I pop in the park with starving ears

Past the arch, the small talk sounds

Like a factory, cogs with well-oiled

Mouths and a mind to look south when

Kids come by asking for basketball 

Funding. “I don’t have any

Cash on me” a polka-dotted woman

answers nervously, pulling her purse

Even closer to her hip, sweat drips

From her tongue. It is hard to begin

Giving back in this part of Manhattan.

Plastic men pass in their air-

conditioned suits, putting the square

in Washington Square Park. Finally,

I find a band, but the jazz is empty

Calories. Funkless Junk food.

Their instruments almost sound

Like the donation plates that move

Unmolested across park benches

(many saving money for their day

in the city, just enjoying some music

on their way to Lady Liberty),

Then a trumpet cracked the square

In half, pick-pocketing the pocket

Squares whose wallets were obese

Enough to make them sit funny.

I almost sat too, except one 

exceptional one 

is not enough.

I leave the square with Miles

On my mind, but just a few blocks

To walk. Down West 4th with a left

On MacDougal. Everyone is in neon

Uniforms blending in with open signs,

The blinding bare thighs of

Barely teenagers and mothers

Slugging wine, celebrating

The sun their skin rejects.

This must be America, everyone

Is dreaming in European fonts, Hel-

Vetica for sale signs. Vespas in

Manhattan. For real. 

Just before

Everyone around me bursts

Into song, I climb the stairs down

To a hidden door and text TSE

“Here.” He responds

with the doorknob and a dap.

SoHo stays outside, where cats

My age in dog years compete

To keep foundation on they faces.

“Everyone’s upstairs.”

Between takes, a room breaks

Its silence like bread at a family

Dinner table. The studio is 

Less studio than bedroom

And there ain’t much room

So I sit on the bed beside a

bass neck, duct tape,

Luke and Crystal, and listen

To a snare drum brought to 

Breath with splintered sticks.

Hat-hi on the bald head, Randall

Feels the beat from the floor.

Surrounded by spiral-bound

Weaponry, his notebooks

Little littered literary rarities

Dancing even on the page, but

Waiting to be lifted with a tongue.

Bald head on the hi-hat, Trae

Makes hip hop history. Killin shit.

If you in the pocket, don’t picket. Pick it

like an afro on the drum head. 

A sizzle chain beads off the ride

Like sweat. Still Got Shit 2 Drop

Is ready for recording. Luke and Trae

Lay it down, Janice orchestrates with

Swag. The track is fast but the bass line

Breaks through calm, cool, and corrective.

James claims “This is what happens when

The drummer and the bassist live together.”

TSE likes it. A rubber band rolls like a blunt down

His wrist. It flicks. A blue Bic sounds its flint. The room

Lights up. Diane dances with lamps and cameras. Action

Shots and stills with Ambrose’s empties. The room slowly

empties for food, but

James is up. He takes aim

Through nappy cross hairs and

Shoots silence from the ceiling.

With a shrapnel tongue, 

you need Resilient reeds. 

I have earphones, so I can hear

The track begin to build, a railroad

Grown with their own bones.

Heroes is the sound of sirens

And outside, in the dank stillness

Of comfort, wallets walk

Their men on leashes to

Vegan-friendly crack houses

Where they dream of black music

And the nuisance of tomorrow,

A weekday. James points out,

“Thomas got keys on his shirt”

and underneath Janice’s hands

an organ is added, subtracted, and

added at last as an intro. She walks the song

head-first into drums. The streets

interrupting sheet music, concrete quick

sand for those that don’t flow. “It’s not about

the notes” she says, the twelve tools of Bebop

now resting, recovering on the key board, after

getting pressed, pocket-checked, and left. 

Ambrose jokes the sound is something outta

Twin Peaks or a horror movie, but Thomas says

“Just cause they use it that way, doesn’t mean it

gotta stay that way.” Sampling, making history hip

hop.

Everyone’s downstairs.

Between takes, a silence sits

Before a microphone. Its been

Hours since the sticks first woke

The snare and long breaks don’t

Make no bread. It is hard to begin

Giving back in this part of Manhattan and

in this room, it is better to be sharp than

Flattened. If you can’t sing it with sass,

Like Janice says, don’t sing on the track.

After trying it as a group, the singers

split up into soloists (like all

Great singing groups do) and sang

Their own parts, one by one.

“Still

Still Got

Still Got Shit 2 Drop”

Janice lays down the first

Vocals, claps fan/ funk,

A harmony starts to ride over

The bridge into a barbed hook.

Margaret’s voice is massive, we can

Still hear echoes of her “No more jazz”

From the first album bouncing off uncertain

Brass. Then Crystal talks her shit. It takes a few

Takes to make it break away from the other

Voices in the hook. Janice helps. If scat

Could remember the mouth it came

Out of, she would linger in its

Cry. I have been on this bed

Too long to forget how

The melody goes.