Swing Praxis

Swing Praxis In which considering the lack Of a truly beautiful, violent revolution We establish ourselves as mediums for change Change which must accumulate Yo maximum impact and speed Like rhythm And rhythm Is a unit of meaning Of feeling Of being And there are ways To withstand sustained conflict But guns are the teeth of democracy Swing praxis We must not easily be possessed By what is just the crudest element of a given plan Either we vote or protest or tremble or march or fight But either way it will soon be hard to be 'cool' And black at the same time Swing praxis It is self-evident That we stand at the edge of a great victory Of which we are confident That we have been wounded in battle But it's too late to be hurt It's too late to turn back now! So go on, go on, bring fire music With harmonic cycles of hymn rhythm And we will navigate the fear of death Go deep in the jungles of deceit and concrete And see how we are murdered on these streets Or be real and go back to the old country Go down in the valley and see how my people have built Such beautyfull homes in the dirt See how only secular sound and the mutability And resilience of black spirit duality Can liberate them From history Swing praxis Come with the hard bop And catch the vision Jazz is a river of vigorous spirits Come like Lightning Hopkins With the Akpala hip shake Come and dance the Juba With the kick and step And the arms akimbo Swing As method As action As rubric As heritage As a black and combative orchestra With terrible bees And whistles and teeth Swing praxis Swing praxis Swing as method Swing as a template for revolution