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Kind Of Blue (For Miles Davis)

Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx Ny 1991


Before they could lower Miles 
into the damp, dark ground
Two of the PALL BEARERS
Thought they heard musical sounds

Before the Preacher could say
Turn your BiblesTo Acts, 
The preacher paused.

After he read Deuteronomy
He looked back

But there was nothing there

But deep under the sepulchers
Six feet below the sand
The Spirits realized it was jus’ 
ColTrane and Gillespie
Warmin’ up the band


And a hundred corpses started
Creeping' out those coffins
Sayin', We don’t get parties round here often

And those Trom Bones started rattling
Those Trom Bones rattled
Like they were audition for Ezekial
Like they were auditioning for Ezekiel
And MILES was ready for his musical sequel

And MILES said
Is everyone here dead??
And they said, Do we look Dead?
And started snapping their fingers
And bobbling their heads


And they started to sing 
and shimmy and sway 
In A Silent Way

And Miles asked the Dead Man with the horn
Where am I?
How long do we get to play?
He said, We ain't got long, Son
The Shovels are on the way
The shovels are always on the way

And Miles crawled  out of that casket
To a vertical stand
And Tommy put a horn in his hand


Miles stood on the tallest tombstome
And he played like a Boogey Man
He played like a Boogey Man
And then Mingus appeared, saying
 Miles??   Can I give you a hand?

And Miles put his wrinkled Black lips on that horn
And sucked it like it like it was a breast
And he felt like  he was a Newborn
And he pulled music deep in his chest

And he played like there was no tomorrow
Because there wasn’t one
He hesitated
And they said, It’s alright Son

And he played Vibrato 
And he played G sharp
And he played sweeter
Then Caesars harp

Then Miles looked sad eyed
And thought back to 1945
Shooting heroin with Bird
recalling those sad words:
“Hey Miles”
“Yeah Bird”

This   is kind enough to kill you
And show up at your funeral too.”
And Miles said, 
Yeah it’s es Brew
It’s a es Brew

He laughed, Crazy of  Ol’ Coleman
To tell me to stay away from you

And that heroin went down
Their veins
Like a Macy’s  escalator
Then they went back up to their brains
like an elevator

And Bird was dead ten years later

And Miles went back even further in his mind
1944, East Saint Louis, when he met Billy Eckstine
He pressed Play, fast forward and rewind
Then he thought about Webster and Navarro
And he was filled with sorrow


Miles cried as he cleared his throat
But He saved
The Sweetest note
for alton, Illinois
Where he played as a boy
And was his mother’s joy:

“I think God himself made the piano
Now the Devil made the trumpet
A day later tryna show God off…"
She faded with words real soft


That thought was interrupted
Miles, We gotta hurry
The comin’ with the shovels
They told Miles not to worry

And those Spirits knew the party
Was coming to an end
And Miles played one last note
To the sun, to the wind

HE PLAYED THOSE

I-Aint-Done-Gettin-Down-Blues

Those What  If-heaven-
Doesn’t-have-a-fifty-second-street
Just-give-me-one-more-minute-Blues

And then he brought  to an end
 That syncopated tune

Someone whispered, We know
"It always ends too soon.
It always ends too soon."


And the music stopped playin
And they confiscated those horns
Like a New York pawn shop
And that party came to a stop

And every ghost went back to his tomb
ANd Mingus said, Goodbye Miles
It’s a long way to Bangledesh.
You stay out of trouble  
And then they saw  the shovels

The very next morning
The Undertaker
saw a Brass pipe on the ground
Where it came from he didn’t have a clue
But the Corpses  knew

But if he had looked up, 
Miles and MILES up into the sky
He would have noticed
The more Ominous clue
The Sky wasn’t white
Or Opaque or even Grey

It was was Kind of  Blue
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