Charlie Parker (1950)
Campbell McGrath
Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.
Here are the gates of Babylon, the walls of Jericho cast down.
Might die in Chicago, Kansas City’s where I was born.
Snowflake in a blizzard, purple rose before the thorn.
Stone by stone, note by note, atom by atom, noun by noun,
Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.
Uptown, downtown, following the river to its source,
Savoy, Three Deuces, Cotton Club, Lenox Lounge.
Might just die in Harlem, Kansas City’s where I was born.
Bird is an abacus of possibility, Bird is riding the horse
of habit and augmented sevenths. King without a crown,
Bird is building a metropolis with his horn.
Bred to the labor of it, built to claw an eye from the storm,
made for the lowdown, the countdown, the breakdown.
Might die in Los Angeles, Kansas City’s where I was born.
Bridge by bridge, solo by solo, set by set, chord by chord,
woodshed to penthouse, blue to black to brown,
Charlie Parker is building a metropolis with his horn.
Might just die in Birdland, Kansas City’s where I was born.
I went looking for some more pieces of his to add, and I am tickled to share the one I chose. I'll leave it to you to pull out of it what pieces suit you best, but I must say I relate to "Our voices are too small".
Emily and Walt
I suppose we did not want for love.
They were considerate parents, if a bit aloof,
or more than a bit. He was a colossus
of enthusiasms, none of them us,
while she kissed our heads and mended socks
with a wistful, faraway look.
She might have been a little, well, daft.
And he—Allons, my little ones, he’d laugh,
then leave without us.
And those “friends” of his!
Anyway, he’s gone off to “discover
himself” in San Francisco, or wherever,
while she’s retired to the condo in Boca.
We worry, but she says she likes it in Florida;
she seems, almost, happy. I suppose they were
less caregivers than enablers,
they taught by example, reading for hours
in the draughty house and now the house is ours,
with its drawers full of junk and odd
lines of verse and stairs that ascend to God
knows where, belfries and gymnasia,
the chapel, the workshop, aviaries, atria—
we can never hope to fill it all.
Our voices are too small
for its silences, too weak to spawn an echo.
Sometimes, even now, when the night-wind blows
into the chimney flue
I start from my bed, calling out—“Hello,
Mom and Dad, is that you?”
And he—Allons, my little ones, he’d laugh,
then leave without us.
And those “friends” of his!
Anyway, he’s gone off to “discover
himself” in San Francisco, or wherever,
while she’s retired to the condo in Boca.
We worry, but she says she likes it in Florida;
she seems, almost, happy. I suppose they were
less caregivers than enablers,
they taught by example, reading for hours
in the draughty house and now the house is ours,
with its drawers full of junk and odd
lines of verse and stairs that ascend to God
knows where, belfries and gymnasia,
the chapel, the workshop, aviaries, atria—
we can never hope to fill it all.
Our voices are too small
for its silences, too weak to spawn an echo.
Sometimes, even now, when the night-wind blows
into the chimney flue
I start from my bed, calling out—“Hello,
Mom and Dad, is that you?”
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