'It Must Be Love (Word Passed Down through Forbidden Radio'. For Chuck Kinder and John Sinclair. Performed with Kidd Jordan and Morikeba Kouyaté.

A Poem in Tribute to Chuck and John in Their Birthday Month

This October is the 12th year since high regard moved me to write about John Sinclair and Chuck Kinder. Chuck’s body left us in May 2019 and John’s last April. (Both fought, fought, fought against the closing of their bodies with new creations into the last year and months they were with us.)

John was born October 2, 1941 in Flint, Michigan and Chuck October 8, 1946 in Montgomery, West Virginia.

I hope you’ll catch from ‘It Must Be Love (Word Come Down […] some of the dimensions and depths that these two lived—and how much they gave!

JOHN SINCLAIR, reading his 'Homage to John Coltrane', February 2013, Poetry Ball #2 in CHUCK PERKINS’ Café Istanbul, with TOM WORRELL, HERVE FERNANDEZ, and GARY UNDERWOOD. Still from video by PAUL PUNZO.

CHARLES ALFONSO KINDER, author of four novels and two books of poems and nurturer of hundreds of ‘Creative Writing’ students, and DIANE CECILY, his muse and a dancers to her own tunes.

MORIKEBA KOUYATE, KIDD JORDAN, and DON PAUL, recording for their Album Women Center Earth, Sea and Sky, July 24, 2014 in RICK G. NELSON’s Marigny Studio, New Orleans. Stills from video by ARISTIDE PHILLIPS of the Lower 9th Ward.

‘It Must Be Love (Word Passed Down through Forbidden Radio)

The voices beside your pillow,
Friends sharing secrets past midnight--
Rolling and a-tumbling up the Rivers,
Wailing and keening through the Gaps 
Whistling a Whoo--Hoo-Hoo-Who through the Gras
Bring tales and tones so pure and sexual
They lift you like a knife,
Their guitars and drums like Indians, 
Slaves and Gospels freed,
Raising heroes from the outlaw, racing in the streets,
All they say so much truer than what's on
Your parents' new black-and-white TV. 

	The Hill!--the Hill!--shines beyond Highways' humming fins
	The Hill!--the Hill!--gives you Muddy Waters and Hazel Dickens 
	The Hill!--the Hill!—rises far out past Main Street
	The Hill!--the Hill!--asks all to dance so that they may be seen
				Ree-bel! Re-be-ba-be-bah-ah-bop-ee--ah ... 

What is this dreamt-for America 
But promises that those left outm cast out, strung out,                                                                                                 May rise according to their worth?        
What is it but 
Best minds and hearts
In red jackets ripped apart?
What Wars and wars haunt Desks
Of Insurance agents
From George Pickett
To West Virginia's John Wayne?
What results might be outright
When Walt's long, brown path is open,
Playing-fields grow level, and old Dean Moriarty's 
Wobbly Choices are just there and just right?

John reached out to make Rock free as jazz. 
John reached out to enrich White with Black 
And maybe vice versa.
John reached out to smoke, drink, make love 
Upside-down, under the bed, out in the Lake, 
Or any other way or place that came up as people’s rights
John risked his life 
For some he felt gave light. 


[ …]
John and Chuck never quit.
They smoke the herb and drink,
Teach, create, promote and inspire
More who listen and talk
Around kitchen tables.
They hold to and pump up
Lessons of freedom from forbidden radio.
Their beards thin to highlight silver. 

What is the word abideth Night?
What is the sound of Spirits bright?
What moves the hand that grips your hand
On what might have been your death-bed?
What lifts the horns of devotees
Who play to be a force for good?
What is the force
Made those strangers, playing by your bed,
Call you to be their friends,
To know their worlds,
To sing through their wounded throats of wild birds?                                                                                  What is the word, the sound, the force, you heard? 

It must be love. It must be love. It must be love.                                                                                        Like a knife. Like a bell. Like Gods' own bells. 
Raging love. Tender love.
Unbending and undying love. 
Calling you to go out there,
To do your thing and make it ring.
Like endless light in giant night.
The word, the sound, the force, you heard,                                                                                                 So 'way back when and all your life,                                                                                                    Under Ben Bulben and in Tunica, 
Eric Dolphy, Patsy Cline,    
ARCHIE SHEPP, ARCHIE SHEPP,                                                                                                                         The Numberless and Numinous,                                                                                                                      Their voices yours for roads ahead
It must be love. 
They’re surely yours. You’re surely theirs.
You’re surely here for ever more. It must be love.

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With KIDD JORDAN over in the Big Trunk of donpaulwearerev.com (beneath the 22 Hours of ‘Spiritual as Music’).

https://donpaulwearerev.com/with-kidd-jordan