Let’s rename the park, for a Black man.
We’re all equal, not a sequel.
With 2020 hindsight, we’d repair the funk
All the other parks, they want the darks. 
We charge the poor to park the car,
but we don’t tax the man, and drive Tesla.
Poet laureate, poet laureate;
the epitome of literacy.
Life’s a brief candle, but he lit it.
He hit it, he didn’t sh** it. 
For his game, he’s like the Willie Mays or Willie Mac,
the Barry or the Bobby, meanings clearly or at bottom. 
We can’t change our past, but we can change our minds.
There’s more than 1s and 0s, there’s more than of’s and “ahvs”

A temple of listening. To see it glistening. 
Let’s rename the park. Let’s rename the park.
aeiou! aeiou! 
We want to mingle, to hit a single. 
Even our squirrels think the new rules are uncool. They’re not dullards.

This is a poem I wrote as a song parody to the tune of “don’t believe the hype” by Public Enemy and it also quotes from a poem by Al Young about the squirrels in Palo alto. I sent this to City Council and may have also spoken for the record at a public hearing through Zoom.

I just heard this morning that he had died last month. I had seen his son Michael Young a few weeks before that in San Francisco at City Lights . I will be reaching out to other activists and students of Al to see what is fitting memorial to him here. He had an office on the corner of Bryant Street and University, the Nevada Building, for many years.

If we don’t want to rename the park for him, what shall we do ?

Notes:

Not that it’s critical, but this the original lyrics I am riffing on:

Caught you lookin’ for the same thing
It’s a new thing, check out this I bring
Uh Oh the roll below the level
‘Cause I’m livin’ low next to the bass, c’mon
Turn up the radio
They claim that I’m a criminal
By now I wonder how
Some people never know
The enemy could be their friend, guardian
I’m not a hooligan
I rock the party and
Clear all the madness, I’m not a racist
Preach to teach to all
‘Cause some they never had this
Number one, not born to run
About the gun
I wasn’t licensed to have one
The minute they see me, fear me
I’m the epitome, a public enemy
Used, abused without clues
I refused to blow a fuse
They even had it on the news
Don’t believe the hype –Yes
Was the start of my last jam
So here it is again, another def jam
But since I gave you all a little something
That we knew you lacked
They still consider me a new jack
All the critics you can hang ’em
I’ll hold the rope
But they hope to the pope
And pray it ain’t dope
…
The book of the new school rap game
Writers treat me like Coltrane, insane
Yes to them, but to me I’m a different kind
We’re brothers of the same mind, unblind
Caught in the middle and
Not surrenderin’
I don’t rhyme for the sake of of riddlin’
Some claim that I’m a smuggler
Some say I never heard of ‘ya
A rap burglar, false media
We don’t need it do we?
It’s fake that’s what it be to ‘ya, dig me?
Don’t believe the hype –Don’t believe the hype, its a sequel
As an equal, can I get this through to you
My 98’s boomin’ with a trunk of funk
All the jealous punks can’t stop the dunk
Comin’ from the school of hard knocks
Some perpetrate, they drink Clorox
Attack the black, ’cause I know they lack exact
The cold facts, and still they try to Xerox
Leader of the new school, uncool
Never played the fool, just made the rules
Remember there’s a need to get alarmed
Again I said I was a timebomb
In the daytime the radio’s scared of me
‘Cause I’m mad, plus I’m the enemy…
Their pens and pads I’ll snatch
‘Cause I’ve had it
I’m not an addict fiendin’ for static
I’ll see their tape recoreder and grab it
No, you can’t have it back silly rabbit
…
Some say I’m negative
But they’re not positive
But what I got to give
The media says this

And here is the Al Young poem I reference, about squirrels:

its actually recorded with a bassist named Dan Robbins —

Squirrels are skittering outside through the trees

Of my bedroom window

Laying it on the line of my consciousness brown and black flurrying and scurrying how can I not help loving them

Like an old Bopster loves licks

Laid down

Building up

The “ofs” and “ahvs” comment in my lyric references his speech at Berkeley a few years back about how the word “love” only has five rhymes whereas “amor” in Spanish is easier to rhyme — or in Portuguese – -he was talking about an English lyric to Jobim.

What got me started on this is that I saw a book in the window of Books Inc at Town and Country, an anthology of Black poets, by Kevin Young and I read the Al Young poem, about “Players” and then when I went online to find more info about the poem, I noticed Al’s obituary.