16—Invisible Sword of Cool

Street
Corner scenes of cool.
Witch
Doctors conjuring spells
w/ intent of full, personal revolt
their hand never tipped, their
backs to the wall force their move inside.
To tip off the rage'd make
each day a test against the man cementing
other status,
facing hate like outcasts in a land allegedly
all free all
the time, the silver
winds of the avant-garde
bent their shapes into something fearless, the
miserable feeling of outcast turned in
& onto itself recasting the
cold into the cool.

The mechanism of survival, of silent protest, the
only retreat into silence or heiroglyph the
way to maintain
their dignity. Somehow
genius was activating ancestry, somehow
could tap into Yoruba lessons    &
survive the inner-hate projected onto them.  Who
was to know
by doing this by
becoming cool the culture was being shaped & racism would be
less of a problem someday?     Cool   is   not
visible to the uncool.                Cool is the sword that cuts & no one notices.

8.16.01 @ 3451 Ozanam, Chicago
line from Birth of the Cool  - Lewis MacAdams
pg 47