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Listen Up,
Wallace
Listen up, Wallace. I know
there ain't no way I can
tell anyone everything I know.
You got the cry, you got the tone.
You ain’t no boney maroney
with jesus jumpin’ in your bones.
You got no jones, no debt to me
for the chops I loaned.
Your muse be mannin’ the phone.
Just take the calls. Listen
more than you talk. Talk
less than you play. You’ll be O.K.
The crickets will saw away
at the same spot on their legs,
intone their great profundo notes
about Montreaux, your stepping
into my shoes and shadow.
You’ll have to go your way.
Improvise your life above
expectation and white noise.
Keep your dignity and poise.
You may have my tone,
avoid vibrato in plumbing
my cool, but you ain’t no fool.
So fuck what the mothers say.
There ain’t no cricket born
who can take that fact away.
A whole plague of locusts
might descend on the fields
you seed. You can’t stop them
or predict the winds of change,
but you reap what you sow
outside the perimeter of stage
or studio. Trust me. I know.
Wallace Roney’s gonna be a name
they want to lay claim to too.
Don’t think the sun rises
between the cheeks of your ass,
and don’t play in the shade.
Let ‘em plant a flag in the soft
flesh of someone else’s ass.
Use yours to pull out nails.
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When Wallace told Miles that he did not have a trumpet, Miles gave him one of his.
In 1991, Wallace played alongside the ailing Davis
onstage at Montreux, Switzerland.
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