In the early 90s, a friend lent me some LPs. Imagine that. I listened to them again and again, this poet-singer who was now referenced, if at all, in the past tense, some artifact from those days of rage. But there he was, later that month, in the concert listings of a throwaway weekly, appearing at some club in Los Angeles. "Tonight: Gil Scott Heron." And that same evening, the news reported a comet might be seen if the skies weren't too hazy. Well, if there wasn't a poem in the making then, there never would be. So I wrote one.
gil scott-heron tonight
your black fro cracks us up
you see, as a child, I don’t
remember seeing that, and
your face, looking out intelligently, like a calm warning,
still scares the shit out of half the Valley, and LAPD
would protect and serve up something, baby, if you got caught
between coffehouses.
gil-scott heron, I do believe
the message and the turntable had a photo finish,
and the winner, they report, is obsolescence.
I got to get up and change
the fucking needle is skipping.
Now what kind of what revolution is that?
you see, as the childen’s children, we didn’t and...
...oh, gil scott-heron, you brilliant dandeLion.
that comet made it though los angeles sky decay tonight.
You're a great poet dad.
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