Consigliore

Mentor and Friend

By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 26, 2015

Consigliore

We never have
Ordinary conversations
On North Street
Strolling after lunch
With Robert Henriquez
Recalling my stating
Basta to easy art
No more room for it
In my heart
Reverberating
No small talk
Annual winter seminars
Burning stacks of CDs
Traditional jazz
New Orleans
Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton
Next season
Reading Blues People
The avant-garde
Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra
Coltrane and Miles
Everest as Kind of Blue
The great ladies
Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Blossom Dearie
Mostly he flipped over
Yma Sumac
Listened to her as teenager
In Haiti
Significance of not growing
Up with heritage of slavery
First great liberation
From Colonialism
Toussaint Louverture
Defeating Napoleon
Playing in the palace
‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier
Later escape to U.S.A.
Legendary ancestor
Hero of Olympics
Racism in America
No dog in the hunt
More recently
Post gonzo and language poetry
Always digging deeper
True North
Compass of explorations
The wild inner
Terra incognita
Life of the mind
Humbled by
Time and flesh
Infinite distances
Of space