after a performance by Awadagin Pratt
He is a left-handed player in a right-handed world
reading charts, away from left and toward the right,
underscored by right-brained, right-handed composers.
Even the baton which conducts is clutched in the right.
Curious is the fact
that a sleeping being
is altogether aware
yet elects to ignore
the waking world
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those who vow to never forget
The Trail of Tears
Antietam
Sharpsburg
Sand Creek
The Little Bighorn
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(With No Apologies to Ed McCurdy,
nor to Pete Seeger, nor Simon and Garfunkle, &c.)
Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
to put an end to war
Say it, man. Spell it out. Admit
That your calculate words, woven
Under and about this captive
Doting audience have multiplied—
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Study but solely me; play
The part that binds you
Until you must capitulate,
Dreams to be relinquished,
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Groping blindly at an upper shelf
I tossed a box of unclean washers
upon my concrete workroom floor.
They scattered to the four corners.
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A well regulated militia being necessary
to the security of a free state, the rights
of the people to keep and bear arms
of the people to keep and bear harms
of the people to keep and fear harms
shall in no wise, ever, be infringed.
In Reply to Dr. Berkeley, or
Flouting Grice’s Maxim of Quantity
I am not aware of hearing anything
as I lie on my right side, prone
on the red granite gravel bar
of the Early Winters Creek ford.
