Requiem for 'Bird' Parker, Musician
       
     
Requiem for 'Bird' Parker, Musician
       
     
Requiem for 'Bird' Parker, Musician

[ Corso, 11:03 ]

this prophecy came by mail:
in the last murder of birds
a nowhere bird shall remain
and it shall not wail
and the nowhere bird shall be a slow bird
a long long bird
somewhere there is a room
in a room
in which an old horn
        lies in a corner
like a handful of rice
wondering about BIRD

        first voice

hey, man, BIRD is dead
they got his horn locked up somewhere
put his horn in a corner somewhere
like where’s the horn, man, where?

        second voice

screw the horn
like where’s BIRD?

        third voice

gone
BIRD was goner than sound
broke the barrier with a horn’s coo
BIRD was higher than moon
BIRD hovered on a roof top, too
like a weirdy monk he drooped
horn in hand, high above all
lookin’ down on them people
with half-shut weirdy eyes
saying to himself; “yeah, yeah”
like nothin’ meant nothin’ at all

        fourth voice

in early nightdrunk
solo in his pent house stand
BIRD held a black flower in his black hand
he blew his horn to the sky
made the sky fantastic! and midway
the man-tired use of things
BIRD piped a varied ephemera
a strained rhythmical rat
like the stars didn’t know what to do
then came a nowhere bird

        third voice

yeah, a nowhere bird —
while BIRD was blowin’
another bird came
an unreal bird
a nowhere bird with big draggy wings
BIRD paid it no mind; just kept on blowin’
and the cornball bird came on comin’

        first voice

right, like that’s what I heard
the draggy bird landed in front of BIRD
looked BIRD straight in the eye
BIRD said: “cool it”
and kept on blowin’

        second voice

seems like BIRD put the square bird down

        first voice

only for a while, man
the nowhere bird began to foam from the mouth
making all kinds of discords
“man, like make it somewhere else,” BIRD implored
but the nowhere bird paced back and forth
like an old miser with a nowhere scheme

        third voice

yeah, by that time BIRD realized the fake
had come to goof
BIRD was about to split, when all of a sudden
the nowhere bird sunk its beady head
into the barrel of BIRD’s horn
bugged‚ BIRD blew a long crazy note

        first voice

it was his last‚ man‚ his last
the draggy bird ran death into BIRD’s throat
and the whole building rumbled
when BIRD let go his horn
and the sky got blacker… blacker
and the nowhere bird wrapped its muddy wings round BIRD

        fourth voice

BIRD is dead
BIRD is dead

        first and second and third voices

yeah, yeah

        fourth voice

wail for BIRD
for BIRD is dead

        first and second and third voices

yeah, yeah