If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn — Charlie Parker (attributed)

What exactly am I living
when I am playing music
out of my horn, just the way
Bird told it, according to
some, while according to
others, maybe the words
of Bird I carry around with me
were never his to begin with,
and ain’t that just like a bebopper
like Charlie Parker
to lift something from someone else
and riff it into your own as a bit
of theft, and all I’m left with here
to play with is the possibility
that we need to live our days
like stories like song
like improvisational poetry