by Lonnie Carter
TIME: 2003
PLACE: Chicago, China, Revolutionary War Boston, Gullah-Geechee, Carolina, Afghanistan, Victory Gardens Stage
CHARACTERS: Historical Figures, Historical Figures of the Imagination and a Chorus of ambidextrous Ambipsychics
CHORUS
Concerto Ring-a-Levio – a mouthful – say it loud
The Rock of Ages Concert swinging low and high
A Show of Sweetness that chariots back and forth and proud
Sophisticated gents and ladies all – o my!
Let us sing you stories from around the globe
in times present and past
Stories of heroes to touch your heart and challenge your frontal lobe
stories that last
We sing these tales here and now from our fair city
For the here and now,
‘though some aren’t pretty,
All of courage big and small,
chosen for their vantage view and point
Idiosyncratic, just like you, and you, and you with the joint
Tales of Phillis Wheatley, poet of the Independence War
The first woman of color -
did you say ‘color’? -
to publish her poems
The patron saint of ALL Women-Americans in the arts
Wait ’til you hear her chant “Europa” showing the founding of Europe
in all its fits and starts
And tales of Lem Louis Gulliver, South Side slammer-poet-preacher and more
And his twelve year old daughter Baby Glo In-The-Know
We’ll let him speak for himself, as the time arrives, givin’ us all what-for
And the little one, B Glo, well, she got some tricks in store
And there’s a trip to Beijing, China and one to Gulla Geechee, Carolina
We made sure your passport’s up-to-date
No three hour stand-in-line – seventy-five minutes and you’ve passed the
go-gate
CONCERTO’s pure of heart and pure of thought – almost
Cane sugar bubblin’ brown, sweet butter for your toast
Stand back away from your televisionary sets, boys and girls
This here’s live Cirque de Ole right back achoo in the HippeHoppe-o-Drome
Comin’ for to carry you home
Who are we, and you, and you, and you with the joint
We don’t know that answer, but to the point
we can tell you what we dig and do
We dig Teatro Latino
Se habla mucho ‘Spagnole
Moviemy dobrze po Polsku
we speak Polski like Stashu the Pole
We infuse the Tower of Baybel with the Power of Sayble
‘Cause at the end of the rage
we bring to the table
We’re on the same page
And our Mom’s name is Mabel
Here we are in Cheek Cheekago
La Raza y Dziennik Chicagoski
Chillin’ at Sterches – No Corona, no foolish drinks, limited dancing -
watchin’ Sammy through a couple Brewski
Just like Adlai Stevenson said – living in the flat Midwest
We be so lucky, we can see so far in all directions – it’s the best
We fre- QUENT the Harold Washington Li – BRAR – y
We party at the Buckingham colored lights fountain
did you say ‘colored’?
We dig the soulgigs at the clubs on Prairie
We pray at St. Pat’s and hear the Serm on the Mountain
We appreciate the Filipina nurses at Cook County Hosp
Sayin’ nothing bad ’bout anyone else, we prefer their humanity to the
occasional Wasp
We slam the Green Mill Slams
and are awed by Granddaddy Slammeister’s lyrical brain
- Uptown is to urban what Glencoe is to ‘burban -
We head on Southwest for Jamaican insane
scarfin’ the Shack’s jerk chicken and yams
We’re young and old between and betwixt
So old we can still smell the Stockyards
In every ‘hood, South Side, North, West and Southeast mixed
we hear the hundreds, thousands of corner tavern bards
We hang at 67th and Marquette
We know Bridgeport and the rooms to let
We’re toolin’ past 95th and Stony I
We’re rehabbin’ the haciendas on South Shore Driii
We stayin’ clear of the jail at 26th and Californ– I -Cate
We hoppin’ the bus at the Jeff Park turnaround, we won’t be late
We love the CSO and the lawns of Ravin-I – YA
We mourn the loss of the Fine Arts movie shed on South Mich
and one more time is our fondest wish
to see its sexy foreign CIN – E – MA
We know it’s – SOLDIER, not Soldier – S Field
We ain’t no Second City, to no Cleveland will we yield
We walk the Oak Street Beach
Black, brown, yellow, white and red
and we may not love one another
But we have come to respect the Di-Verse – i -tee, each to each
From Halsted and Di-VERSE-EE
From Pulaski, duh, Crawford – who he?
and Western up and down from South to North
Let us all come forth
All ’round the U of C, we quit splittin’ the atom
Don’t you know we all got to eschew dat ratatattatum
From Louis Farrakhan to Hizzoner Weekly Monthly and Yearly
They be in office and mosque for life on their oath
Sometimes it seems the rest of us, gee golly and merely, exist at the
pleasure of them both
We comin’ full circle from the U of I school
We think ITT is cooler than cool
We went to Loyola, for a year it’s true
Attended Wright and Truman too
And we recall DePaul
When Ray Meyer ruled B-Ball
Taught a course at Roosevelt
When the snows for Bilandic wouldn’t melt
We cannot forget Jane Byrne
an elegant lady with a lot to learn
We so old we knew Louis Terkel before he was Studs
We so old we knew the Reverend Jesse Louis This-Distributorship’s-for-you
Jackson
before he was Bud’s
“When shove comes to push
Operation Busch”
We so old we remember the night Lenny Bruce
got nabbed at Mr. Kelly’s
for saying that when some nun
ascended into heaven
her diaphragm fluttered to the street
We so old we remember Dick Gregory playin’ a club
off Rush Street chain-smokin’ his Kents
and still eatin’ meat
We so old we saw Nelson Algren on his Wild Side
and his prototype Golden Arm Man
by the Polish Roman Catholic Union
on Milwaukee Avenue
and Nelson said, “Sit here and type on my Underwood
and feel where ‘Never Come Morning’ comes from”
We so old we drank with James T. Farrell
as he gave us Studs Lonigan
and Carl Sandburg, before the Village,
poetized the City of Big Shoulders
and Royko the Mike gave us his col-umn
And who now will Rappicize the Young Black Drummer Boys
it will be us
because we are so young
the young black drummer boys
at State and Madison
beatin, and beatin’ and beatin’ every drum
And who now will lyricize the sellers of Street Wise
the rhymer and chimer outside the Art Institute
the mother on St. Peter’s sidewalk on Madison with her children in tow
she losin’ her teeth by the handful each year
we all God’s chillun, don’t you know
the good Lord willin’
we hear a rum-a-tum-tum,
But do we hear the voice of Gwendolyn Brooks
Chicago’s gift to the nation’s poetry-at-large
and now that Gwendolyn’s gone
well, we knew where we were
with Gwendolyn in charge
We need some respite, some solace, some down home cookin’
We want it all here in Linkin’ Blinkin’ ‘ n Bod Park
we’re goin’ to Barbara’s store to do us some bookin’
We gettin’ loose, shedding the uptight
and later on tonight
We’ll head on down to the ghost of Maxwell Street
and see if they’re still selling
Then Ravenswood El up to Armitage Street
and hear, Hendricks, Murphy, Mahagony and Elling
Concerto Ring-a-Levio, a mouthful, say it soft
Let it reverberate to every basement and loft
A Transfiguration of your expectation
A reaffirmation of your confirmation
Of the power of the written, spoken, all sung-word
For intelligent children of all ages – now you hear it -
Now – it’s – heard
We are Chicagoans proud, confronting the world
and trotting the globe
We are Chicagoans loud,
Let us touch both your heart and challenge your lobe
The Rock of Ages Concert swinging low and high
Sophisticated gents and ladies all – o my!
From Phillis Wheatley, poet of the Independence War
To Lem Louis Gulliver, slammer-poet-preacher and more
Not us -
but you are the one
And thus – we have now – begun
