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Sidney Poitier

from Let All Who Will by CHRIS PIERCE

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SIDNEY POITIER
Written by Chris Pierce & Mark Malone

lyrics

Sidney Poitier
Written by Chris Pierce & Mark Malone

He went on a winter’s day, As the rolling surf went rolling through
By the pier at Malibu its customary way.
The highway roar, such a pity, barely waned as rainclouds grew,
like a memory of something true, over the desert city.

In hills above the office towers, coyotes hunt through prickly pear.
A distant bell tolled out the hours. As vultures tilt in brilliant air.
By the tracks, by derricks swinging, and sagging tents, and old men singing
They never stopped to hear the ringing. Or the news that it was bringing.


When the word was finally whispered… It struck me like a punch
The nurse in the doorway, Saw he hadn’t eaten lunch…
When his body finally said, “That’s enough. I will relent.”
And all across the city, We are left, less elegant.
They told me Sidney Poitier, with all that brilliance, all that nerve
Has he up and gone away? With all that willingness to serve.

On tennis courts, in restaurants
The jostle of the living
Will not alter, will not rest.
But if we do more than just exist,
In the city of forgetting,
a few will pause amid their setting
And think, what has gone?
Sidney, Los Angeles will miss you
Though it no longer remembers why.
But that’s okay, that’s okay…
You would say beauty is not beauty
If it makes a demand of love.
Your grace was just an invitation
To brace and stir a broken nation.
So, desert mountain, take this guest
Where Portier is laid to rest.
He lies beside our house and hill
Make of that, just what you will.
In the midnight of the desert dark
As all the dogs of Belair bark,
Do not grieve the absent sun,
Just set to work, as work is done.

I walk a trail above the city. As all the L.A. lights go dim.
Are the mountains here more handsome now, for partly being made of him?
Oh, maybe I’ll add a bit, to the way I live today
And for an hour be a little more, like Sidney Portier.

They get to stick around you see. If people just like you and me
Could ever just for once agree. Think of all the souls we’d free.
And on his stone I’d carve these words
For everyone to see:

Justice marchers learn your way. And sing a song that’s true
Stand up for a while today, And do as heroes do.

credits

from Let All Who Will, released September 1, 2023
Sidney Poitier 05:08
Written by Chris Pierce & Mark Malone
Lead Vocal & Acoustic Guitar - Chris Pierce
Drums - Michael Jerome
Bass - Kaveh Rastegar
Guitars - Doug Pettibone
Guitars - Kelvin Holly
Grand Piano - Deron Johnson

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CHRIS PIERCE Los Angeles, California

www.chrispierce.com/biography.html

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