It's just poetry, it won't bite

Ferguson, Missouri


07.11.15 Posted in today's words by

Erren Geraud Kelly’s most recent poem to appear here was Blue in Green (June 2015).

Ferguson, Missouri
By Erren Geraud Kelly

A riot is the voice of the unheard.
–Rev Dr Martin Luther King

mingus’ upright bass
rumbling anarchy like a
volcano

miles’ trumpet launching rockets
at the status
quo

billie’s voice like fire,
burning the rope, freeing
strange fruit from the
poplar trees

ella scatting like a
chainsaw against
cutting
conformity

john coltrane saying “no”
to lethargy, releasing
god
from a saxophone’s
wail

jaco pastorius
slapping hate with
machine-gun electric
bass
making cops say “please, please, please.”
like james

herbie hancock making
harmony from black
and white keys
strong as molotov
cocktails

art blakey’s drums
shattering harder than
a
cop’s night stick

keith jarrett telling
looters
to steal happiness
through sounds

joe williams
singing a balm of
peace

 



3 Responses to “Ferguson, Missouri”

  1. Puts me in a place where I am in the past and the future all at the same time.

  2. Jeanette Gallagher says:

    What a wonderful poem! So great I read it several times. Absolutely magnificent!!!

  3. Mark Rosenblum says:

    Beautiful use of Jazz immortals within a well versed poem. “Singing a balm of peace” indeed. Well done.

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