When you cleared your throat
and decided that there were other worlds
worth conquering; everybody and their mama
was writing odes about you, how you put the azz
in jazz, about how you could stare down a bull
without ever thinking twice about if you were
in the wrong space at the wrong time.

I tried that once, not with a bull, but with a skirt
you know, your infamous stare, for about two straight
years, until this skirt got wise and asked me if I was
a poet, man, I started cracking like a baby grand piano
cuz you know, I was freaking that somebody was digging
my words ...

she caught me off guard, I mean, here I was with no cash
my belly was snoring and i had just got fired from another
9 to 5 trip. I was trying to brood her off by looking
all expressionless, but this skirt wasn't going our like
that and offered to buy me a steak and potato deal
from Woolworths and I've been smiling ever since.

people are weird like that, they remember you only
if they want something from you; that ever happen to you
Miles? One day, I was just hanging with some old homies
and we were talking about your brooding, found out that
I wasn't the only one trying to cop your groove.
Black Fred who had been trying it for years and ended up
with a hernia and a divorce said that if it hadn't
been for good pot and this young freak he was digging on
that he'd be knee deep in sessions.

the only person i knew, that could out brood you Miles
was my mama, man, ma could find shit wrong on a perfect
sunny day and not say a word until night fall
she was born that way; holding down the fort, while pop's
sorry azz would disappear into a bottle of whatever he
could find, leaving her, with six crazed kids. I'm sure
there were times she wanted to walk away from it all, but
I guess she really thought it was more important to keep
us together as a family; instead of chasing
that sorry azz husband

Miles, could it be that we all might be brooders?
imagine that, a nation of brooders. Wish I could play
something for you man; while you decide on whether or not
heaven is better than hell. check it out. is Dinah as
pretty as Sarah? did bird finally get off that smack?
does god sit in on yo' jammies?

-- by Marvin Tate