for john coltrane

remembering john coltrane
(1922 - 1967)

"then i myself come forth: …for the
establishing firmly of dharma,
i am born from age to age".
[lord krsna, bhagavad gita]

hamlet n.c. named for its size, a rustically
rural afterthought & junction of two major
rail lines ‘tween raleigh, d.c., new york &
florida, an unlikely place for one to speak its
name & extraordinary events in the same
breathing, or open one’s soul to true purpose,
but a sacred nexus just the same

(like the rock-hewn caves of
nazareth or the snowy mountains
& jeweled gardens of lumbini)

where ishwara chose again to unite with a
human soul & break himself on karma’s
illusory wheel. to project upon finite
human mind & look through human eyes;
the soul eyes of john william coltrane,
big john & alice’s big-eyed boy, before
falling into slumbering forgetfulness.

(look into my eyes & tell me
what it is u see in me ...
pure devotion, freely spoken…
[bones, thugs & harmony])

falling from privilege to poverty to practicing
the e flat alto horn; falling into adharma,
learning his music from choral canon, radio,
movies, jukeboxes. listening to bird & bebop;
reaching out for euphoria, finding heroin
instead & a passport to the brain’s pleasure
centers. taking too many trips therein.

(trane gathering speed ignoring
signals runaway trane down a
dark tunnel with no light at the end)

drying up debauching dopamine; exchanging
euphoria for dysphoria & painful descent –
not into incarnation but hapless addiction.
falling but finding a barely audible lifestream,
a musica mundana; finding miles but fumbling –
a funky junkie stumble, a bleak & emotionally
bankrupt bottom, soiling creativity;

junkie saunter, junkie strut, haggard,
macabre & slow, brought him to his
bloodless hands & knees)

making miles dismiss him, fire him, call him
irresponsible, unreliable & undependable too.
then finding the grace to courageously kick;
the strength to set his music free; wake
slumbering ishwara, flip a switch & flood
the soul with redemptive light; finding monk,
finding, sober reconciliation with miles.

(the twin currents of sound & light, the one
attractive upward, the other affixing &
downward…)

his soul eyes opened to a clear glimpse of the
true, a deep & lasting epiphanic enlightenment
coaxing thru his horn a sound of pure & sublime
devotion, reeking of direct intercourse with
spirit; a musky pheromonal image of the divine
in whole tonish soloing & modal playing; in an
organic process of reexamining, redefining
self & soul & sound.

(the truth itself doesn't have any name on it
to me. & each man has to find this for
himself… [j. coltrane])

the rhythms of his vision ate up entire scales,
played seven or nine notes over two beats fast,
cascading against the ear, resonating in the heart,
blowing apart rigid harmonic frame; fusing
tonicity, scalar superimposition & driving
rhythmical pulse & passion reaching for god,
finding union, finding irfan, finding moksha

(vanished the veils of light & shade, lifted
every vapor of sorrow, sailed away all
dawns of fleeting joy…
[p. yogananda])

becoming one with the music, freeing himself
from changes, from harmony, from mode, meter
rhythm & time; from sound & all attachments,
slipping his mortal coil after forty winters &
exchanging his horn for samadhi; vanishing into
the great myself; an inflated tear in an ocean of
joy, reabsorbed, free at last in a love supreme.

©Joseph McNair; 2008