ROBERT HAYDEN
Homage to the Empress of the Blues
Because there was a man somewhere in a candystripe silk shirt
facile and dangerous as a jaguar and because a woman moaned
for him in sixty-watt gloom and mourned him Faithless Love
Twotiming Love Oh Love Oh Careless Aggravating Love,
She came out on stage in yards of pearls, emerging like
a favorite scenic view, flashed her golden smile and sang
Because grey laths began somewhere to show from underneath
torn hurdygurdy lithographs of dollfaced in heaven;
and because there were those who feared alarming fists of snow
on the door and those who feared the riot squad of statistics,
She came out on stage in ostrich feathers, beaded satin,
and shone that smile on us and sang.
Soledad
(And I, I am no longer of that world)
Naked, he lies in the blinded room
chainsmoking, cradled by drugs, by jazz,
as never by any lover's cradling flesh.
Miles Davis coolly blows for him:
O pena negra, sensual Flamenco blues
the red clay foxfire voice of Lady Day
(lady of the pure black magnolias)
sobsings her sorrow and loss and fare you well,
dryweeps the pain his treacherous jailers
have released him for awhile.
His fears and his unfinished self
await him down in the anywhere streets.
He hides on the dark side of the moon,
takes refuge in a glass-stained cell,
flies to a clockless country of crystal.
Only the ghost of Lady Day knows where
he is. Only the music. And he swings
oh swings, beyond complete immortal now.