"Holiday Hallucination" genre: Poetry
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	Jazz iconography of the late great Billie Holiday.
	Story Behind the Song Holiday Hallucination was sparked by my first hearing of "Lady In Satin", a remarkable jazz album with its own many stories. I wrote the poem immediately after listening to the album straight through. This is a poem I love to bring out at readings, and here in mp3 form, is basically that effect. It is best heard rather than read silently to oneself. Lyrics Holiday Hallucination by Damien Adia Copyright 2000 I'm having metaphysical fantasies about Billie Holiday Lady In Satin, Satin Doll, Lady Day in the heyday of jazz. A capella she plucked my heart like a ripe pear And savored it unsparingly In extracting a dripping melody She is the Black Queen of urban memory Cunning, yes Cutting my stiffened body, yes Loose from the poplar tree To mourn the bliss of blues Through the soles of rat gnawed shoes Her spirit Polished tones of silver and brass These things that Lady sings As strings embellish African scenes Taken away from the mind Yet full in the heart Soul Food and Collard greens. As I closed my eyes she pressed into my hand An Ebony Talisman An Onyx Charm It was her voice As I clasped it to my heart that I might Journey through the door of forever I thought I sensed the wistful breath from her lips speaking the secret in my ear Only the dim light of the hovering CD And my own incandescent eyes Were present in the room Both conscious of a third A minor cord A pause Timing Poise Tiptoe Poise Poinsettia Poesia Poetry Poetess Sorceress Slowly Lowly mourning sighs of a hand carved flute Singing “Southern trees bear a strange fruit” She found me there Charred silver and brass Like she, and glass Eyes that see the colors of midnight And call them jazz! I do love Billie Holiday And as much as our love is of the wind And Wild is the wind It is diamond vapor Such is the breath that we exchange That inhale meets exhale Embodied meets spirit born tears Meet secreted smile While she drenches me clean with her sadness, Oiling and polishing the trumpet of my knowledge I respond, transcend space And time Play through any instrument ever played Think through the horn of any man ever to blow Only to touch her And to reflect back The spirit of life that she has given To the shattered glass and broken ally ways of all of our lives. Will she miss me when my mind wanders from the saxophone? Will I forgive myself? Will she not prefer another hearer when I forget to play my horn And listen as melodies fall from me As scales Of a fish? But she will visit me again. Every cycle when I return To that same Spot of racist flame That hid the flower of her African name That whitened my fear and blackened my pain Inside herself she said the sounding of the rain Would drown in lucid waves of liquor Like blood But one can only die inside for so long Before the bird Flees the cage Before the lips impart that Rage was a part of the passion! No one knew more blue Than the textured vessel Of Lady's art Heartache spreading to every part God bless the child so true, singing Gee baby ain't I good to you! You know it’s true Billie, Too true, too true. Again she comes to me Hanging broken from the tree bough Caked in dried blood and fleshen soot Billie sings What a strange and bitter fruit What a spell from which she releases me Again I am imbibing her spirit Baptizing myself in the waters of her voice. Stroking the feathers of the Nocturnal Raven The poison stinging The hemlock ring Weeping In the arms of majestic Heroin Black-out Sabbath. Pouring the lynch-mob liquor Down her throat to suffocate the angry demons Inside is where the pain is deepest. How you laid this all to rest? In Jazz - a libation for the healing of the gods They needed you on the other side I can only imagine how much they needed you With all this Heart-ache In the world.

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