by Brad Haas



THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY GHOST
for John Taggart
 
 

FATHER

Holy Family his delegation,
ASCENSION his creation.
Named for industrial elements:
inner combustion
travels tenor tunnel;
Armageddon issues flaming
from flaring tunnel mouth.
 
 

SON

Son of Osiris,
mortal memorial
to cyclical breath,
brass serpent slung
to a black tree
rooted in rock.
 
 

HOLY GHOST

Does he control chaos?
Salvation Army marches
into gale gust
scattering horns
speaking in tongues.

 







NOTE: After John Coltrane’s death, Albert Ayler claimed Coltrane had invented a ‘Holy Family’, in which Coltrane was the Father, Pharaoh Sanders was the Son, and Ayler himself was the Holy Ghost.   The title of the poem is taken from the piece of that name on Coltrane’s album Meditations.  The sections were conceived as direct responses to the music, as well as ruminating, in the cases of Coltrane and Sanders, on the physical and associative aspects of their names.  -BH.