KKK

The story which follows you might find weird.
Weird is like strong; strong is like pretty.
No matter how weird, strong or pretty,
there's always weirder, stronger and prettier.

Ever since I was a kid
I dreamed the impossible dream.
Born one of the whitest kids in Tupelo, Mississippi,
I wished I had been born a few hues darker.

When this strange desire invaded my mind,
and migrated down to the soles of feet
and, indeed, took possession of me, body and soul,
I can not say when or how it happened."

It could have been before I was conceived.
It could have happened in kindergarten.
It could have happened while watching Soul Train on TV.
It could have happened when no one was looking.

As I aged into teenage years,
I became ever more curious about things "colored."
That's how Afro Americans were called back then
in the days of separate water fountains.

In high school, I take up the tenor sax,
and quantum leap into Negro politics.
Negroes is how Blacks were called back then
when we protested in civil marches.

Out of the army, I move to Chicago,
and there I begin to frequent tanning parlors
as well to experiment with chemicals
to make my hair go permanently frizzly.

The rest is history.
In 198o, I create the KKK Jazz Ensemble.
And so the once whitest kid in Tupelo,
is promoted and ordained by his peers a "brother."

It's a wild and wonder-filled country
where dreams come true,
and are lived in full and in living color

Kelly Kenneth Knight