Sneaking in right before the end of Black History Month, my poem “Rahsaan Kirk’s Dream” — a tribute to another one of my all-time heroes: a blind iconoclast who figured out how to play three horns simultaneously (and, due to a dream, decided to change his name from Roland to Rahsaan). Genius level = off the charts.
Dismissed by idiots as a gimmick, this complex and deeply weird, surreal, gorgeous strategy enabled Kirk to deploy many voices at once, or the same voice exploring many possibilities.Big thanks to Jerry Jazz Musician for publishing this one (along with a ton of other great poems for their winter issue).
Rahsaan Kirk’s Dream
It appeared to him, he said, while he slept.
Or, rather, it revealed itself to him, the way
visions will, seeming nonsensical to those
who claim to see—the light in their eyes
conveying what they believe is required
of them—no revisions necessary for this
rough draft we’re born into, a book with
backward pages or pictures upside-down.
(What if you could train your brain to talk
through instruments, creating dialogues
out of time or space: sound that surrounds?
Are creatures in the darkness of the deep,
or farthest out in stellar regions, sightless?
Or do they perceive what nothing else can
process, forsaking the cues and clues given
to brothers and sisters slower on the uptake?
Are they blind or do they see differently?
Do our eyes watch—or just reinterpret all
they’re told, wires pulled behind the seen?)
Kirk’s work shifts things, realigning reality.
This is music that says:
I was here,
I am alive,
we don’t die
when we’re no longer here;
we are dark stars bringing light
for those who can prepare
themselves to deal with miracles,
where art becomes like armor,
protecting and serving, and if
too often it falls on deaf ears
it stays made, gets heard, remains
unreal in the ways that matter most,
bright moments or an inflated tear
exploding—like a dream deferred.
