James Carr (1942-2001), “The Dark End of the Street” (D. Penn, C. Moman), 1967
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lagniappe
reading table
Counting the Mad
by Donald Justice (1925-2004)
This one was put in a jacket,
This one was sent home,
This one was given bread and meat
But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one looked at the window
As though it were a wall,
This one saw things that were not there,
This one things that were,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one thought himself a bird,
This one a dog,
And this one thought himself a man,
An ordinary man,
And cried and cried No No No No
All day long.
James Carr (1942-2001), “To Love Somebody” (B. Gibb, R. Gibb), 1969
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lagniappe
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Variations on a Text by Vallejo
by Donald Justice (1925-2004)
Me moriré en Paris con aguacero …
I will die in Miami in the sun,
On a day when the sun is very bright,
A day like the days I remember, a day like other days,
A day that nobody knows or remembers yet,
And the sun will be bright then on the dark glasses of strangers
And in the eyes of a few friends from my childhood
And of the surviving cousins by the graveside,
While the diggers, standing apart, in the still shade of the palms,
Rest on their shovels, and smoke,
Speaking in Spanish softly, out of respect.
I think it will be on a Sunday like today,
Except that the sun will be out, the rain will have stopped,
And the wind that today made all the little shrubs kneel down;
And I think it will be a Sunday because today,
When I took out this paper and began to write,
Never before had anything looked so blank,
My life, these words, the paper, the gray Sunday;
And my dog, quivering under a table because of the storm,
Looked up at me, not understanding,
And my son read on without speaking, and my wife slept.
Donald Justice is dead. One Sunday the sun came out,
It shone on the bay, it shone on the white buildings,
The cars moved down the street slowly as always, so many,
Some with their headlights on in spite of the sun,
And after awhile the diggers with their shovels
Walked back to the graveside through the sunlight,
And one of them put his blade into the earth
To lift a few clods of dirt, the black marl of Miami,
And scattered the dirt, and spat,
Turning away abruptly, out of respect.
Street singer Poppy joined by Seal (talking, “I Shot the Sheriff” [B. Marley], “Redemption Song” [B. Marley], “Kiss from a Rose” [Seal]), live, Manchester, 2016
Tim Berne (alto saxophone, composition) with Herb Robertson (trumpet), Marc Ducret (guitar), Joey Baron (drums), et al., live, New York (TV show), c. 1990
Hound Dog Taylor (AKA Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, 1915-1975) and the Houserockers (Brewer Phillips, guitar; Ted Harvey, drums), “Taylor’s Rock” (H.D. Taylor), live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
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reading table
voices in the wind
the withered field’s
crows
—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
