-after So What, by Miles Davis
complex kind of
blue man
in a silent way kind of
complicated man who
birth coolness
miles ahead
his sounds this kind of
mellowness
his groove
flawed
and loved
and feared
even though his
nothing or all stance
towards women
the drugs and all that within
a world of jazz of horns
of music poured as a strong
drink of bitches brew
warmed with doo-bop
a thick line between
the man’s fight or flight
loving creativity
loving music
the need to separate so much
from so much, leaves us at times
with nothing but a blue haze
not to tolerate the negativity
of the man, of the human
vs. loving the man’s music
but dig what
about loving a woman’s softness
how her voice arouses
miles smiles
how her fingers bring tenderness
when the lights are low
says something
about miles’ quiet nights
his darker than dark
inner self
the sound radiates from the bell
of breath pulled up from the
depth of his bowels, listen as
miles runs the voodoo
down
blood rushes through the
chambers of his heart
yeah, there is always something
about blue moods
yeah, the mad at miles narrative
takes women to those rooms
where hearts were broken,
with a hard bop
something about the dark folds of
clouded sounds that blows
against the cold stone of harlem’s
brownstones.
his instrument falls limp on brick
sidewalks and
breaks apart in anticipation
as in when a silk robe opens
as in smooth lips opens
his mahogany eyes pierce our darkness
and says listen – this is miles world
like liquor he creeps down eager throats,
cause dig it, there something
exhilarating
about miles you dig
something nonchalant in the
way we wade in his muddy waters
and so, what about the man
about the addictions
we lose ourselves
as he lost himself for a while
cause tell the tale we still mad
at miles he did our sister Cicely
wrong
in the blues of crossroads
that finger points
that finger may have tasted sweet
when sucked
if his music had a look
it would be fine – fine – fine
you know vintage-fine like lena
dorothy my grandmother lizzy fine
like billie holiday fine-tuned her
blues on tree branches and heroin
and miles lost control
started to drift
notes overplaying notes
back alley dice shooting
hustling notes
pimping his music
man-o-man, there is something
about this long dark tarred road
forever called – miles davis
dig it
Bonita Lee Penn, literary curator, author of Testification of the Trees (2023 release) and Every Morning a Foot is Looking for my Neck (2019); her work has appeared in the anthology Where We Stand: Poems of Black Resilience (2022), and journals Taint Taint Taint Literary Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, Women Studies Quarterly, and others. She is a Martha Vineyard Creative Writing Institute Fellow; a SEED Grant recipient for her multi-media poetic project “Gospel in the Wake.”
