This is a poem about the jazz musician Louis
Armstrong aka Satchmo (nick-named due his 'satchel mouth')
I blew a battered horn
From since I remember
Dressed in dusty rags
And holy shoes
In a country shack
The size of Rockefellers wallet,
While he sipped champagne
We had soul food suppers
And watched our bones appear
Through our skin.
I blew from dawn
Till the sun set agen,
The wind it expelled
Took me from the projects
To up town dining clubs
Where white folk tapped toes
And silver spoons outta time,
Those same ones
Whose friends banned me
From eating at their tables
When my name was writ small
And I was just another negro, so
I just blew that ole horn
All the time working
To drop a little revolution
In their coffee on the sly
'Cus a man with a gun
In his waistband told me
There was only two ways
To escape the south:
Either a burning cross
and a noose,
Or be a white man's nigger.
So I blew black and blue
Notes for anyone
And everyone from Africa
To rich white America
'Cus music understands
Nothing of apartheid.
And I kept blowing
Watching my brothers and sisters
Fighting for bus seats
Or the right to learning,
Urged the president
To take a coloured hand
Lead her through school doors;
Cut off the tongues
Of those who fight against
Civil rights of segregated souls.
Till those same starched men
Who bought my songs
Called me a commie
For opening my satchel mouth
For some other purpose
Than blowing
America's classic music
Into their homes.
But the years were kinda
To me and my kin
Till TV only saw the colour
Of my smile, and now,
Lied in white linen sheets
Blowing my last breath
I remind you
It's a wonderful world
If you look at it
From the sunny side of street.
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