and after three days of drinking with larry love
i just get an inkling to go on home
so, i am walking down coldharbour lane
head hung low, three or four in the morning
the suns coming up and the birds are out singing
i let myself into my pad
wind myself up that spiral staircase
and stretch out nice on the chesterfield
pithecanthropus erectus already on the cd player
and i just push that remote button to sublimity
and listen to the sweet sculptural rhythms of charles mingus
and j.r. monterose and jackie mclean
duet on those saxophones
and the sound makes it is way outta the window
mingling with the traffic noises outside, you know and
all of a sudden i am overcome by a feeling of brief mortality
'cause i am getting on in the world
coming up on forty one years
forty one stoney gray steps towards the grave
you know the box, awaits it is grissly load
now, i am gonna be food for worms
and just like charles mingus wrote
that beautiful piece a music, epitaph for eric dolphy
i say so long eric so long john coltrane
and charles mingus, so long, duke ellington
and lester young, so long, billie holliday
and ella fitzgerald, so long, jimmy reed
so long, muddy waters, and so, long howling wolf
