21 jazz poems on the 21st of January, 2026

January 21st, 2026

An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician. This edition features poets – several new to readers of this website – writing about their relationship with the music and its historic figures, including Chuck Mangione, John Coltrane, Barney Kessel, Count Basie, Bill Evans, Hubert Laws, and Steve Lacy.

Thanks to the poets…and enjoy!

Joe Maita

Editor/Publisher

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photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress

Cab Calloway, 1947

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Bill Evans
(solo piano at Carnegie Hall)

wind in the eaves
snow falling on forgotten leaves
night drifting in bringing gifts
of tears grief intertwined with healing rest
he shares a marriage of bereavement and beauty
outside the window a tree whispers of love and loss
his fingers separate gold from dross

by Michael L. Newell

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August Matins

There’s an August bow that plays
across plants. It draws to air

timbre & resonance—secret
language only earth discerns.

Music inside xylem tissue
pinned to summer’s backdrop

of spacious colors though we
don’t hear a blue note. Leaves filter

light over dahlia’s petal rows
thrum wide & wild to the
……..immaterial maestro.

by Constance Clark

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Strolling Through Hallways

What better way
to enhance an early November sub-tropical
afternoon than with a featured Jim Hall playlist
consumed in delight with a slow to simmer Irish stew
& the casual tending of an ice laden lime squeezed G&T?

……………He picks
……………………….but one
……………………………………..answer
……………to any
……………………….question
……………………………………..regarding his
……………Yes!
……………………….from Aranjuez
……………………………………..to Rock-Skippin’

……………………….No hesitation
……………………….No equivocation
……………………….Just demonstration

……………such
……………………….electricity
……………………………………..emanates
……………quietly
……………………….an appetite
……………………………………..filled full
……………quietly
……………………….brief rain
……………………………………..begins

by Terrance Underwood

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Arrive Together

I get up each morning
knowing something will happen.
I know how to tuck and roll,
curiosity may adjust the plan,
I am built for this.

Do you see that I am strong?
I can maintain my balance
if or when a thing goes wrong.
My self-worth is not dependent
on what strangers think.

Among the choices
create structures of beauty,
find occasions to benefit others,
celebrate diversity,
acknowledge earth.

Let out the jazz in your voice
share the good inside of you,
don’t over mute your play,
be ready for the shift, when
the solo comes your way.

Look for the harmonic track
of mutual opportunity,
let common bonds entwine,
life is not a net sum game,
free associate, arrive together.

by Steven Swank

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It’s In My Nature

through the trees seen
from my quarter’s open
broad window vantage
a bounding bushtail halts
hunched on a branch graced by
Resurrection fern spores
in suggestive calm refuge
but for the infrequent twitch
common to its species
this while Freddie Roach
bumps a soulful organ quartet
sweetening the surroundings
with some “Brown Sugar”

Hell! Staring and listening
I was twitching too!

I am particularly intrigued
when representatives of this
alleged vermin ilk
dig such a rhythmic blue
in a way others
don’t can’t or won’t
I further suspect that few
right minded people
want to accept how
they are influenced by
the sight of a paused squirrel
backed with the romp
of a Hammond B3
without a blink of the eye

by Terrance Underwood

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17 Again

sweet
cool phrasin’
nothing fazin’
high on a memory
& I’m just cruisin’
it’s an easy Sunday glide
atop clouds of reverie
& thru the speakers
Nancy Kelly’s “Jeannine”
reminds me of : diamonds in the back
sunroof top / did I think old memories
would ever stop?
they’re sustained notes
in this swingin’
ride of a
life

by Connie Johnson

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One Night in a Midwestern Bar

Leaning my hip, against the bar, waiting
for my drinks, I listened to the jazz band

that played the same set every Thursday,
a mix with songs from Miles’ Kind of Blue.

But between the shaking of the cymbals,
the thrum of the bass, the silky serenade

of the sax, I heard another song—
the swish of doors, the hiss of steam

from the espresso machine, the slide
of a glass over the coppertop bar.

With a tray of drinks, I snaked around
the drum set. It wasn’t the men’s stares

that caused me to slink and swivel,
it was the music, the way the notes burst

into being out of nothing, like passion
sometimes strikes in our careful chests.

by Rebecca Watkins

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The Joys of Smooth Jazz: Ode to Chuck Mangione

It always felt so good to hear him
smooth trumpet …flugelhorn …soothed us

mentored by Dizzy …Art Blakey
Cannonball Adderley …Woody Herman

flamenco …disco… pop …fusion
jazz… improv… orchestral suite… salsa beat

his long locks… funky felt fedora hat …chased
clouds far… far… away… they stayed that way

fans grooved on cobwebs of gossamer
sounds… adrift in blue air… making the rounds

he blew cool about friends and love
knew how talent arrives …thrives …stays alive

Give It All You Got he thanked
Olympians on Lake Placid’s banks

he taught us all about joy …majesty …sunlight
he could make anyone believe the world was right

every cumulus dances with light …mellowing
like campfire smoke as it prances on a summer night

In Children of Sanchez his horn slip-slides away
then turns… warms… returns to catch our hearts outright

we know where to find him now
on the Hill Where The Lord Hides

by Mary K O’Melveny

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Embouchure

after “Syrinx,” jazz flutist Hubert Laws doubling “Syrinx” by Claude Debussy

“This is the way,” laughed the great god Pan,
(Laughed while he sate by the river),
“The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.”

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Double, double, foil, rebuttal.
You dare to put your mouth

to me, but my haunt
masquerades as duet.

Hacking and hewing
the old goat cut me short

thinking he had all of
me, but he sees only

the surface of the pool
while I, rhizome-

rooted, know it is he
who is halved and

hollowed, riddled
by such ruminant

rip-rap rut.
His music lives

only because he
breathes through me

while I
shooting tall

play on air
shadowing

my phantom sound
in this song of myself.
.

by Susanna Schantz
.

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A River of Tears

It’s coming straight from her heart
Barney Kessel strumming the beat
With Julie riding a gentle jazz wave
Her voice a low but heavy whisper
As if blowing gently from the ether
In pain, yet trying hard to be brave
Tears that fall are salty, not sweet
Knowing it is past the time to part

The soft jazz treatment is apposite
And one feels it grow in her chest
Her crying a river is a bleak ending
Despite his apology, not a surprise
She wants him to cry for all his lies
Hope seems lost, no lark ascending
All inner sentiments are confessed
But to recover, well she just might

by Howard Osborne

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Standards

Tommy Smith (tenor sax)/Star Eyes

Impatience, perhaps;
there are songs to play
and reviews to cluster
but the Blue Note clock
is ticking, waiting
for its investment
in these grooves to be filled.

So you sound like
a young man
half a mile into his run
stopping again and again
to attend to a tangling lace;
but every knot you remember
how to tie locks your fingers
into another you never knew
was so old, so strange.
So you must stop and start
then stop again,
frustrated to see other runners
rounding the circuit ahead of you

until you snap the lace
and throw it aside, throw down
the running shoes too:
some races are best won
bare-foot, thorns bloodying
your toes. Look, someone’s
already running in your footprints:
mistaking a bloodstain
for the single petal of a rose.

by Ian Mullins

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Once Upon a Chord
for John Coltrane

We went up and down staffs—
measured out like recipes
and fully cooked like hot jazz.

We waited for breaks
and movements in which
we could improvise our solos.

Each cautious wail reverberated,
sending jolts into our spines
and rhythm into our feet.

Flats and majors opened up,
swallowing our notes like
nighttime gulps down sunshine.

Some sound tried to invade
our tremolos, but we beat
that back with syncopation.

We bounced toward thrilling
crescendos, but we lost our places
and ended with lonesome moans.

by Christopher Stolle

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Coltrane Plays

And she appears, like stepping
Into Aladdin ‘s dream, a symphony
Of black lace and a scent of
Chanel, leads a pathway into
Twilight, no one will ever convince
Me different, that she is not worth
It, the honeyed note of the groove
Slides into the night, like a cat
Like peace he plays, it appears
And she lingers, jazz, the fire that
Will never die out, she is water flowing
In a drought, her body becomes Zion
And Coltrane plays, she touches me
Like Christ, lay hands on me, when
Coltrane plays, she becomes the
Song, she becomes my salvation….

by Erren Geraud Kelly

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In Conversation with Himself
of Steve Lacy and The Count

Damn straight that horn of his
………………he handles like a gun
its narrow barrel’s road unwinding through
………………the flattened a capella noise
of squeaks and expletives and alleyways
………………the slithering blandishments
that join the honking hoo-de-hoo
………………which chrome and silver light construe
at midnight on the shining boulevards
………………the breathless pressure drop that makes
you want to duck your head a sound
……………..vibratoless as distant shouts
that shower down from migratory birds.

It is as if from time to time
………………he’d been inspired to channel
all those deep-sea diver noises made
………………by Prez and Walter Page those RPMs
sent spinning in his bumping brain
………………to resurrect that bounce of theirs
when bumping merrily along
………………with Roswell Rudd or all alone
it was as if he’d been enjoined to join
………………the running dialog they’d have
when (way back in the day and long
………………before his time) in Basie’s band
in 1936 or 7 those independent souls
………………all seemed propelled to wander
out in perfect sync behind
………………that rhythm section’s steady engine
connected only by the slender thread
………………the muscular command the steady
sturdy charismatic plink plink plink
………………that issued from his hand.

by DB Jonas

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A Prayer For Grampa

Hey kids
Leave grampa be.
He’s at church.
Coltrane, Parker,
Gillespie, ZOT!
And Maynard.
How gramps dances
the gospel according to Maynard.
Oh mama Maria!
Now watch kids, watch.
He’s climbing
the steeple.
See his eyes close
and he just listens.
No dancing, just reclining,
and Father Brecker
singing Joyous and Infinite.
Let’s let grampa be
closer to It All
as he would say.

by Ken Schweda

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The Midnight Sun Will Never Set

Saxes plead with the gentle
piano, taking turns,
twin barristers at court,
rehearse their briefs.

The keys, their jury,
blend and sympathize,
yet undermine, cajole
the pleading horns.

Two tenors choir their
set piece, phrase
emotion in the air.

The keys intrude,
soft messengers of no,
the small refusals
of a melody that
will not yield.

The altos soar
to bold address,
dispute the tenors’
case in higher court,
whine where the tenors
murmured, wince
where they sighed.

Piano sounds a cool,
dispassioned riff,
refusing all.

Four saxes blend together:
honey-thick note clusters
dripping from bells.

Run permutations, take
the chords out for a stroll.

Then catch the thread, slip
through the needle’s eye.

Explore the deep,
surface
and float above
sweet spinet notes.

Wrap tight their claim
against the stubborn
core of melody,
and rest their case.

Hammers hit glancing blows
on taut, thin strings,
sneak in the last word, “no,”
piano fluttering pianissimo.

by John Menaghan

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Music

I hear music all the time
when I’m walking, writing, sitting
It’s a distraction but it’s not really –
it loses its effect when my mind wanders.

music is my passion – especially jazz, classical,
traditional musics, some others;
sometimes a tune from my past describes, identifies,
or matches a non-musical thought, action, or opinion.

It just appears – the right music with the right title
accentuates my thoughts, emotions, or actions.
music is as close as I get to the spiritual –
I ride the coattails of the musician who manifests that presence

If I was a musician, I’d feel
like a clergyman
dispensing god’s love and spirit
to an audience of appreciators and believers.

by Larry Ullian

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Soulful Jazz

A crowd /
stands around /

the pavilion /
nodding /

rocking /
buzzing /

in strumming /
guitars /

beating /
drums /

and blaring /
trumpets—

an insane /
allure /

to stir hearts /
to release /

the grip /
of self.

by Jianqing Zheng

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Sorrow

Definition of dolor brought to life
by Sketches of Spain played by
Miles Davis, as he transmutes
part of Concierto de Aranjuez
into deeply longing Spanish blues;
horns and percussion paint
a deeply lonely soundscape
that grows out of Davis’s horn.
Loud or quiet, it paints tears
on listeners’ faces, tears that define
loss, melodies and rhythms
that paint the world blue:
light blue, intensely dark blue,
slow blue, swift blue, blues flung
from the blade of a long knife
drawing galloons of blood;
slashing hearts, throats, blue blue blood,
drums calling listeners to prayer,
trumpet wailing, weeping, painting
loss loss loss, and the drum murmuring
beneath the sorrowful horn;
gradually all whisper beneath the voice
of the horn, of loss followed by all joining
in a march driven by drums which fade
to silence; then horn complains, and slips
into a statement of loss over orchestral
whisper; drums return; the bass leads
the orchestra back to a march, followed
by the trumpet’s announcement of loss
over the orchestral sad march, but the trumpet
owns the airwaves ; eventually, the trumpet
sails, wails above all, releases all from hearts’
jails; all instruments sing of loss, of dolor;
all instruments lead listeners toward
full-throated climax; yet trumpet keeps
discovering prayers of loss, of loneliness,
and all moan, groan, move toward whispers of loss,
and all voices rise toward a final song of loss;
and the mighty trumpet reaches toward a final
statement of life’s many losses, which can ultimately
be turned into beautiful soundscapes of loss
of blood into which we all fade.

by Michael L. Newell

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No Past Tense

On what feels like a typical Tuesday,
Satchmo teaches me long division.
Teena Marie speaks to me in Portuguese.
Bird hides the remote control; in protest
I refuse to watch Nature’s Strangest
Mysteries.

I keep my theories to myself.

Lady Day wants me
to commiserate with her
love problems, but I’ve got my hands
full with my own.… King Pleasure
sees me admire his pinky ring.
D’Angelo picks my pockets
with his smile.

Basquiat shows me his latest sketch,
while Ella ties my shoelaces, so weary
of watching me trip. … Johnny Hartman
reminds me to mention him
in my next poem.

I make him a promise.
I pinky swear.

On this typical
present tense Tuesday,
we lean into infinity.
We never can say
goodbye.

by Connie Johnson

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Rolling Back

Listening to the swing era reminds me of before I was born
Of a previous life unearthed from the depths of the mind
The age of jazz where jazz never aged
This music that’s over a century old,
Sounds as if it were only yesterday combined with yesteryear

As freshly squeezed as it ever was
With my mood indigo
I watch the clouds scroll by my widow like a piano roll
Just as they would have way back when
The same cycle of water in perpetual time
Evaporation and precipitation
Uplifted and relieved
For Jazz authenticates
Accentuates the mind into believing you’re there
Your thoughts sepia through rose tinted eyes
Looking towards a past you never belonged to
Yet feeling as if it belongs to you.

by Anthony Ward

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Constance Clark’s poems have appeared in Vita Poetica, Kosmos, Litbreak Magazine and elsewhere. She is currently completing a collection of poems focused on the notice of nature adapted from the concept of Japan’s 72 microseasons. Clark lives and writes in central New Jersey.

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Connie Johnson has multiple Pushcart Prize nominations for poetry. A California-based writer, she has authored Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press) and I Have Almost Everything (Boats Against the Current). In a Place of Dreams, her digital chapbook (containing audio readings/personal narrative), was published by Jerry Jazz Musician. Click here to view it.

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DB Jonas is the author of three collections of poetry, Tarantula Season (2023), Flight Risk (2025) and the forthcoming In Dubious Terrain (early 2026). Further examples of his work are accessible at jonaspoetry.com.

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Erren Kelly is a three-time Pushcart nominated poet from Boston whose work has appeared in 300 publications (print and online), including Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine, Ceremony, Cacti Fur, Bitterzoet, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, and Poetry Salzburg.

Click here to read “Under Quarantine” — COVID-era poetry of Erren Kelly, published by Jerry Jazz Musician

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Winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize and other awards, John Menaghan has published 4 books with Salmon Poetry–All the Money in the World (1999), She Alone (2006), What Vanishes (2009), and Here and Gone (2014)—as well as poems and articles in Irish, British, American, and Canadian journals, and given poetry readings in Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Hungary, Canada, and across the U.S. from New York to Honolulu. A fifth volume, composed entirely of his jazz-related poems, is forthcoming from Salmon.

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Ian Mullins bales out from Liverpool, England. Collections include Almost Human (Original Plus, 2017), Masks and Shadows (Wordcatcher, 2019), Take A Deep Breath (Dempsey & Windle, 2020), Dirty Sweet (Anxiety Press, 2023), Fear Of Falling Backwards (Cajun Mutt Press, 2023) and NightWatchMan (Alien Buddha Press, 2024)

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Michael L. Newell lives on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. His most recent book of poems is Passage of a Heart. Click here to read “What is this Path” – a collection of poems published on Jerry Jazz Musician

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Howard Osborne s a UK citizen, retired. Published author of non-fiction reference book, scientific papers and poetry. Interests mainly creative writing (poetry, novel, short stories, songs and scripts), music and travel.

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Ken Schweda is the founder and editor of the literary site SPANK the CARP and the comedy site Carpal Tuna.

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Christopher Stolle has many roles: writer, uncle, partner, music aficionado, and baseball enthusiast. His writing has been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, and Plath Poetry Project, among many others. He lives in Richmond, Indiana, the cradle of recorded jazz.

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Steven Swank is an Artist, Poet, and Many Things More. Raised in a farming community near Buffalo, New York, he now lives in New Jersey.

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A retired adult educator (training & development, grant writer, higher educator, and lover of jazz music) and now retired, Larry Ullian spends too much time listening to Prestige musicians. among others, whose records he bought in Boston and were less expensive than other jazz records in the 60s.

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Terrance Underwood is a retired Gas Turbine Package Engineer whose career offered opportunities to work all over the world. A devoted jazz enthusiast, his first memory operating a mechanical devise was a 4-speed spindle drop record changer for his father’s collection of 78s.

Click here to read Proceeding From Behind: A collection of poems grounded in the rhythmic, relating to the remarkable, by Terrance Underwood

Click here to read his collection of poems “With Ease in Mind”

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Anthony Ward chooses to write because he has no choice. He writes to get rid of himself and lay his thoughts to rest. He derives most of his inspiration from listening to classical music and jazz since it is often the mood which inspires him. He has recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Mad Swirl, Shot Glass Journal and Ariel Chart.

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Rebecca Watkins holds an MFA in poetry and an MSed from the City University of New York. Her poems have appeared in The Banyan Review, Sin Fronteras, New Feather’s Anthology, The Roanoke Review, and Anderbo – among other literary journals. Her creative nonfiction has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open Season Awards. She is the author of Field Guide to Forgiveness (Finishing Line Press 2023) and Sometimes, in These Places (Unsolicited Press 2017). More of her work can be found at rebeccawatkinswriter.com.

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Jianqing Zheng’s recent poetry collections include Dreaminations (Madville Publishing, Jan 2026)) and Visual Chords (Broken Tribe Press, 2025) He’s also coeditor of Conversations with Michael S. Harper (University Press of Mississippi, 2026). He has received three poetry fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission.

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Click for:

Previous collections of “21 jazz poems on the 21st”

The Sunday Poem

More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician

Poems on Charlie “Bird” Parker (inspired by a painting by Al Summ) – an ekphrastic poetry collection

War. Remembrance. Walls. The High Price of Authoritarianism – by editor/publisher Joe Maita

“My Vertical Landscape,” Felicia A. Rivers’ winning story in the 69th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician

Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction

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