Poet, playwright. Pedro Pietri lived most of his life in
Harlem, Manhattan, New York. Pietri was a co-founder of the Nuyorican
Poets Cafe at 505 East Sixth Street in New York City.
Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on
March 21, 1944. Three years later, his family moved to Harlem. He
attended public schools in New York City and was drafted to serve in the
Vietnam War from 1966 to 1968. A resident
of New York City and prominent Nuyorican poet, Pedro Pietri died on
March 3, 2004.
Pedro Pietri -UPTOWN TRAIN
I predict that at exactly 10 to 10 it will be 10 to 10 again
then at exactly 10 after 10 it will be 10 after 10 once again
until the hands of time change the subject at which time I will
make another accurate prediction for the science friction public
I predict that if you are caught in a sudden violent rainstorm
and you don't have an umbrella available you will get soaken wet
I predict that if you forget to brush your teeth for one week
your breath will smell worse than all the sewers of the universe
I predict that if you wake up late in the morning you won't get
to work on time and be deducted and instructed to be punctual or else
find yourself another fulltime job to pay for a decent funeral
I predict that the more you demonstrate the less you masturbate
your demands will be met after you forget what your demands are
I predict that after friday night it will be saturday morning
I predict that if you dont put gasoline into the engine of your
car you will have a difficult time getting out of your garage
I predict that if you blow your nose snots will come out of them
I predict that if you can't sing you can't sing if you can't act you can't act
if you can't dance you can't dance and if you can't lose weight you can't
lose weight and you must love or hate yourself
I predict that if you have nothing to say you have nothing to say
I predict that if you go away and don't return and leave behind no
forwarding address your mail; will be returned to the post office and
discarded to oblivion if not claimed by anyone within thirty days.
TELEPHONE BOOTH NUMBER 905 and a half
woke up this morning
feeling excellent
picked up the telephone
dialled the number of
my equal opportunity employer
to inform him I will not
be into work today
" Are you feeling sick? "
the boss asked me
"No sir" I replied:
I am feeling too good
to report to work today
if I feel sick tomorrow
I will come in early
of I feel
Sorry to digress from my usual flavours but soon a wave of Tory cuts will be upon us, backed up by their partners in crime the lib democrats. Soon it will be like 1979 again, once again the conservatives are taking a chainsaw to essential sevices, and like last time it will be the poor, sick and most vulnerable who are hit the hardest. Their vision for Britain is one of emptiness and division, while sitting back in their armchairs of privelege, they demonise and lazily pepetuate an image of scroungers living of benefit as a lifestyle choice rather than people trapped by circumstances beyond their control.
Meanwhile their friends get away scot free with their own lifestyle choices such as tax avoidance which cost the treasury 120 billion pounds, plus their second homes.
While their is money to bail out banks, and still money for war and trident, their surely must be money for our public services.
Lets remember what caused the current recession in the first place, it was caused by the excesses of the bankers, and now it seems the conservatives want ordinary people to pay for it. Cuts being proposed are not driven by necessity but driven by a twisted right wing ideology.
The coalitions power is held by a thread and must be confronted at every opportunity, or we will return to the dark days of Thatchers Britain which still scars Britain to this day.
It is vital alliances are made to defend public services.Lets remember the majority of the electorate did not vote at all for any of these forthcoming draconian measures.We must not take this all lying down, we must show our continual opposition to the conservatives upcoming onslaught, join the resistance before it's to late. We must not give up, that is their probable aim, a country again full of division, rich verses poor. Normal services will at least return here soon. In the meantime fight the cuts.
'In other words I am three. One man stands forever in the middle, unconcerned, unmoved, watching, waiting to be allowed to express what he sees to the other two. The second man is like a frightened animal that attacks for fear of being attacked. Then there's an overloving gentle person who lets people into the uttermost sacred temple of his being and he'll take insults and be trusting and sign contracts without reading them and get talked down to working cheap or for nothing, and when he realizes what's been done to him he feels like killing and destroying everything around him including himself for being so stupid. But he can't - he goes back inside himself.' 'Which one is real?' 'They're all real.' 'The man who watches and waits, the man who attacks because he's afraid, and the man who wants to trust and love but retreats each time he finds himself betrayed. Mingus One, Two and Three. Which is the image you want the world to see?' 'What do I care what the world sses, I'm only trying to find out how I should feel about myself. I can't change the fact that they're all against me - that they don't want me to be a success.' 'Who doesn't?' 'Agents and businessmen with big offices who tell me, a black man, that I'm abnormal for thinking we should have our share of the crpo we produce. Musicians are as Jim-Crowed as any black motherfucker on the street and the... the... well, they want to keep it that way.'
Picture below; Franz Kline - Black Reflections (1959).
'Charles, I know what you mean by they, and that's ironic. Because don't you remember saying you came to me not only because I'm a psychologist but also because I'm a Jew? And therefore could relate to your problems?' 'Haw haw! You're funny, doctor.' 'Ah, you're crying again. Here, dry your eyes, Mingus, and don't bullschitt me.' 'Haw! Now I got you cursing!' 'You've got no exclusive on cursing. Don't bullschitt me. You're a good man, Charles, but there's alot of fabrication and fantasy in what you say. For instance, no man could have as much intercourse in one night as you claim to have had.' 'The hell he couldn't! Maybe I did exaggerate some things like the weight-lifting and all that 'cause I really don't know how much those barbells weighed but only two other guys could pick 'em up and their feet sank into the ground!' 'You're changing the subject, my friend. I was asking about the Mexican girls. Why are you so obsessed with proving you're a man? Is it because you cry?' 'I am more of a man than any dirty white cocksucker! I did fuck twenty-three girls in one night, including the boss's wife! I didn't dig it - I did itbecause I wanted to die and I hoped it would kill me. But on the way back from Mexico I still felt unsatisfied so I stopped and....' 'Go on.... Are you ashamed?' 'Yes because it felt better when I did it to myself than with all those twenty-three dirty-ass whores. They don't love men, they love money.' 'How can you know what they love, Charles? Here. Dry your eyes.' 'Schitt. Fuck it. Even you just dig money!' 'Then don't pay me.' 'Oh, I dig your psychology! You know saying that makes me want to pay you double.' 'Nope, I don't want your money. You're a sick man. When the time comes that you feel I've helped you, buy me a tie or something. And I won't call you a prevaricator again. What matters is that youstop lying to yourself. Now, earlier you said you were a procurer. Tell me about it. How did you get into that?' 'Why don't you ever let me lie on the couch, doctor?' 'You always choose the chair.' 'I feel you don't want me on the couch 'cause I'm coloured and your white patients might be bugged. 'Oh, Charles Mingus! You can lie on it, kick it, jump on it, get on it, get under it, turn it over, break it - and pay for it.' 'Man, yo're crazy! I'm gonna save you.' 'Your not trained to save. I am.' 'I can save you. Do you believe in God?' 'Yes.' 'As a boogie man?' 'We'll get around to that later. Back to the subject, your one - time ill-famed profession.' 'Well, it's true I tried to be a pimp, doctor, but I wasn't really making it 'cause I didn't enjoy the money the girls got me. I remember the first one I knew - Cindy. She had all this bread under her mattress. Bobo laughed at me 'cause I didn't take it - he said I didn't know how to keep a whore.' 'If you didn't want the money, what was it you wanted?' 'Maybe just to see if I could do what the other pimps did' 'Why?' 'That's almost impossible to explain - how you feel when you're a kid and the king pimps come back to the neighbourhodd. They pose and twirl their watchchains and sport their new cadillacs and Rollses and expensive tailored clothes. It was like the closest thing to one of our kind becomming president of the USA. When a young up-and-coming man reaches out to prove himself boss pimp, it's making it. That's what it meant where I come from - proving you're a man' 'And when you proved it, what did you want?' 'Just play music, that's all.' 'I've been reading about you in a magazine. You didn't tell me you were such a famous musician.' 'That don't mean schtitt. That's a system those that own us use. They make us famous and give us names - the King of this, the Count of that, the Duke of what! We die broke anyhow - and sometimes I think I dig death more than I dig facing this white world.' 'We're making progress Charles, but perhaps we've done enough for today.'
' Mingus and his psychiatrist' an extract from 'Beneath the Underdog' Published by Knopf, New York, 1971
I see a future
that expects nothing.
as the sheep are grazing
new worlds are revealed
passion is renewed.
Draw breath,
draw fire,
draw revival
keep ideas, on the horizon.
Admire the echoes
remember what has been exchanged,
as silent voices become a mighty roar
we keep returning, along twisting paths,
between the ridge we walk
where winds are gentle.
Exchange values
stare for stare,
take a strangers hand and hug
hold tight and take a chance.
These are dangerous times
turn of the flow of twisted ideology,
let it run and take its course
to placid waters.
Make love
become a friend of reason,
swim like a salmon
head far upstream,
catch truth
follow freedom.
While history is happening
revolutions keep rearranging,
with safety nets of protection
and clouds that continue to float,
I feel the future rattling near.
wake up and smell the roses.
If everything could be sung to the standard rock and roll progression - C, A minor, F, G chords - then everything'd be simple. How many variations on a single theme. The greatest drum solo I ever heard was by a loose flap of a tarpaulin on top of my car hitting the wind at eighty. The second best is wind shield wipers in the rain, but more abstract, less animal. Like the rythyms of a rabbit scratching his chin. Vision rhythyms are neat like hawk swoops and swan dives. Slow motion space rythyms. Digging rhythyms like shovels and spades and hoes and rakes and snowplow rhythyms. Jack-hammer rhythyms make Ginger Baker and Keith Moon look like punk chumps. Oil can rhythyms, ratchet wrench rythyms. Playing cards in bicycle spokes. A string of rapid-fire, firecracker rhythyms. Propeller rythyms. Cricket rythyms. Dog claws clicking on hard wood floors. Clocks. Piston rhythyms. Dripping faucets. Tin hitting tin in the wind. Water slapping rocks. Flesh slapping flesh. Boxing rhythyms. Racing rhythyms. Rushing brooks. Radio static buzz in a car when the engine is the dictator. Directional turnsignal blinkers. Off and on neon lights. Blinking yellow arrows. Water pumps. Refrigerator hums. Thermostatic-controlled heating systems. Clicking elevators with the numbers lighting up for each floor. Snakes sliding through grass. In fact any animal through grass. At night. Buoy lights. Ship signals. Airplane warnings. Fire alarms. Rhythyms in a stuck car horn. Eating rythyms. Chewing rhythyms. The cud of a cow. The chomp of a horse. Knives being sharpened. Band saws. Skill saws. Hack saws. Buzz saws. Buck saws. Chain saws. Any saw rythym. Hammers and nails. Moneyclanking in a poker game. Cards shuffled. Bus meters. Taxi meters. Boiling water rhythyms. Clicking ballpoint pens. Clicking metal frogs. Roulette wheel spinning rhythyms. Tire rhythyms. Whittling. Stitching. Typing. Clicking knitting needles. Parrots sharpening their beaks on wood. Chickens scratching. Dogs digging for moles. Birds cleaning their feathers. Cocking guns. Spinning guns. Bolt actions. Lever actions. Snapping finger nails. Finger popping.Cracking knuckles. Snapping bones. Farting. Spitting. Shitting. Fucking rhythyms. Blinking eyes. Blowing nose. Coughing without control. Candle flicker rhythyms. Creakinghouses. Thawing ice. And you call yourself a drummer?
What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit of your age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism? The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness)is a hot firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world. In Nine Decades a mad Queen shall be born.
Vision
I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen
the mirror crashes against my face and bursts into a thousand suns all over the city flags crackle and bang fog horns scream in the harbor the wind hurricanes through the window and I begin to dance the dance of the Kurd Shepherds
I stamp upon the floor I whirl like dervishes
colors revolve dressing and undressing I lash them with my fury stark white with iron nlack harsh red with blue marble green with bright orange and only gold remains naked
columns of steel riseand plunge emerge and dissapear pistoning in the river of my soul thrusting upwards thrusting downwards thrusting inwards thrusting outwards penetrating
I roar with pain
black-footed ferrets dissapear into holes
the sun tattoed on my back begins to spin faster and faster whirring whirling throwing out a glory of sparks sparks shoot off into space sparks into shooting stars shooting stars collide with comets
Explosions Naked Colors Explode into Red Disaster
I crash out through the window naked, widespread upon a Heliosauraus I uproot an obelisk and plunge it into the ink-pot of the Black Sea I write the word SUN
Poet, playwright. Pedro Pietri lived most of his life in
Harlem, Manhattan, New York. Pietri was a co-founder of the Nuyorican
Poets Cafe at 505 East Sixth Street in New York City.
