Dancing with Nina Simone

 

Dancing with Nina Simone

by Teak Kilmer

 

I danced with Nina Simone at Cornell University after her concert there c1960.

Today I heard (on the radio – KFAI) Nina in concert, playing, singing and discussing her life and relationships with Dr Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King.

I had just uttered the beginnings of this sentiment that follows, and as fate would have it, Nina was expressing similar views in a recorded civil rights concert in the company of the Kings.

 

 

I know why you call yourself Black, Roy,

but you’re not black. Now, hang in here with me.

 

You are brown, you are dark brown.

If I call you “Black”, what do I do with our brothers,

our brothers and our sisters who are caramel, tan and

beige, as Nina Simone herself calls you.

You/they are not shades of grey.

 

And another thing: in America if you are ½ black, you’re black.

If you’re ¼ black, you’re black; 1/8^th black, you’re black,

If a hair on your head curls or superior function

of nose makes suspicious … suspicious

that there is any black in this particular buffet of humanity,

you are told you are “black” and your place is over there,

under there, just not…this somewhere.  If you are poor or black or poor and black, they are after you again.

 

What the bleep is that?

 

You are not black, and I am not white;

We are different colors of the same soul,

wildflowers in the same garden …

our colors and fragrances and energies

intermingle like various instruments in the band.

God damn, strike up this band –

with all the instruments playing.

 

white American extremist conservative people in power:

blind, fear laden, lying, vote stealing, war mongering

greed jockeys box you into ghettos and tell you:

all you are good for is menial labor, and you have to be good in what bores you…to despair and rage and crime;

and I am not black, but Bipolar, have anxiety disorder and was

abused and also boxed in and told to take drugs and numb out and

behave and, like you, I won’t, I can’t; we can’t.

My/your soul demands otherwise, and

They push, and we push, and they demand, and we refuse.

 

Star shaped … star shaped pegs do not fit into linear, linear holes.

We are the music and the art and the dancing and

the windows of the soul, sisters and brothers of the Muse.

 

We would by these gifts but put to work poems and song and art, insights and wisdom in duties of love;

but they take away your/our classes and teachers and

rooms that were art and music…and life itself -

hope beaten to a bloody pulp, again,

as they rob from the poor and give to the rich

to buy a third home in Costa Rica or Hawaii.

 

You and I and my ken and your ken and your gifts and my gifts

are being burned like books by Nazis in the streets;

the new fascists destroy what is not they,

what is not what they think, what they do, but

They do not say, nor say they do these things;

they even say they don’t,

but they do and just do and do and do, and

We cry for us and them and our planet and

scream out: “Beware of false prophets” and

“Let those who have eyes to see, see” and

Let those who have ears to hear, hear” and

“Sell all that you have and give the money

to the poor and follow me” and

“Love your enemies” and remind them that

Jesus (Y’shua), their claimed God, said these things.

 

but they worship false profits, are wantonly blind and deaf and

kill the enemies they themselves made.

Nazis were once Christians too, thought Hitler was the Second Coming.

 

Real Love is left in a lonely state, too few friends

at its apparent deathbed. Will it rally, can it rally?

We must be a joyful noise, the voice for Love and

run and play again and turn this Earth, this Gaia again into:

Bring on who you are and tell me what you need!