Robert Pinsky

Lots of crap spoken about artists like Parker.

He had the generosity of an artist too, though,

Along with the cruelty that may be a part of art.

My favorite tale about him has to do with his ear

For something good in almost any music he heard.

Somebody was walking the street with him and--

They pass a bar where some hack tenor player

Is wailing away with a Hammond organt, once

There were a lot of those bars all over New York.

"Listen!" Said Parker, "Listen!--listen to that cat"

And it was some kind of little flat nine or honk

In an unexpected place, the guy's one originality.

And Charlie Paker could hear it. An intellectual,

Yes, as Miles Davis says, but "intellect" like

"Telephone" and "television" means "from afar."

From afar, on the sidewalk, outside the bar,

With all the cruel superiority and generosity

Of art, that brings near whatever unexpectable

Shift any hacking saxophone player packs

In his case, where the instrument, tarnished

Brass and pearly keys and reed, from foundries

And seashells and wherever in Egypt the reeds

May grow-- the instrument, the intellectual

Instrument rests severe and flawed, in its nest.

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