Barry Charles Johnson: The Audacity of Abstraction

Breathe a Little Color
poetry written by John Lee Gaston White
In honor of Barry Charles Johnson

Peer to peer —
he was always a pier above me.
You could tell by the way the sun hit his face —
gold against brown,
light finding a place to rest.
He prayed for fall —
for rain to fall —
so heaven might bless the earth,
the streets whistle the chords of memory.

If you hear it,
And then I hear it.
We — we have it now.

If you see it,
and then I see it,
like clouds — all things distant —
we see them too.
But it’s when I say it —
when we are thinking the same thing
and don’t know it until we say it —

“That cloud is a heart,
that cloud is my mother’s face,
that cloud is a rose,
and that one — pointing far away, pinky fingers folding — that cloud —
is a piece of myself
I have named Harlem.”

Mischief boy,
getting into things,
a spark in his eyes — glimmers on black and violet, light as caramel;
silk canvas of skin, wool texture of hair —
a rhythm in his walk,
sequences here and there —
patterns only he could keep time to.

He knew the heart of a stranger,
the heart of a friend,
the heart of a widow,
the heart of the matter — of matter, as they say.

His feet touched Harlem,
and Harlem touched his feet —
that holy ground of brass and breath,
where laughter and struggle
curl up like smoke at the edged recesses of night.

Turn on jazz.
Enter bebop.
Tap the blues, call it salt grass.
Light a candle in the dark.
Flicker — god make us flicker as a sign of good hope, goodwill.
Flicker — show us, crack with beat,
let that fire sparkle.

Whip and holler —
a symbol of symphony —
saxophone and trumpet,
piano strings like Monk,
blank pages like Art Blakey,
or Bill Evans’ The Paris Concert, Miles in Sketches of Spain — he was in Spain.
In A Temple Garden of Yusef’s, a garland of red, a trio of chambers,
notes hanging in air like prayers,
steeping joyous —
smiling strands of beads.

Fingers possessed —
he went, he went.
He reached, he stroked, he leaped,
he fell, and he leaped again.
He sought and cried aloud —
and laughed, hahaha —
he cried out with laughter,
the kind that shakes the sky open.

Who can live,
is one who can be moved — of
moved to paint in every direction.
Paintbrush, how do I select paint for you?
I am simply the vessel;
you are my tool.
Not painting for freedom,
but painting to be it —
to be it.
Experience cannot define
a life undefined.
Like air —
Air is not seen —
and he,
he is gone.

But we still breathe the same air,
and he was in it —
and as such,
he is still in it.

Breathe a little color.
In — out — in — out.
Breathe.

Through your nose,
out through your mouth.
You should see the red
at the tips of your fingers,
The tingles at the base of tippy toes,
feel the pulse of your heart,
the quiet hum beneath the ribs.
Pushing further – push further –
Sense your neck, you are alive, like a nimble of breath at your earlobe — the whisper.

Breathe a little color.

Come ye and others — one in all.
Abstract a little color.
Breathe —
a little color.

Mixed Especially for You (Harlem Color Study)
(written after viewing the abstracted work of Barry Charles Johnson)
poetry written by John Lee Gaston White

Sublime—walk with me.
From here and there, look up and down, stop and stay awhile.
You are home.

Say color—
We are here because of color: the use of it, the making of it, the shape of it.
Mixed especially for you—you were considered here.
Let red be a taste, blue a sound, gold a temperature.

Morning—gold.
Brownstone ribs warming,
Marcus Garvey Park shaking off dew,
steam blooming from a manhole, saffron and warm.
Cobalt sky over Lenox; pigeons coo in the cornice—
you know they sing.

Noon—chrome.
Color tastes like collards at Sylvia’s,
emerald pot liquor slicking the spoon;
like jerk smoke ribboning up Frederick Douglass,
pepper-sweet on the back of the throat;
like shaved-ice syrup dripping down a child’s wrist—
cherry-bright, tongue stained and laughing.
Say color—
Nag Champa on 125th, oil man calling oils, incense, shea!
Pressing-comb sizzle—a blue note swaying in a kitchen—
barber’s neck powder snowing on a cape.
White cloth of the Holy Ghost on Sabbath,
palm fans stirring lilies and amens.
Abyssinian’s tambourine—tin and sunlight—
the choir jeweled in breath.
Color is rope-slap: slap / slap / skip—
girls double-dutch in a ring of bronze dust.
A bucket drummer frets the afternoon;
the 2 and 3 trains rumble under Lenox Ave. like distant thunder.
Vendors lay a quilt of sunglasses, knockoff leather handbags,
mangoes the color of August shoulders, watermelon tiger stripes colored tan.

Dusk—indigo.
How come all this color?
Because hands kept mixing—
because the brush traveled in suitcases and shoeboxes—
because Congo hums in a djembe head,

Sudan braids a river down a back,
Jamaica smokes the air sweet with pimento,
Trinidad claps flour into roti suns.
Dancing, weaving, abstracting—
to poke and prod like tattoos and henna that mark,
scarified, christening the journey of free lenses,
free paintbrushes, free hands.
Because the Carolinas and the Mississippi
walked themselves north on sore feet,
and the blocks of Marcy shook hands with Powell,
and the city learned a wider tongue.
High-rises cut the light into ribbons; we follow the ribbons like saints and sinners.
St. Nicholas willows blue in the last light,
and gospel leaks from a basement like warm molasses.
The river takes the final orange and keeps it.

Night—neon.
Neon hums OPEN 24 HOURS in a bodega window,
cat curled like a crescent moon on the lotto machine.
Chess clocks crack on Malcolm X Boulevard;
kings fall soft as the lasting smoke buds of ash.
Photographs in suits and sundresses, free lenses—
Paintings of hard hats and Pullman cloth, free paintbrushes, lifted me—
somehow—blocks away to a table for two at her place.
She shows me her aura: lavender, turquoise, pink, crystal.
I know her because I traced her with these free hands,
and she names me artist by my touch.
My hands still remember her name;
my fingertips recall her body’s outline.
Apollo letters flare hot as brass,
taxi roofs flick like fireflies,
mural saints—Harriet, Ella, Josephine, the Black Madonna—
haloed in streetlight and spray paint.
Supreme Mother—salt of the ocean, Sirius stars, woman of the earth—
hold this corner open.
Let the dark become wombs of indigo, not absence.
Let the city keep singing its hundreds of tongues.

Sublime—walk around, see from here and there—
stop, and stay awhile.
It’s Harlem—always in color;
mixed especially for you.
You are home.