Devoted to Jazz and 20th Century America
CRESCENT CITY LULLABY
Bbooooooo bboooooo,
Two octaves below a deep bass voice
river boat horns quake on the water.
Night scrambles the groan
with croaks of frogs, barks of herons,
gator cries and splashing fish. […] Continue reading »
Valentine
Listen to the music
Listen to the sound
Turn off your thoughts
Tune in turn on
Gather round
Miles Davis is calling you
Gather round
Listen to the sound
Bad Luck Moan
Hard luck and trouble have hounded me all my days.
Oh yes, hard luck and trouble have hounded me all my days.
If I got some good news, I could change my ways.
Death is a Trumpet Note Away
(To the Jazz Trumpeter, Lee Morgan)
I hear your trumpet notes splitting the evening skies,
breaking up a piano solo, then a sparse hot guitar
opens the modal line for your slow bursts of almost
cornet sounds
a river flow of “Avotcja One”-
trumpet sounds “into a bed of plaints” and flurries
[…] Continue reading »
So Much To Do, So Little Time To Do It In
For Michel Petrucciani
A little man, glass bones disease.
A la Lautrec: two prodigies.
At thirty-six his lungs gave out.
We cried, we would not be consoled.
[…] Continue reading »
Bowl of Black Petunias (Version 2)
If you must leave me, please
leave me for something special,
like a beautiful bowl of black petunias
for when the memories leak
[…] Continue reading »
Coltrane, Dig?
I suppose what it is with trane and me is
he takes all the time he wants to take
even outside of time, sidereal time,
stardust time, bessie blue time,
[…] Continue reading »
SOUTHERN ELEGY
Just two “good ole boys”,
Levon from the Arkansas delta, Harry south Georgia,
gone within a month of each other,
both with big obits in The New York Times.
Who said we don’t honor earthiness!
BLUE SMOKE
The last yellowed leaves
from the Norway maple spiral,
dive and pirouette to ground –
hours of raking pyramid after
pyramid, the tedium of stuffing
bag after bag, the impulse
to light a match, to resurrect
the late fall smells from boyhood – […] Continue reading »
Poetry Appreciation
Sensitive men watch SYLVIA,
develop an appreciation
for Sylvia Plath’s verse.
Insensitive men watch SYLVIA,
develop an appreciation
for Gwyneth Paltrow’s butt.