Your plasticity is tested by our formless assault
The sun can answer questions in tune to all your sacrifices
But why will our new Jazz-age give us no more mind-expanding puzzles?
Enter John
Blow from under, always and never
So that the morning, the sun, may scream of brain-bending saxophones
The third-world arrives with Yusef Lateef and Pharaoh Sanders
With oboes straining to touch the core of your unknown soul
Ravi Shankar comes with strings attached,
Prepared to stabilize your seven sins, your black rhythm
Up and down a silly ladder run the notes without the words
Words are important for the mind, but the notes are for the soul
Miles Davis, so what?
Cannonball, Fiddler, Mercy
Dexter Gordon, one flight up
Donald Byrd, playing Cristo, but what about words?
Miles Davis had a well-known song titled “So What.” Here the title is used to convey the way Black artists are often dismissed.
Plastic Pattern People