Charlie Parker

Charlie Y. Parker had something to prove.
He had a big brain and read lots of stuff
And he could talk, and cut through the fluff
Read in a motherfucker’s bullshit groove.

Literate though in history and poetry,
I heard some folk saw him as non-intellectual.
Every note from the man alive and sensual,
You’d never expect their mocking of me.

Poor horn had to feel good by playing the dumbs
And zapping the suckers that made his jazz lax
Reversing the hurt he’d suffered from words.

Kept prisoner by fear of the Cracker crumbs
Escape only came through his blow of the sax
Releasing the cage and freeing the yard bird.


**** created following the quickmuse
(http://www.quickmuse.com) challenge
to Robert Pinsky and Julian Baggot,
which asked them to write on the following:

"He was an intellectual. He used to
read novels, poetry, history, stuff
like that. And he could hold a
conversation with almost anybody
on all kinds of things....
He was real sensitive. But he had this
destructive streak in him that
was something else.... [H]e used to talk
a lot about political shit and he loved
to put a motherfucker on, play dumb
to what was happening and then zap
the sucker. He used to especially
like to do this to white people."

--Miles Davis on Charlie Parker

For a bio of the Jazz great, see:
http://www.cmgworldwide.com/music/
parker/about/biography.html