Remembered Names: Third Edition

By Donley Phillips

ELLINGTON
The Dukes patrician mother passed
in May of nineteen thirty-fi ve.
His calling, even then, was cast,
but composing took a nosedive.
He fi lled her hearse with fl owers,
sorrowing in his solitude.
He bore a battleground of powers.
Then came, In a Sentimental Mood.
Its dancers took the tune from there,
and spread its spell from coast to coast,
stepping to it with such style, such fl air
that many c1ubbers could but toast.
My folks did the fox-trot to his band,
in Depression-dizzy Dallas,
Deep Ellum,1 where colored folks could stand.
Saw his show in Tylers Palace.2
Ghost trains would trumpet past our home,
passing its porch with Pullman cars
that carried white folks to and from
towns with names like Texarkana.
Those evening trains were lit like stars . . .
all the way to Corsicana.
My dad would play on our piano,
plunking out some boogies bitter bars.
A railroad clerk, he ran with woe,
drugging that journey with his gin . . .
Born for Christ in nineteen thirty-fi ve,
I bear a cross of love within,
to help somebodys heart survive.
Our darkest years saw Dukes comeback.
For Duke would joy his band with jive,
trumpeting his A Train on Loves track.
1Deep Ellum is on Elm Street in Dallas, Texas.
2the only black theater in Tyler, Texas.
October 17, 2009
Remembered Names 139
ON ELLINGTONIA
If you dig elegance,
his music is your mistress.
Take the A Train to dance
up in Harlem, with fi nesse,
if only in memory;
its in my solitude,
in my souls reverie.
In a sentimental mood
Im moving, Im praying:
Dear Lord, in heaven above,
keep us sweetly swaying
to Ellingtons deep groove.
Johnny Hodges is so hip,
when he swings Warm Valley,
that hell take you on a trip
to glory, to Gods alley;
hell give you a poets tip:
It dont mean a thing, man,
if it aint got that swing
a fantasy, black and tan!
Such love is everlasting.
The Duke would love you madly!
For his sound is so haunting,
as we glide to it, gladly.
November 9, 2009

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450030663

Donley Phillips

About the Author Donley R. Phillips, a writer-poet, was born December 21, 1935, in Tyler, Texas. In 1945, near the end of World War II, Phillips lived in San Antonio, Texas. He attended segregated public schools: elementary school, Frederick Douglas Junior High School, and Phyllis Wheatley High School. In the early fifties, Phillips was elected president of the NAACP Youth Council. Along with Thurgood Marshall and Harry Burns of the NAACP, he actively participated to end public school segregation in San Antonio and the South. In 1953, Phillips was awarded a scholarship to tour Europe in a student exchange program, sponsored by the NAACP. Upon his return to the USA, he received a Ford Foundation Scholarship to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1955, Phillips moved to Los Angeles, California. He continued his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, with the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr. During the sixties, he participated in the San Francisco marches. He also was a protester at the anti–Vietnam War rallies together with William McNeil during the late sixties and early seventies in southern California. Phillips presently resides in Los Angeles and is a Beverly Hills Optimist Club International member (promotes positive development of youth).

Book preview

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MEMENTO MORI

THE CREEK BEHIND

MY AUNT’S RANCH HOUSE

HOMECOMING

MOTHER AT HER WINDOW

1211 WEST CLAUDE STREET,

TYLER, TEXAS

MY GRANDPARENTS’ NEIGHBORS

IN SOLITUDE, IN LA

HYMNAL

IN ST. AUGUSTIN CHURCH,

PARIS, 1980

I LIVE

THE SUPPLIANT

THE WHITEWASHERS:

LATE 20TH CENTURY POSTSCRIPT

LEGACY

LORE

COMMUNIONS

SO LITTLE, LORD

AFTER THE HOLOCAUSTS

RUSH HOUR ON A CITY BUS

STARGAZERS

IN TYLER, TEXAS, CIRCA 1947

OF ROOTS AND OTHER THINGS

THE WELL-WATER BLUES

THE BOTTOM

GENERATIONS

ONE SOUL BROTHER TO ANOTHER

BALLAD

FREEDOM RIDERS

FRAGMENTS

ON GENESIS

ON LEAVING JERUSALEM,

IN AUGUST 1979

THE OTHER SIDE

WORK SONG

ON LISTENING TO A RECORDING

OF JOHN COLTRANE’S DEAR LORD

ORPHEUS IN NEW YORK

ANCESTRAL GROUND

AMERICANA

LIKE DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS’ BLAZING CROSS, IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, SPRING 1955

AMERICAN INFERNO

EVERYMAN

MEMENTO

THE BATHROOM

THE PYRAMID

THE PRESENT TENSE

PARTICULARS

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1979

ON THE DEATH OF MIMSIE,

MY MAINE COON CAT

SEPIA LADY’S SONG

FIRST LOVE

LA TIME MACHINE

PAEAN

SONNET

OVERTURE

EARLY ROSES

LIGHTING THE NIGHT

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

ENCOUNTER

EPITAPH

CLOCK-WATCHING

LODESTAR

AT SHAKESPEARE’S DEATHBED

LIKE LAZARUS

THE RAINY SEASON

JAZZ SUMMER

ELEGY FOR MY UNWRITTEN LINES

SOME POETS

ATHENS, 1979

THIS SIXTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD

EVENSONG FOR EARTH

CROSSINGS

ALL THINGS

AN OLD POET’S DREAM

A PARADOX

THE SCENT OF HONEYSUCKLE

THE CONQUERORS

TO A WOULD-BE PROPHET

SUNSET IN LA

BIRD LORE

DENIAL

DIVING IN

PRELUDE

OLD-TIMERS

ELEGY FOR JOE DELANEY, RUNNING BACK FOR THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

NOCTURNE

AMERICA IN THE DARK

LA 1999

EVERYMAN II

EURYDICE

ANCIENT SLEEP

A DAY

THE SECOND COMING:

CONFESSION

THE PRESENCE

FOUND

A GIRL AT A Y.W.C.A. CHRISTMAS DANCE

IN SAN ANTONIO IN 1952

REQUIEM FOR THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

ON JACOB LAWRENCE’S ‘LADDERS’

THE THANKSGIVERS

REVELATION

A LOVE SONG

LIKE A ROSE

ON SOME BLACK TEACHERS

ENDNOTES

To my mother, Billie M. Ware; my sister, Carolyn L. Wallrich;

my grandparents, Diora and Jody Phillips and Emma Louise and Will R. Downey; my aunt, Sadie Melton, and her husband, Frank Melton, and their daughter, Francine Bryant.

This book is also dedicated to

Barbara Mounts

Gloria Lindsay-Hobbs, PhD

Victor George

Samuel Allen

Leonard Taylor

Rose Clements

Harry Burns

William McNeil

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Rosa Parks

T. M. Alexander Jr.

T. M. Alexander Sr.

Jeanne Jackson and

her brother, Maynard Jackson

Kim and Bill Downey

Ethel Owens

Madame Beatrix of Paris, France

Toni Morrison

Rev. Dr. Cecil L. Murray

Florence Anderson

Willis Bonner

Myra Hemmings

Burghardt Edwards Jr.

Dr. Eugene Fuller and his wife, Mae

Dewey Edward Chester

Jacob Lawrence and his wife Gwendolyn Knight, painters

Joyce Whitaker

Cheryl R. Leigh

Benny Carter, jazz artist

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank my sister, Carolyn L. Wallrich, and Rose Clements, my friend and publicist, for their support in making this book possible. In addition, I should like to extend my gratitude to the novelist Toni Morrison for her encouragement.

Donley Phillips

After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

—Emily Dickinson

Image #1.JPG

Ms. Billie Marie Ware