#2 "humphf" for big red they say monk couldn't play the music. they say, monk, he limited by his own vision & just can't play right. monk, he too weird. his music don't sound right, and he gets up & dances while he's playing, like a jackleg preacher at a revival meeting in an old tent in north carolina. they say monk sound too much like a whorehouse piano player from some pre-harlem ghett o stuffed with back-woods renegades & sporting women & gamblers, street-level intellectuals. they say monk, what is that shit you trying to play, you just can't do it that way, you too way out baby, that stuff ain't you. & monk in his infinite knowledge & wisdom, shoots a grin from behind the piano, wiggles his ass on the stool, lays down another few bars of utter genius, turns it over to the tenor player & rises to dance beside the piano, some more of that old north carolina boogaloo —oak park, mi may 30, 1984

#6 "ruby, my dear" for estelle a red candle burning in a red glass on a red tablecloth in a dark corner of a darkened nightclub, a cigarette burning in a red plastic ashtray, a chesterfield king with lipstick red on the end & the smoke from the cigarette in her eyes, her hair is black satin against skin of chocolate brown or golden cream, or any of the million gorgeous hues of american women of african descent, purest black to highest yellow & every imaginable shade in between, this is a song to the woman in the red dress, erzulie, or ruby my dear as monk would have her pinned against the keyboard, lush in the hips & thighs, lush of lips & breasts, the most beautiful ass in the history of western civilization, turned out over the top of the thighs, out to the western edge of africa & back to the states again to meet the small of her back, the smell of jasmine & musk rising from her flesh in the closeness & warmth of the tiny room, her eyes so impossibly soulful trained on the bandstand, the band is bird, monk on piano, mingus & shadow wilson at 3:00 am sunday morning, a bottle of champagne half drunk on the table, the music is soft & sweet yet as deep with intelligence & spirit as the woman herself— "ruby, my dear" filling her big heart with song —detroit january 12 , 1985

#58 “nutty” for david & hali & brad hales at 3:00 o’clock in the morning on mardi gras night in detroit some nutty motherfucker in room 412 of the forest arms apartments at 2nd & forest set his room on fire & burned himself up & all the worldly possessions of his fellow tenants who would now have to start their lives all over while he would go on to his grave & take their building down with him, this commodious home to countless 1000s of students & artists & bohemians on their way into or out of the motor city since the building was erected in 1904, generation after generation of young detroiters filled every apartment with energy & life & art like the 100 current residents who were turned out by the fire & the poet himself as a young man fresh out of flint, michigan in the spring of 1964 rented the basement apartment, #b-2, on the other side of the forest arms from where the amsterdam espresso & people’s record shop would be some 40 years later & where I met my first wife when she lived next door in the building on the corner of prentis—this place where i learned how to write & lived with allen van newkirk, poet & prophet of paleo-cybernetics & then with charles moore, cornetist & philosopher who taught me how to live the way i have lived for all the years since, exactly as I wanted to & in exact conformance with the system of beliefs that came into being in that basement apartment at the forest arms, & continues into the present moment—this life which began for me when i met lyman woodard in the student union at flint junior college in 1961—this life of the mind & spirit rooted in humanism & love of art, & manifested in creative production & social engagement, like trane said “to be a force for good” & make an impact on the world at large with no promise of recompense or material reward beyond the joy of creation & the thrills of connectivity, the deep friendships formed with fellow seekers of many persuasions who follow the same path, sharing our visions & our love for each other, our humble possessions & our commitment to personal freedom & social liberation, living & working outside the clenched domain of the white people, & open to experience without prejudice, & to people of every sort of origin who have transcended the circumstances we were born into & transformed ourselves in accordance with our beliefs to live the life we love & make a world for ourselves that can hold & carry us through the certain ugliness ahead— after the forest arms has burnt up & amsterdam espresso has been ruined & all of brad hales’ 1000s of lps destroyed & the building abandoned & all the things we used to love about our country disfigured by greed & turned against us—this life we have made out of love & resistance, this life which exists in our hearts & minds wherever we may be, this life which is shared with our brothers & sisters wherever we may find them, this life we carry with us wherever we go—ahhh, this is the life, dear friends, this is the life for me —service street, detroit april 9-16, 2008