Dance of the NoName Diva

(…my 19 year old son, home from college, invites me to concert…December 31, 2017, Lincoln Hall, Chicago)

The conspiracy of nodding heads
To blunted out sounds percolating
Slow burn Afro punk vibe on the low end
Making lights dance through smoky club haze
Making son and friend dance stiffly
And then loose themselves like boiling water does pasta
Simmered by funk seasoned in syncopated salsa
and on stage Diva’s commands to shout
yeah mutherfucker yeah
To spectrum hued congregation obedient to groove
The NoName Diva sings sassy and spits organic flow
Her life her art her dialectical spiritualism her
defiance of gravity and rebellion bending
logic to beat of her will. she will overcome this night
string quartet a flowing sheet over bass and drum
mating under cover to birth fire and joy fire and joy
and I, the old Poet, am privileged to be fully present
bald grey head nodding subservience to soul music
seasoned ears hearing Marvin Monk Muddy Waters
and Sweet Maybelle say yes speak Diva speak
over grooves that never stop grooving until end of time
in my mind as I cherish the time fully present in blessings
my son and his partner in science
loosed in slow flowing frenzy
heads nodding to NoName Diva
rocking it out in the key of life
full circle like the ecology of water
always flowing and changing like music
back and forth to the source make me
want to shout in response to soul call
yeah mutherfucker yeah. And then after the end
we press through Chicago tundra freezing
toes through dancing shoes
hit the Day Ryan drop
son’s friend off to ITT dorm
pale skin moonlit at 1am
and then: father and son:
Pink Floyd and P-Funk father
Anderson Paak and Rapsody son
Stetsasonic daddy and NoName son
Heads nodding together to beat and love of years
And elastic flow ancient and future of millennial groove
Daddy/ son heads nodding/ rhythm hieroglyphics carved
in tempo/ in time/ forever into temples of our minds