21 jazz poems on the 21st of September, 2026

September 21st, 2026

An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician.

As always, thanks to the poets who participate in this growing community…

Enjoy!

Joe Maita

Editor/Publisher

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In this 1950 photo by Janet Mevi for Look magazine, the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick plays drums with jazz clarinetist George Lewis and his band in New Orleans.

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Birth of a Nation (the Cool)

America the Beautiful
Move over to the back of the bus.

Land of the Free
Jeru—separate but equal.

Home of the Brave
Moon Dreams, Ice Creams & Chains.

Freedom isn’t Free
Venus de Milo, blackbird fly.

Don’t Tread on Me
Budo—The Yin. The Yang. The Crow.

Liberty & Independence Forever
Deception. A single shot in Memphis.

We’re #1
Godchild, moonchild, fatherless. Motherless.

Live Free or Die
Boplicity & Birdland Club(bed x twelve.

Freedom of Speech
Rocker and (steam) rolled over.

Land that I Love
Israel, Palestine, Minneapolis, Ukraine.

United We Stand
Rouge. Crimson. Fracture. Gush. Stain.

Love Your Country.
Darn that Dream.

by Alex Stolis

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Looking Towards the Past

Jazz was the future way back when
Since now it evokes the past
As if playing to this very moment
Like light travelling through space
A moment moving through time
As new to now as it was back then
The past and future as indeterminable
As midday and midnight in the cosmos
Of your subconscious memories.
Where jazz being the new thing
Never gets old.

by Anthony Ward

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Hot Jazz Came Cool and Blue

Bootleg hooch infected with ergot
Possibly peyote distilled by Coyote
Mexican mescal mixed in Coca-Cola –
Put it down to Prohibition
‘Penn Beach Blues’ now sounded psychedelic
(Words like sounds hang around to be invented)

A suite of sublime disintegration…
Outside harmonies emerged as soloists diverged
Only Eddie Lang who locked
Rhythm like a steady-rolling freight
Stringing plangent notes for ornament
Retained his stillness of a hummingbird

Back at the hotel Joe Venuti and his pals
Pushed a piano through an upstairs window
Making bets on its dominant
Inherent note before it hit the ground

Life on the road gets tedious sometimes

by Bernard Saint

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A Poetry and Jazz Meld

I found an MP3 the other day
That I had not played for years
It might be me just getting old
Bringing stuff in from the cold
Yet still I shed a couple of tears
The singer’s voice blew me away

It’s titled When Sunny Gets Blue
Yet more than just a song or lyric
Sarah Vaughan, a deep contralto
But also with that distinct vibrato
Her tone was almost atmospheric
And yet all this time I never knew

The soft jazz guitar chord backing
Made it that perfect blend of jazz
Yet somewhere in there, is poetry
That it took me some years to see
But hearing it, a soul is what it has
Needing no more, nothing lacking

by Howard Osborne

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Dolphy’s Domain

in the middle of the night
I envision a jazz bar on Western Ave
smoky ./ .intoxicating conversation
about Mingus & Coltrane ./ . the
Duke & Holiday!

A cool oasis
With bottomless glasses / & retreats
from perfection . / .life’s mysteries
& some inner reflections

they lead me
to a bartender who
writes poetry in his
spare time:

lines…
about waves of sound / bird calls
galaxies of jazz / & what it means
…………………to be wholly
……………..free

he writes like a disciple of
Eric Dolphy

& what should we call ourselves
tonight? …cautionary tales ./ .lessons
of the soul / or pure memory .(which
is all that
we have?

somewhere
Eric Dolphy listens in ./
& his soul lingers in this space
in this oasis ./ .because
it is safe

………………..in a night world!
………………where the jazz
…………….overflows
…………..& it feels
…………….like
………………the
………………..truth

by Connie Johnson

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The Egg—Herbie Hancock

We have no Victrola’s to
spin vinyl anymore;
Everywhere the ear
concedes to digital—

No horizon, numbers in air,
but just underground
an egg from nineteen
sixty-four hatches,

Out of the underground
the face of mystery—
“The Egg,” something not
yet defined, yet conceived

In dark inch-worm wonder.
It’s like everything stripped
to its essence, an insect
in amber from the Ice Age.

Or like looking in an art
museum for some hidden order:
the bass, his piano, the drum,
a horn, rituals toward serenity.

by DH Jenkins

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Roseland Shuffle

In which Basie and Prez
give up the piano and tenor
for imaginary tap shoes;
Count begins with
a little soft shoe boogie trill
and Lester answers
tap for tap.
They carry on trading
kickety-bop exchanges
building each chorus
like the Nicholas Brothers
in full throttle,
two minutes of ecstatic paradiddle
until the band
breaks in accenting
the tap stomp dialogue
with Blue Lou chords.

Man, the Roseland Ballroom
52 St. NY, USA
never got a salute
quite like Basie and Prez
quietly evoking the company
of angels, whispering the beauty
of Harlem Tap Shoe Nights
and sweating bodies oh, so close
on the Roseland dancefloor,

terpsichore tribute
trading shuffles so lightly
Roseland of my mind.

by Daniel Warren Brown

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Rhythm

Sound is chaos
Time is numbers
Rhythm is numbers
Expressed as sound
And oddly enough
The other
Way round
Rhythm defines
The moment
Sound and time
Find each other
Order is restored
A song is born
Nine against eight
Four against four
We cooperate
We collaborate
Expectations are met
Notations on the page
Join us together
In mutual respect
Signatures
Signify
Key and time
Kept
Lock step
The score
Dignifies
A contract
An agreement
To proceed
As one
In harmony
In rhythm
The guiding principle
One and two
And three and four
Life should be
So simple
Who could ask
For anything more

by David Nemerov

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Billy Cobham

plays space…

plays meteors burning into
twilight, songs turning into
asteroids

blazing into a “gentle good night”

funk becomes the map snoopy
travels by, so he can surprise
the red baron in a sonic
attack

jazz traveling at the speed of
sound, einstein happy his
theory was proven correct

E= MC Funky

It’s all relative…

jazz and rock and funk are
the ingredients, resulting
in a sonic boom

jazz isn’t music, it’s space

drums sending clarion call
to other forms of life

no need to be afraid

billy rides the wave of a
jazz funk odyssey
i dance with a siren, she receives
me with love,
i am not afraid

i enter a black hole happily
and jazz rock fusion reveals
space’s soul to me

snoopy and the red baron are
friends, odysseus, finds peace
in a siren’s arm

sonic drums paint a portrait
of endless forever
god is fusion wonder
love suspended in jazz
ecstasy

by erren geraud kelly

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Seraphic Light

After a drum solo, the music starts
The rhythm of a slow funeral march
A simple melody, repeated phrases
A tenor sax, as if testing pitch limits
That then wanders into outer space
The theme of Stellar Regions is apt
Where a tinkling free piano sounds
Trying to find its place in the ether
Then the sax finally reeling it all in
And almost like some Moebius strip
It ends, a reflection of how it began
Somehow, not atypical of Coltrane

by Howard Osborne

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Epistrophy

You can’t reach or hold his music.
That star up there would take
a trillion years to reach by bicycle
when Thelonious could do it in far less time,
and yet not as quickly as you’d think.

I fight with myself when I can’t achieve
teachable moments, or I pick beefs
with people pinker and finer than me.
I believe it has much to do with genetics
or wrongheaded parenting. The Xanax
is hitting hard right now as I key in
this line, built with a little click in it.

“My horror of crowds comes naturally.
Shine a light on a group and I’ll
run for the hills, climb a tree, or blend with clouds.
No one is more suitable for solitude,
for listening to music round midnight,
for lonely walks in moonlight
and soliloquies where no one listens.

But all this talk has loosened
my bones and I feel like dancing
to Thelonious under the yellow dust
of a sodium lamp. I am alone, alone,
and nothing can be asked about me.
I’d stomp my feet if it would change
the world, but my boots fall flat
and my sinking arches risk collapse.

by Sal DiFalco

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last song

I can’t remember
the last song I played
I didn’t know it would be
the last time my hands
would move freely
on the keyboard

was it lady madonna
dream on, dream on
or the joe cocker arrangement
of a little help from my friends

or was it guantanaméra
or quizas or
chega de saudade

or some Ellington tune
sophisticated lady
or mood indigo
or was it moanin’ or
‘round midnight or
maybe Gershwin
someone to watch over me
or Janis’s summertime

maybe it was on a clear day
or the tennessee waltz
me singing like my mother did
Bonnie Raitt, another redhead
singing along in my head

or some 12-bar blues
with no name
just traveling
up and down
the keyboard
not knowing
that every note
was a blue note

by Cheryl Savageau

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Jazz in the Light

From midnight clubs
Basement lounges
Jazz artists
For festivals ascend
Rising phoenix figures
O’er pavilioned parks
Garden stages
Amphitheatres
Seaside strands

In Newport.. Chicago .. New Orleans
….Zion ….Montclair
Monterey
….New York…. Montreal…. Melbourne
Jakarta…. Copenhagan
San Jose . . .

Fragrant sounds
Flower skyward
Harbingers of tranquility
Circling songbirds
Vitalized
Celebrating humans
Sharing
Everblooming
Bouquets

by Mike Mignano

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Startled While Viewing

while immersed with a book of jazz photographs
knowing today’s rain was moments away
I overheard a few persuasive chords
advice it seemed from Thelonious
taking it up I let one cool
clouds enjoined darken
the sky grumbled
a snare drum rolled into
a straight six note succession
from a bewildered strange meadowlark
passing this way on smooth Desmond breath
en route beyond images on black & white pages

by Terrance Underwood

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Butterfly Song

The first
note was heard soft
delicate, far removed
Satch’s cornet or Fat’s keyboard laugh,
closer
as if through gauze to baby’s ear
it becomes chrysalis
heartbeat rhythm,
birthright.

by Daniel Warren Brown

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The Piano and The Butterfly

daylight’s sultry beginning
finds me & Fred Hersch in a
thoughtful time “Whirl” solo
savored with pen in hand
when a timely appearance of a
Julia Longwing breezing by
stops on a black
olive leaf bud
has a quick listen
while probing
before other nectar sources
invite interruption
then in an orange flutter gone
a solo piano plays on

by Terrance Underwood

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Love Cry

You are out on the street now.
What’s happening? Not a damned thing.
A man in a shower of sparks turns to look at you.
He reads you your rights. You have no attorney
To call. It’s the middle of the night. And jazz
Explodes from a nearby doorway. How do you
Navigate this? Your eyes are transfixed on a
Solution. You call me on your cell phone.
I want to solve all of your problems,
But my thinking’s a little muddled.

Still I listen
to all that you imply.
I listen to Albert Ayler, too.
I am reminded that ..you ..are that one in
A million. I offer to carry your baggage;
I let you sleep beside me for a while.

& free jazz flows from every doorway:
Atonal, experimental, chaotic!
I want to be the solution to
All of your problems.

I want to be
The shoulder
Upon which
You can
Cry.

by Connie Johnson

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Bespoke

We all wait
Like Ginsberg
Or Kerouac,
Whether with suture
Or sutra,
Smoke or chemical
De-icing.

Fogbound,
Seeking visions from
All around,
Pulses pounding,
Rounding the beat,
Throwing the old I-am
Into spondees
That leap and beat,
Or trochees
Knitted tightly
With irrationality.

Yet words are all,
In little engines
That could,
Those toys
Of joy—ecstatic—
As long as the elastics
Last.

by George Bandy

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Known Strangers

Many cadences thrill to take the stage:
Counter debate, reading, strumming, jamming
Many passages rehearsed, like a play,
The lines delivered differently each night

Except the night when you imagined them
When they appeared from darkness, known strangers,
Vested, full of vibrato, ready for nothing
Ready for everything that may or may

Not come because its ultimately the creation
The moments, like now, when the words spatter,
Like cymbals lightly brushed, those distant trains
So delicate that the back leans and strains

To hear it, or just infers emotions
Their own, meaning of elevation played.

by Michel Krug

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some losses reverberate

extrapolate the silent morning
to a more expansive timeline
knit the losses together like a tether
this is what it’s like to live without you
i remember the rainy streets of Kalamazoo
my lover at home……. bound to his illness
a distant saxophone bouncing off the brick
driving ’til i found it …….& passed it by
once i knit a book together like a scarf
i was never meant to wear
sometimes i still wish for colder weather
for the angry cardinals of Spring
you play me an echo of distant metal strings
i come close …….find the song …….pass you by

by deb ewing

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Just a Thought – A Farewell Poem

When I go, scatter my ashes on an ocean wind
while a tin whistle floats a slow air above
and an Irish fiddle begins low and sweet
and ends in a mad dance where any
who may be there frolic and roar
with laughter, delight, and hope
that music is still in the world.

Let everyone take a stroll
barefoot in the surf
then go.

by Michael L Newell

Michael passed away on July 31, 2026, at the age of 80

FOR MICHAEL

Listen to the 1977 recording of The Bothy Band performing “The Morning Star” [Compass Records]

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POET BIOGRAPHIES

George Bandy’s publications include Blue Mountain Review, Baltimore Review, Broadkill Review, Sangam, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Broad River Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Vol. IX, Virginia, and One Art. His poem ‘Return from War’ won the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award.

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Daniel Warren Brown has loved jazz (and music in general) ever since he delved into his parents’ 78 collection as a child. He is a retired special education teacher who began writing as a senior. He always appreciates being published in journals and anthologies. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel writes daily about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination.

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Poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of five books including Black Rabbit & Other Stories (Anvil Press). Recent journal appearances include Cafe Irreal, Fictive Dream, and E-ratio. His short story “Bluesette” was the winning entry in the 67th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction contest, which you can read by clicking here.

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deb Ewing is still doing all the same old things: peer-reviewing for Consilience Science-based Poetry Journal, typesetting for Igneus Press, painting tiny things on coins, the usual. Her mission statement remains “Art is War.” You might find deb’s short sci-fi at Coffin Bell Journal in July, or her physical person at FAR-West 2024 in Woodland Hills, CA, in October. Follow @DebsValidation on Twitter and Instagram.
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(Editor’s Note: debora’s short story “Coloring Outside the Lines” was the first winning story in the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, published in October of 2002. The contest is currently in its 73rd edition)

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DH Jenkins’ poems have appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician, Kinds of Cool—an interactive collection of Jazz Poetry 2025 (Unsolicited Press), The Ekphrastic Review and The Wave, Kelp Journal, as well as in Ocean Poetry Anthology 2024 (Kelp Books), Ocean Poetry Anthology 2025 (Kelp Books). For many years he was a professor of Speech and Writing for UMUC-Asia, living and working in Japan and Korea. While in residence there, he received the Bylee Massey Award for a project in the Humanities, as well as the Drazek Excellence in Teaching Award. He now lives in New Zealand.

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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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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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Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and he litigates. His poems have appeared in New Verse News, Poetica Publishing, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, and many others.

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Mike Mignano, retired Ocala, FL. Hometown Ithaca, NY. Interests include: history, travel, guitar, choral singing, nature walking, viewing sports, theatre and poetry.

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David Nemerov, 75, has been writing poems for a little over three years. His subjects are whatever comes to mind. Along with the poetry he moonlights as drummer with an affinity for Jazz, Blues, Zydeco, and whatever catches his fancy.

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Michael L. Newell lived 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 his poems published on Jerry Jazz Musician

Editor’s Note: Michael passed away on July 31, 2026, at the age of 80. Click here to read my personal remembrance of him.

Joe Maita

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Howard Osborne has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel.

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Bernard Saint is a U.K. poet who has published in U.K. and United States literary magazines since the 1960’s. He is a regular contributor to International Times. His most recent book is ROMA, published by Smokestack Books. He worked as a therapist and supervisor in the U.K. National Health Service in psychiatry and in addiction recovery.

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Cheryl Savageau is a poet, writer, artist, and pianist. Honors include Fellowships from the NEA, Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Program, and MacDowell, and two Pushcart nominations. Her hybrid memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, is now available in paperback. Two new poetry collections are out for publication.

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Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024. RIP Winston Smith is from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, is from 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He lives in Hudson Valley of New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.

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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. In 2024, he was nominated by Jerry Jazz Musician for a Pushcart Prize.

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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Click for:

A Letter From the Editor: On “The Weary Blues: Celebrating Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance”

Information about the book Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry, Vol. II (featuring women poets)

The Sunday Poem Archive

“21 jazz poems on the 21st” collections

More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician

“La Fontaine,” Ashlee Trahan’s winning story in the 72nd Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician

Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction

Subscribe to the (free) Jerry Jazz Musician quarterly newsletter

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