BIRDS LIVES!

“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.”

~ Charlie Parker

The city has a long memory—
& honors its shifting alliances,
wearing its tattoos proudly.
Check out the grimy, layered strata
of its ancient, storied underbelly—
those cracked subway walls, the dark
& narrow alleys leading nowhere,
the secret concrete underpasses
crumbling under the weight of years…

Then, if you slide past Keith Haring’s
faded dancing men & barking dogs,
past Jean-Michel Basquiat’s colorful scrawls
& enigmatic epigraphs,
down where the mortal denizens
of the city night come out to play,
you might just discover
over the top of an old brick archway,
boldly painted in black letters
on a white background— BIRD LIVES!

Bird still lives!

Bebop-a-diddleybop-a-bebop-BOW!

 Don’t that beat all!