{"id":176434493,"date":"2014-03-25T02:04:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-25T07:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176434493"},"modified":"2014-03-25T02:04:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T07:04:53","slug":"poetry-audio-exit-left-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2014\/03\/25\/poetry-audio-exit-left-3\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY + AUDIO: EXIT LEFT"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"photo

photo by Alex Lear<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Download <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
>\u00a0Exit_Left.mp3<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

exit left<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

when i came to i didn’t know where i was<\/span><\/p>\n

on the ground, prone, near the levee bottom\u2014i blacked out<\/span><\/p>\n

while jogging, got up, walked home, still laboring a bit<\/span><\/p>\n

between deep gulps i told nia as much as i could remember<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

my brother is a cardiologist, nia urged me to call him<\/span><\/p>\n

tuesday morning early i take an ekg and the results are so disturbing<\/span><\/p>\n

keith schedules me for a battery of tests an hour and a half later<\/span><\/p>\n

i still have a meeting to do in between, my blood pressure was normal<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

i reappear, am radioactively injected, get wired up and climb on<\/span><\/p>\n

a treadmill, lay under a nuclear camera, chat as though nothing<\/span><\/p>\n

was wrong, submit to a sonargram, nia is there the whole time,<\/span><\/p>\n

the results are negative, acceptable, i did not have a heart attack<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

keith can not determine the etiology of the alarming ekg<\/span><\/p>\n

but i know the hard truth: at fifty i am almost through<\/span><\/p>\n

i am dying and perhaps there is a metaphysical reason<\/span><\/p>\n

no physical break down showed up on the machines this time<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

as the world unravels around me i coolly center the resulting chaos<\/span><\/p>\n

within the calm of my karma’s core\u2014this is how i exist: i dare to do<\/span><\/p>\n

all the good i can, i accept the uneveness of chance, i simply love<\/span><\/p>\n

life for what it is and when my time comes, i am not afraid to exit<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014kalamu ya salaam<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Music\u2014”Monk’s Mood” by Thelonious Monk<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kalamu ya Salaam \u2013 vocals<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephan Richter \u2013 clarinet<\/span><\/p>\n

Frank Bruckner \u2013 guitar<\/span><\/p>\n

Georg Janker – bass<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Recorded: June 14, 1998 \u2013 “ETA Theatre” Munich, Germany<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Download >\u00a0Exit_Left.mp3 \u00a0 \u00a0 exit left \u00a0 when i came to i didn’t know where i was on the ground, prone, near the levee bottom\u2014i blacked out while jogging, got up, walked home, still laboring a bit between deep gulps i told nia as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[6],"tags":[4,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176434493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176434493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176434493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176434501,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176434493\/revisions\/176434501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176434493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176434493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176434493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}