Haiku For Ella

Ella Fitzgerald
Was the truth and the devil
Is a boldfaced lie

Ode to Bass

Take the chords high and low
Make that rhythm flow
Push that groove through time and space
Give up that bass face
Don’t need to be the boss to keep holding the line
Deep in the pocket
Every Good Brotha Does Fine
Heads swaying, feet tapping
Wires slapping
Pluckin the blues, the funk and swingin the jazz
Every Good Brotha Does Fine and All Cows Eat Grass

More Twisted Than A Braid

Kick a child outta school because of his 4C
No respect for his identity
No desk in the classroom because he’s afro-groomed
Won’t speak what they think
But we hear it in their eyes
Minds wound tighter than our kinks
What’s outside his head is too disruptive
For the inside to be productive
The change that needs to be made
Is more twisted than a braid

Teebee M. Garner is a mathematician born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She is a passionate multi-genre music lover. She grew up playing the flute, but the bass guitar is her favorite instrument. As she nears retirement, she aspires to be more than an occasional noodler, but an rearranger of songs from an infinite number of cross-genre mashups.

Image: Oldangelmidnight from Northampton, MA, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons