her?
BeBop, Jazz, the music of Bird,
none of it enough
to keep you afloat
none of it enough
to fill the gaping sorrow
that ripped thru you
when your child died.
Your wife Chan shared with us
all these years later
the 4 wire messages
you sent that day,
each one more steeped
in the shock of death
than the last--
one simply saying,
"Chan, Help."
Bird, if you could only know
how many grieving parents
walk this earth, undead,
waiting to join their children
on the other side,
if you could only know
how well I understand your plea--
"Chan, Help."
Today it's my turn,
today I sit here
slowly falling to pieces
slowly being crushed
by the weight
of life after the death
of my child,
Oh Bird!
If only you could know
how very much I understand!
After your death, Bird,
your followers, all those
dedicated music lovers,
littered the walls of
Greenwich Village with
spray painted tags reading
"BIRD LIVES"
but, Bird, they were fools,
they didn't understand even
after your death,
they didn't know your heart
the way I do.
They couldn't possibly
have understood
that after the death
of one's child,
even the music
ceases to matter.
For Louie Who Died July 1971
"No him, no me."
-Dizzy Gillespie's answer when asked what Jazz
would be like for him after Louis Armstrong's death.
You defined the music
the movement, the life
and yet you lived in a
small house surrounded
by neighborhood children
who loved you
because you bought them
ice cream.
You were married to
Lucille all those years
and yet had no children.
I often wonder
if, behind that
never-ending smile,
there were tears for
babies miscarried
or stillborn?
One man recalled
seeing you sit alone
on an empty, dark sound stage
looking up to heaven
sadness holding your tilted head.
What was beneath that,
and did the hidden
sadness and anger
lead to your weak heart?
They said you smoke marijuana
every single day of your life--
hardly a behavior
that would be granted
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