“Slapping Strings” — a poem by Roger Singer
His jazz is thick,
mantled in hair
black with twists
rich with shine
absorbing the lights
as his hands
push the track of
strings
chasing
demons
of his love
while fingers
May 27th, 2015
Literature
“Baseball’s Back” — a poem by Susan Dale
Baseball’s back
It’s crackling on a radio
Sitting by a canning jar filled with fireflies
A barefoot summer, always afternoon in voluptuous-full July.
The screen door slams and flies scatter
A stick and ball routine with umpteen possibilities
Written in the DNA of the Americas
...April 6th, 2015
“Dizzy Moods” — a short story by Daniel Alvarado
Three cars honked almost in union. Then successively, each a blare in order, one two three, then two three one three four with the line through, beat ripitum boom, ba, riptum boom, now hear it a little faster, just a little faster, lips to instrument, trumpet, three valves, infinite notes to jot to sing to blow, perched lips, fat cheeks, cosmic energy of the union, the intertwined with keys of ivory.
Marcus Breck was recalling stepping on stage the first time. Nervousness rising from toes to a tingling head. Dry mouth, the initial silence of the room that precedes the beginning of
...March 31st, 2015
“¡Oh, Put On Another Record And Bring Me A Drink!” — a poem by Steve Williams
I like The Jazz
We listened to Roland Kirk
and Eric Burdon sing of
Roland Kirk
And the hum of the freezer
Roland borrowed a phrase from Coltrane
and I borrowed a phrase from
March 19th, 2015
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #38 — “Till’s Piano Lesson,” by Don Dewey
New Short Fiction Award
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work.
Don Dewey of Jamaica, New York is the winner of the 38th Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award, announced and published for the first time on March 5, 2015.
Till’s Piano Lesson
by
Don Dewey
_______________________________
“You’re early, Till. I told you never come early.”
“Sorry. I guess my watch is off.”
“Buy a new one.”
Klein refit the crutches under his armpits and swung his crabbed legs back toward the studio, leaving Till to enter the living room for himself. Till didn’t like living rooms. He thought them banal in their predictable assembly of tables, chairs, lamps, and rugs. What he wanted to see someday was a living room with people who dropped dead as soon as they put a foot outside it. Living rooms should have been what they claimed to be.
Klein’s pupil in the studio seemed to be trying to erase his presence through sheer aggression. Had Mozart started that way? Till didn’t think so.
...March 5th, 2015
“Bird” — a poem by Ed Coletti
I recall you
dream weaver
I remember you
You’re the one
who makes most dreams
come true
Sir Charles
just not your own
when the sax
ceases dreadfully
heroes fall
trumpets screech
Max Roach calls you
to attention
Sir Charles
listen to Diz
man just don’t fade man!
I hear Lover again
Bird you’re with me
like my mother’s voice
February 26th, 2015
“A Man’s Hands En Clave” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
Club Havana was known for hosting decent Afro-Cuban jazz bands. There was dancing Thursdays through Sundays, and Sunday afternoons, the management handed out free cigars. Hector became close to the house band, whose rhythm section inspired him. He thought the drummer Manny was off the charts. Completely bald, he wore leather bands that cinched his pump wrists as if to keep his hands from flying off his body whenever he played fast and furious. A skinny, short guy played bongos, and a drunk worked the tumbadoras. Jorge, Carlos and Javier, all dapper guys, played horns. As if to distinguish themselves, one wore a mustache; another, a hat; and the other, wire rimmed glasses. Additionally, there was a young Julliard graduate on piano, a white-haired Cubano on flute, and a sax player who looked exactly like Lester Young. One afternoon, before their gig, Manny and Hector got to talking, and Hector started messing around on the tumbadoras, imitating what he had so often seen and heard. Manny raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. He liked this kid, and his sound was good.
“Why don’t you come hang with us this weekend. A few of us like to jam at Columbus Circle. Come along and let’s see how you work those congas in a group.”
Over the course of the summer, Hector hung out in the park. It was there he met
...February 18th, 2015
“Just Another Punk Rocker Writing About Jazz” — a poem by Jon Wesick
They must have materialized at the open mike
out of carbon and nitrogen in the air,
those poets you’d never see in a jazz club.
A guy in Roman-helmet-like Mohawk
reads three-chord rhymes about Mingus,
an MC in Phat Farm jeans
fires machine gun words about Miles,
and a woman in high collar and sensible shoes
chops Art Blakey into fourteen lines of ten syllables.
Seems you can’t be a real poet
unless you
February 12th, 2015
“Masters of the Jazz Kazoo” — a short story by Con Chapman
“Masters of the Jazz Kazoo” is a short story by Con Chapman about a man whose goal was to make it in New York’s cutthroat world of the jazz kazoo!
_____
Like all jazz kazoo players, getting to New York City was always my goal. To turn the Sinatra song on its head, until you made it there, you hadn’t made it anywhere.
Yes, I’d cut every kazooist in the Quad Cities, the sub-metropolitan area of Iowa that from the air appears to be what it is full of — squares. Then I’d moved on to Chicago, like Louis Armstrong, where I found a wider audience for my “kool kazoo” stylings. It may be America’s “Second City” (actually third, but who’s counting) but landing on my feet there was like a
...February 4th, 2015
“Pillow Worship” — a poem by Roger Singer
Lazy humid Lake Pontchartrain
breezes slip sideways
through turquoise louvered doors
past a cat, on a stool with its legs hanging
like green tangled moss
as the man, deep with pillow worship
lays still, breathing soft, his hands open and flat
holds court with dreams of last night
the jazz holding tight
the band cutting through
January 22nd, 2015
“Father Kniest, Jazz Priest” — a short story by Con Chapman
“Father Kniest, Jazz Priest” is a short story by Con Chapman about “a man of the cloth…deputized by a higher power to save jazzmen’s souls from the lures and wiles and temptations of bad taste.”
_____
I’m getting too old for this, I thought as I made my way down Boylston Street, my tambourine in one hand, the Good Book in the other. I started ministering to the jazz scene in Boston back when Estelle Slavin and Her Swinging Brunettes were the house band at Izzy Ort’s Coney Island Club on Essex Street. Floogie Williams and the Unquenchables were ensconced at the Tip-Top Lounge, which didn’t sit well with the sconces that came with the place as trade fixtures, but so what? We were young and crazy for jazz — we didn’t care.
But now I’m closing in on eighty, and eighty’s looking over its shoulder, nervous as hell. I’ll catch it soon enough — if I don’t die first.
Back in ’55 I was just out of the seminary and was assigned by my
...January 7th, 2015
“Ferguson” — a poem by Marc Livanos
Whitewalls better,
blackwalls cheaper.
White collar
has fines.
Inner city
December 22nd, 2014
“In a Blue Moon, Once” — a short story by Richard Herring
“Night of the living dead,” a voice screamed in Tom’s head. A softer voice pointed out it was still late afternoon. It sure wasn’t life as he wanted to know it. In reality, it was just another long Thursday afternoon of monthly staff meetings, with new mandates and standards flowing downhill from the top. All the nodding mannequins around the conference room would take it all in, shoot a few inane, brown nose comments back at the presenter, then go back to do their jobs tomorrow the same as always.
Sylvia’s attention was on the crochet hoop in her lap. Jack’s eyes had been closed for the better part of 45 minutes. Tom’s life support system came through the cord fed neatly up beneath the lapel, to the headphones partially obscured by thick sideburns and abundant head of hair. A collection of earpieces was present among these old codgers, but his was connected to the brand new cassette player in his suit coat pocket.
The tape Mikki turned him on to seemed to emanate from a place beyond his routine, tired existence. It was as if the music offered a
...December 16th, 2014
“Peace on Earth” — a poem by Michael Harper
Tunes come to me at morning
prayer, after flax sunflower
seeds jammed in a coffee can;
when we went to Japan
I prayed at the shrine
for the war dead broken
at Nagasaki;
the tears on the lip of my soprano
glistened in the sun.
In interviews
I talked about my music’s
voice of praise to our oneness,
them getting caught up in techniques
of the electronic school
lifting us into assault;
in live sessions, without an audience
I see faces on the flues of the piano,
cymbals driving me into ecstasies on my knees,
the demonic angel, Elvin,
answering my prayers on African drum,
December 11th, 2014
“HEAT” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
1. Savoy Blues
Mercies would have put blues on the menu if it could, but that was a province of the kitchen, where I worked four and a half months too many. I heard actual blues music and caught a gust of air conditioning whenever I snuck through the dining area early in my shift to use the guest bathroom before customers arrived, passing the line of booths next to the orange and black walls on which hung colorful modern paintings of jazz musicians and the
...December 3rd, 2014
“Silent City” — a short story by Adam Murray
Although only one story wins our thrice yearly Short Fiction Contest, since we typically receive well over 100 entrants, often times there are several worthy of publication. Our last competition, our 37th, was won by Kenneth Levine. His short story “Homage” — about the effect Chet Baker’s drug addiction had on a father and son relationship — was published on November 4.
A finalist in the competition was Adam Murray’s “Silent City,” an excellent story about “how we can’t have the things we can no longer have because they no longer exist.” In this case, what we can’t have again is the 1940’s jazz laboratory known as Minton’s Playhouse. When I sent an email to Murray requesting his permission to allow me to publish “Silent City,” he wrote back and agreed, informing me that he had written this story specifically for Jerry Jazz Musician and “from there just kinda’ crossed my fingers.” In that same email, Murray wrote; “I’m currently homeless in Australia and penned this piece with my back to the brickwork behind a little jazz joint here called Ellington’s, digging on the swing, the night and the street, so your acceptance is a fitting coda for me. I’d be honoured to appear in your publication with like minded souls and voices.”
Murray’s email is an extraordinary reminder
...November 19th, 2014
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #37: “Homage,” by Kenneth Levine
New Short Fiction Award
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work.
Kenneth Levine of Wethersfield, Connecticut is the winner of the thirty-seventh Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award, announced and published for the first time on November 5, 2014.
Homage
by
Kenneth Levine
_______________________________
I deplaned in Amsterdam to confront my father. In 1990, the year I was born, after the likes of Stan Getz and Freddie Hubbard dubbed him “the reincarnation of Chet Baker,” he quit his part-time job repairing cars in Gilbert, Iowa to go on a worldwide tour from which he never returned.
From the airport I boarded a train to Centraal Station, across from which the Prins Hendrik hotel is situated at the Northern end of Zeedijk Straat, and by early evening I had navigated through the designated lanes over which walkers, bicyclists, and motorists coursed to stand before a bronze tablet on the hotel’s brick front that featured a haggard Chet Baker playing the trumpet over an inscription that read: “Trumpet player and singer Chet Baker died here on May 13th, 1988. He will live on in his music for anyone
...November 5th, 2014
“Her Flavor” — a poem by Roger Singer
Her rhythms are held by open
waves of blue strength.
Faces cool under a crescent moon.
The insides of listeners turn red
with passion. The crowd reaches
for her flavor.
Words birth from her as the children
of sound. Fingers tap to the
October 10th, 2014
“The Bullocks Oriole Plays The Blue Note” — a poem by Eric Meyer
O you sweet be-
spectacled bird!
you’re too cool for me
sitting there perched
in your wild catbird seat
with your sleek black
beatnik goatee &
blindman’s shades
pulled down low over
your hot orange
djellabiya while you
spill out shrill jazz
riffs and raffs
October 3rd, 2014
“When the World Was Young,” a short story by Willard Manus
A finalist in our recent Short Fiction Contest, Willard Manus’ “When the World Was Young” is a love story between a man and a woman, and a woman and her musical inspiration — Clifford Brown
...September 25th, 2014
“Trumpet Repair” — a poem by Bill Boslego
The stem pipe was cracked
he told me gently
as if I were an anxious relative
in a hospital waiting room
The craftsman nursed my boy’s trumpet
deciding it needed more oil, too
And while he was at it, fashioned a screw
replacing one long missing
September 17th, 2014
“An Ode to Langston Hughes” — a poem by John Kaniecki
Great “black” poet?
Is Robert Frost identified as “white” as snow?
I devoured every heart fired revolutionary syllable
Each righteous rectifying rhyme a mountainous memorial in time
Barefaced truth like Emit Till’s open casket
A little Harlem hustle humor
August 22nd, 2014
“As Long As You Living Yours (For Keith Jarrett)” — a poem by Erren Kelly
not even schroeder from the peanuts
comic strip
is as dedicated to the piano
and he has a bust of beethoven
gracing his steinway!
you pull sounds out of the air
making something out of nothing
you call it improvisation:
i say, god’s just using you as
a transmitter for his thoughts…
August 8th, 2014
“Broad Street” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
The publication of Arya Jenkins’ “Broad Street” is the fourth in a series of short stories she has been commissioned to write for Jerry Jazz Musician. For information about her column, please see our September 12 “Letter From the Publisher.”
For Ms. Jenkins’ introduction to her work, read “Coming to Jazz.”
__________
The day I moved into Broad Street, the roiling waters of the Long Island Sound burst over sea walls along the Connecticut coast from New Haven to Greenwich, flooding Bridgeport so badly, a poor, emotionally disturbed man actually drowned in a sewer. At Seaside Park, water rushed across two parking lots, swirled around a few skimpy trees and headed straight for the historic set of row houses that included my basement apartment. It was early December as I arrived, two knapsacks in tow, only to find my new landlady Rosie and my neighbor Alice knee-deep in galoshes in muck, hauling out my furniture.
A week earlier, Alice had lured me with, “There’s a vacancy next door and it’s yours. Everybody’s an artist here. You belong.” I had felt that the studio with its cozy rooms
...August 5th, 2014
“Nancy Wilson” — a poem by Susan Dale
Guess who I saw today
The last one left
To sing the scales from butterscotch tease
To the willows that wept
A slippery taunt, toffee sweet
...July 23rd, 2014
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #36 — “Fever” by Yvonne McBride
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work.
Yvonne McBride of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the winner of the thirty-sixth Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award, announced and published for the first time on July 12, 2014.
Fever
by
Yvonne McBride
_______________________________
Royal had studied her from the bandstand each and every night since their first gig. Such a little thing she was. Nicely curved, tightly packaged — but such a small little thing he had a notion she would break if even his fingertips glazed her. And he had tried. To touch her. Had been trying to get close to her for the past two and all night long.
July 12th, 2014
“One O’Clock Jump” — a poem by Paul Zimmer
Still tingling with Basie’s hard cooking,
between sets I stood at the bar
when the man next to me ordered
scotch and milk. I looked to see who had
this stray taste and almost swooned
when I saw it was the master.
Basie knocked his shot back,
then, when he saw me gaping,
raised his milk to my peachy face
and rolled out his complete smile
June 18th, 2014
Poetry by Alan Patterson
Coltrane
by Alan Patterson
His Voice
crying in the wilderness
sighing, screeching, singing,
of soul secrets and sufferings
stark, silent sound
invoking Heaven’s muse
and Purgatory’s cleansing fire.
Who, speaking in toungues
created new language
who captured Eternity’s essence
June 5th, 2014
Langston Hughes reads “The Weary Blues”
“The Weary Blues” — a poem about the importance of music and the blues in everyday life — is a signature work of Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance writer whose poetry helped change the way art created by African Americans was viewed, and influenced the writers of the beat generation. Written in 1925, the melancholy poem is set in a Harlem bar where a piano player plays the blues, and is one of the first poems to mix poetry and music.
Besides being a great writer, Hughes was an eloquent communicator, and it is a wonderful experience to hear him read his own poetry.. This 1958 film shows him reading “The Weary Blues” to the accompaniment of a Canadian group led by pianist Doug Parker.
...June 3rd, 2014
“Star Worshipping” — a poem by Roger Singer
STAR WORSHIPPING
Her message encouraged
tears from hiding, like light
exposing corners; no emotion
remains uncovered.
She walked a line through resistance.
The eyes and hands of judging formed
May 5th, 2014
“Vintage Gray” – a poem by Joshua Michael Stewart
The morning glory —
another thing
that will never be my friend.
— Basho
Rain has a way of darkening the bark on trees,
deepening the wood cracks in fences.
Grass appears softer, envious of clouds
that tease with their rootlessness,
their promise of travel and a good night’s sleep.
Normally, I’d have a little Johnny Hodges
playing in the background or Casablanca
splashing silvery-blue against a wall,
April 19th, 2014
“Epistrophy” – a short story by Arya Jenkins
The publication of Arya Jenkins’ “Epistrophy” is the third in a series of short stories she has been commissioned to write for Jerry Jazz Musician. For information about her column, please see our September 12 “Letter From the Publisher.” For Ms. Jenkins’ introduction to her work, read “Coming to Jazz.”
__________
Disenchanted leaves fell early through the trees the summer I left my life for an ashram. The path to the ashram snaked into the woods not far from Tanglewood and reminded me less of where I had been than where I was going with its rotund emphasis on kindness and formality-Within a year I would be studying Buddhism in a monastery and teaching English at Cornell in Ithaca.
I was attempting to put a punto finale to the moneyed nonsense in which I’d lived too long in Fairfield County, and wanted to quell my fulminating instinct, my destructive fires and find some kind of peace and stability, even at the expense of boredom–which may have been expecting too much.
...April 16th, 2014
“You Can Be a Genius and Be Sane” — a poem about Thelonious Monk, by Arlene Corwin
You Can Be A Genius And Be Sane
Watching Monk and watching self,
One senses that one can have genius
And be sane.
You can
Be odd,
The brain its own,
To nail the themes
Your thought-extremes deem right.
Monk plays and pounds
In rhythmic spasms;
March 30th, 2014
“Archival Footage: The Apotheosis of Mary Lou Williams” — a poem by Mark J. Mitchell
It’s light on silver-black and white,
Grainy footage of a smoky room,
A woman at the keys. A spotlight
As perfectly round as the moon
Frames her form. She picks at a tune.
This is jazz, now, it’s uncertain.
Her fingers stop, hover, resume.
She stands, walks behind a curtain.
Years later — in color now –her
Faith allows her to break that long
Silence, permits her to
March 5th, 2014
“POTO” — a poem by Michael Keshigian
Show me a clarinet, teacher,
one from a distant continent’s wood
that has suckled nourishment
from a heated, morning sun
then show me the reed,
the dried, shallow, vibrating stick,
that will tickle sound
through many dark nights
when those with flicking tongues
articulate their passion
between panted breaths.
Show me the silver,
flailing fingers have mined
with a synchronized motion
February 18th, 2014
“Truth Comes Marching In –Remembering Albert and Donald Ayler — a poem by Mark Kerstetter
Names like
Little Bird & Bicycle Horn
missed your tracking
Parker solos faster
backward to the future,
higher than Shaker Heights,
further than armies marching
to spiritual masterlocks
missing the Trane
to the Future Truth
marching in.
French Mayonnaise
sustained journeys
to Sweden & Denmark
where pickup players
kept standard time
while you advanced
February 13th, 2014
“On Divisadero” — a poem by Roger Singer
ON DIVISIDERO
A hill with faces
and sidewalks,
green shoes and sneakers
without laces,
chalkboard menus,
peppers and onions
and bicycles passing
apartments with yellow
shutters and
terracotta pots with
flowers reaching over
touching heads
as buses crawl
and street cars
February 2nd, 2014
“Bird Read Beckett,” a poem by Erren Kelly
In anticipation of our very soon-to-be-published interview with Charlie Parker biographer Stanley Crouch (see the preview below), poet Erren Kelly defends Parker from the caricature portrayed in Clint Eastwood’s 1989 film Bird.
Bird Read Beckett
bird read samuel beckett
he read novels and plays
he lived his life as one long
exstitential episode
he prided himself on being
intellectual
bird loved his fried chicken
and preferred his gin
to go down smooth
like his solos
mr. eastwood,
take that lie back
and apologize!
January 21st, 2014
“The Bluest Train,” a short story by Arya Jenkins
My friend Carl lived in a house full of ghosts with an evil sonofabitch brother who stole his shit, I mean all of it. But Carl himself, man, Carl was good as gold. He would give you the shirt off his back–everything, and did.
I moved in with my ex-old lady across the street from him in the late 80s when I was drying out and desperate for change. Marcy took me in, even after I had been such a dick. She knew it was the booze made me sleep around, and even though she kicked my drunken ass out on the curb, she took me in once she saw I was sober and clean. By then, she was already shacked up with a polite, fat, slob who was everything I wasn’t or would ever be.
Homestead Avenue, where we lived, was a pleasant street in a nice section of Fairfield called Black Rock, near the water. At the time, people were starting to navigate to the hood, although since then real estate prices have dropped due to the many storms–there have been too many storms in the area, man. But because of Black Rock’s proximity to the sound, which is like the sea, artists and strange people gravitate there.
I noticed Carl right off the bat. You couldn’t help but see him sitting on his porch with his supersized feet, head and limbs, a Franken monster. So I crossed the street one day to meet my neighbor, who looked a sorry sight–blackish long hair
...January 14th, 2014
“In Memory of George Lewis, Great Jazzman” — a poem by Lou Lipsitz
1
Man is the animal that knows
the clarinet
makes his living
on the docks, a stevedore,
110lbs., carrying what loads
he can
the Depression comes along,
his teeth rot, no money and
he has to accept silence
January 3rd, 2014
Poetry by Lou Lipsitz
In memory of George Lewis, Great Jazzman
1
Man is the animal that knows
the clarinet
makes his living
on the docks, a stevedore,
110lbs., carrying what loads
he can
December 27th, 2013
“Sonny’s Blues,” by James Baldwin — “The most famous jazz short story ever written”
In the introduction to The Jazz Fiction Anthology, editors Sascha Feinstein and David Rife cite James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” as “the most famous jazz short story ever written,” and is pointed to by Baldwin biographer David Leeming as “the prologue to a dominant fictional motif in the overall Baldwin story, the relationship between two brothers that takes much of its energy from the close relationship between James and [brother] David Baldwin.” The story, originally published in Partisan Review in 1957, centers on the narrator’s need to, in Leeming’s words, “save his brother [Sonny] from the precariousness of his life as an artist.” Sonny, in turn, finds his voice by playing bebop in the Village, which results, according to Leeming,
...December 6th, 2013
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #34: “Alto Saxophone,” by Joe DiBuduo
In a little town in Illinois, in a bar near the Wisconsin border, one man blew honey-dripping sounds from his saxophone. A woman’s body swayed in time with the sweetness emitting from that horn. She kept time with the beat and moved like melodic notes going up and down the scale. I imagined blowing musical sounds into her ear.
I crossed the wooden dance floor where she whirled, grabbed her hand and began to spin. Like musical notes, one black, one white, we danced all night. I softly sang into her ear, “Imagine how we’d dance in bed.”
She laughed in a low contralto voice, and changed it to a soprano when the high notes flowed.
...November 19th, 2013
“my funny valentine” — a poem by Ed Corrigan
my funny valentine
by ed corrigan
Miles’ horn blows
thru my head
down to my toes
down baby down
i need to blow
my bleeding nose
a red note bleeding
dododowaaaah
a smile with my heart
she just tore me apart
November 12th, 2013
“The Birth of Jazz” — a poem by Russell MacClaren
THE BIRTH OF JAZZ
Syncopated sounds
mingle in bayous,
roll with Mississippi currents,
splash in Lake Pontchartrain.
The haunting melody
sleeps in pine forests,
nestles in the cypress,
sways with willows,
stands with oaks.
November 1st, 2013
“Coltrane, Dig?” — a poem by Ed Coletti
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,
through-and-through-him time,
trancey groove time, even arranged time.
October 19th, 2013
Connecting Fiction with Music
While in the midst of reviewing the stories from the over 100 entrants in our current Short Fiction Contest, I have been impressed by the spirit of creativity that shines through in virtually every submission. No matter the story theme, the creative energy and spontaneity is as frequently evident in the writer’s turn of a phrase as it is in a jazz musician’s harmonic progression.
The other day I got into a conversation about how jazz musicians of the 1950’s and the Beat era writers shared an artistic language and had similar creative values that showed up in a variety of examples. The one that came to mind first was in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” where Kerouac is inspired by a jazz performance in Chicago…This is what he writes:
...October 15th, 2013
Newly Published Poems
Lots of interesting new poems have been published this week…
Here is a sampling:
DAVE BRUBECK
You can hear the youth of his heart
in the rhythmic pouncing of his block
chords. He’s a kitten when it comes
to his ball of twine. He’s in his ninetieth
October 9th, 2013
“Ella Fitzgerald in Her Living Room,” a poem by Jillian Phillips
I find comfort in a downpour.
The sound of intermittent pings
is almost a sonata, lulling me.
If Beethoven played on tin,
it would sound like the rain on my roof
October 1st, 2013
Roger Singer: A Seriously Good Jazz Poet
For years, we have been publishing work by poets from all over the world who are dedicated to putting into words their relationship with jazz music. Our most prolific poet is Roger Singer, a living, breathing example of fire and love and brilliance. His contribution to the art of jazz is here – all 26 pages of it – in full glory, waiting for interested readers to discover.
Here is a new poem of his, just published today…
...September 20th, 2013
“Soliloquy,” by Arya F. Jenkins
I am a bastard son of the late great Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who came to this country in 1970, amassed many followers and bedded many women, among them, my dear mother. My parents never married. My mother left my father and moved with me to the Big Apple when I was still a toddler. While my mother met and married a broker named Irv and had my sister Pearl, my own father went on to become a famous teacher and big lush.
...September 15th, 2013
“Coming to Jazz,” by Arya Jenkins
On the occasion of my 12th or 13th birthday, my father presented me with my own copy of a favorite album of his, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out and said, “This music is going to change your life.” The music sounded like nothing I’d ever heard. It was original and different and piqued my curiosity although I would not embrace it until later in my life. In the early 90s, when I was reading my poems in cafes that often played jazz in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts, I started really listening to the music, and found it captivating.
...September 15th, 2013
A Letter from the Publisher/Introducing Jazz Fiction writer Arya Jenkins
For 11 years, Jerry Jazz Musician has sponsored 33 Short Fiction Contests resulting in 30 different contest winners. During that time, I estimate that I have read and considered over 3,000 short stories.
The stories vary in content and quality, of course, and it has been my goal to publish the best story regardless of its theme. This has at times led to confusion by some writers over the years who believe that, since Jerry Jazz Musician’s focus is on jazz history – and in particular within the confines and culture of mid-20th Century America – the winning story should always be about jazz or a character within that setting.
...September 12th, 2013
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #33: “The Lighthouse,” by Gabriella Costa
“Fine,” she says. “Give me your hand.”
Look up.
Empty spaces, open and promising for my skin to slip into, lie between the pale fingers that wag impatiently in my direction. I want to either kiss those milky tips or break the digits one by one. But my hand has no conflict and longs for nothing more than to fill those gaps left by her fingers. It knows where it belongs, and I watch as it begins to reach out, a thin layer of cold sweat over the palm.
...July 3rd, 2013
Poetry by Stefanie Pickett Buckner
Loving Adverbs
I know I should love
nouns more than adverbs but
I definitely
don’t. The same weighty expectation
accompanies phenomena like the Beatles,
Harry Potter, or sushi. My loves never seem
to be trendy, and I say this with confusion,
not pride.
June 24th, 2013
Outside In: A Jazz (and Writing) Odyssey, by Scott Shachter
In this June, 2013 essay, Scott Shachter shares many of the creative and business challenges he had to overcome before the first copy of his novel Outside In was pressed. It is a story many of our finest writers share today — that of remaining authentic in spirit and vision in a world where formula is most often rewarded.
...June 18th, 2013
Poetry by Ronald Charles Epstein
Disparity in River City
THE MUSIC MAN (1962):
Robert Preston,
the picture’s star,
extols “76 Trombones”,
spots “Trouble in River City”,
earning immortality in the process.
June 9th, 2013
Poetry by Roger Singer
THE PATH
Real time straight jazz
curved the room.
Its ribbons of play formed justice
to notes,
releasing streams of fever.
May 26th, 2013
Poetry by Russell MacClaren
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.
April 28th, 2013
Poetry by Ed Corrigan
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
April 15th, 2013
Poetry by Michael James O’Neill
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.
April 15th, 2013
Poetry by Arlene Corwin
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.
April 6th, 2013
Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson
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
April 4th, 2013
Poetry by Ed Coletti
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,
April 4th, 2013
Poetry by Robert Farmer
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!
April 3rd, 2013
Poetry by Krikor Der Hohannesian
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 –
April 3rd, 2013
Poetry by Michael Keshigian
BURGLAR
Two days ago
the sun caught me stealing
the cardinal’s song
to construct a melody,
demanded restitution,
then reported me
to Mother Nature
April 1st, 2013
Poetry by Wanda Smith
THE SAINTS LIVE
Live from Lincoln Center New Orleans jazz
reaches for higher ground.
Musical dynasty family Marsalis
Show the world that Dixie still lives.
March 28th, 2013
New Short Fiction Contest-winning story #32: “The Valley of Ashes,” by Anna Dallara
She didn’t dance to the music; she danced with it. The melody wrapped his arms around her and the chords ran ivory fingers through her curls. Harmony whispered in her ear and she laughed at all his jokes. She twirled up and down scales with him, the hem of her skirt swirling a single syncopated beat behind her. Her form in her red dress was as curvaceous as the treble clef, and her quick smile flashed staccato at the other dancers and drinkers, lingering largo in the hearts of those who were gifted with the lively beats.
...March 8th, 2013
Poetry by John Kaniecki
Tommy
Tommy sweeps the floor
Content at his task
Is it wrong to ask
For a little more
A temporary worker at minimum wage
Not exactly where you’d expect to find
March 5th, 2013
Poetry by CEE
Hudson and Landry 45, 1973 (drunks is funny)
Bowling alley lounge
Liquor license
We’re served our burgers
Served our cokes
We laugh and horse
Enough to be warned
We’re not one-tenth as loud as the adults
We also did not vanquish Hitler,
Precious quarters, Vegas addict,
February 26th, 2013
Short Fiction Contest Details
Three times a year, Jerry Jazz Musician awards a writer who submits, in ouropinion, the best original, previously unpublished work of approximatelyone – five thousand words. The winner will be announced via a specialmailing of our Jerry Jazz Musician newsletter. Publishers, artists,musicians and interested readers are among those who subscribe to the newsletter.Addit ionally, the work will be published on the home page of JerryJazz Musician and featured there for at least four weeks.
...February 22nd, 2013
Poetry by Erren Kelly
Footprints ( for Wayne Shorter )
you speak no evil
when you talk about the miles
you traveled, the
way your sax sounded
like a thunderstorm
or spoke like a child
November 22nd, 2012
New Short Fiction Contest-winning story #31: “Night Cafe,” by Joe DiBuduo
When my doctor released me from the asylum in Saint-Remy, he warned me to stay away from absinthe or my hallucinations would worsen. I didn’t tell him I had no need for absinthe to hallucinate. I often had company, even when there wasn’t anyone with me.
I’d spent some of my time in the asylum playing billiards. Everyone assured me that I was a natural, the best player they’d ever seen. Maybe, instead of painting, I’d play billiards for a living. As soon as I walked past the gates of the asylum,
...November 8th, 2012
Poetry by Robert L. Martin
Scales
My fingers flying like the wind
Dexterous and all so disciplined
From the bottom to the top and back
In a flash and right on track
November 7th, 2012
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #30: “So What,” by Arya Jenkins
Whenever I’m pissed off, I escape to the pit. Out the kitchen door, fists deep in the pockets of my tight ass jeans, I head towards the woods back of the house.
I cross the backyard, past Moreno, the poor chained up son-of-a-bitch boxer. Rosa clinches his leash, pulling him close like a kid. The poor son-of-a-bitch tenses as I go by, his spindly legs and stubby tail shivering at my wrath, ears perked, head cocked – Was up girl, grounded again?
...July 15th, 2012
Poetry by John Brydon
The Jazz Singer
Looking over some old tapes.
Is that really me on the stage?
The Peoria boys jazzing away behind,
performing for a village hall audience.
A monthly gig that, for a short while,
takes them back to the time when…
April 22nd, 2012
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #29: “Inspiration,” by Gabriella Costa
The garden by the sea is just beginning to grow into itself. Its green has started to spill out over the fence and tumble onto the walk that lines the side of the shore house. The weather is warming, and combined with the rich soil of the ground, the plants reap the favor of the earth, led to grow lush and vibrant across the expanse. The tendrils of the cucumbers have travelled far up their trellises, continuing to curl out into the air, while the bushes of basil nearby explode into a happy, bright leafed green.
...March 8th, 2012
Poetry by Tom Winer
MONK WAS RIGHT
( A letter to Thelonius Monk )
Dear Thelonius,
I first heard you
In the darkness of stinky music rooms, toe-tappers’ tombs
where out-of-tone tunes played,
and where you prayed to the God of old blue smoke
to please choke the life out of those who said jazz was a joke,
February 22nd, 2012
Poetry by Sara Spry
Special 20
A breath in the silence
Playing on the silver
Wailing the words of lost souls
Notes burning like a fire
Under molded hands
Moving fingers
Reed notes risin’ like the wind
February 20th, 2012
Poetry by Britt Peter
Minstrel
North Beach evening
Listening to Lonnie Johnson
Through an open door
I didn’t have enough money
To go in
Car noise took away
Many of the notes
February 17th, 2012
Poetry by Andrew H. Oerke
ELEGY FOR HART, IN THE KEY OF CRANE
The pipe-organ sea on-drones a dirge for you
as it will for the last whale’s final soundings.
Deep in the ocean’s heart, Hart has found a home.
Before his final voyage, from the shore he watched
the breakers as they slipped each blow, master
February 10th, 2012
Poetry by Renee Zambo
MY GRANDMOTHERS WAR
It was the war
She said,
As she laid her head
On the pillow next
To my fathers bed
In a raspy voice
From her cigarettes.
How she loved all that
February 1st, 2012
Poetry by Frank De Canio
Naming of Hops
(July 30, 2009)
Today there will be naming of hops.
Today they’ll have a beer outside
the oval office of the White House.
Likewise our planet rotates with an oval orbit
around the sun of no determinate God,
whose purity and innocence informs
the white bars on the American flag.
January 12th, 2012
Poetry by Jon Wesick
JUST ANOTHER PUNK ROCKER WRITING ABOUT JAZZ
They must have materialized at the open mike
out of carbon and nitrogen in the air,
those poets you’d never see in a jazz club.
A guy in Roman-helmet-like Mohawk
reads three-chord rhymes about Mingus,
an MC in Phat Farm jeans
November 14th, 2011
Poetry by Emory Jones
Blues Man
His calloused fingers fret the chord
The juke-joint crowd is hushed and still
His song is beautiful reward
He plays it with such easy skill.
November 14th, 2011
Poetry by Noel J. Hadley
A game of cards
If you ever wanted to know about my grandfather
and his three younger brothers,
you should have paid a visit while my grandmother still lived.
All you had to do was ask.
November 13th, 2011
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #28: “Resolution,” by N. Barry Carver
It’s a shame that, in the 21st century, there are still men of my age who do not know who fathered them. Setting aside the moral issues, I need to know about my family medical history and bloodlines. What if, through twisted fate, my one true love were revealed to be my half sister? Or find out, while facing an ill-informed press, that I am the progeny of some great hero, or desperate criminal, and under the presumption of similar habits. At forty-eight, I still don’t know if I should be honoring the birth of a savior, celebrating the miracle of lights or dancing naked in the woods on the dark of the moon.
...November 8th, 2011
Poetry by Yvonne Wright
I Dreamt I Was Here
Yes, I’m here in this hospital bed
But not having breakfast, like my dream said
I was sitting having Bran Flakes
And hot toast and tea
Twice I woke up having dreamt I was here
‘Twas beginning to quite confuse me
November 3rd, 2011
Poetry by Matthew Rodgers
Chopin: Heroic Polonaise
It may be all
we’re looking for
It may be as simple
as that. As cramming the
sky into a jar, as catching the
milky way in the palm of your hand
October 31st, 2011
Poetry by Bobby Nicolescu
Untitled
God was laughing when he made you.
He held you up and pressed his lips against your skin
till you laughed, too.
October 20th, 2011
Poetry by T.J. Streett
Ignition
my friend,
how you want to see the light
…be the light
but everyone that shines
dines with the whore of envy
October 19th, 2011
Poetry by Kathy Coman
Comprehension of Music
You understand me
every emotion that’s buried into my heart
that lives in my soul trying to find
the right way to express itself to a world
that lacks true understanding of someone’s feelings
so I turn to you to create life into misunderstanding
and o how I love how you grasp it
September 7th, 2011
Poetry by Tyler King
Singularity
That morning, you were overwhelmed
by the crunch of dawn
beneath your feet;
you wouldn’t believe me when I said,
...August 6th, 2011
Poetry by Willie James King
And Now I Know
You just don’t do that! my daddy would say,
defining the line between father, son.
No new learning could change or make him sway
from using words like, Yisstidy, and Yurn,
July 17th, 2011
Poetry by Michael Salcman
THE PENCIL OF NATURE
Imagine Talbot walking into a museum today-
how his eyes would pop at a toy fork
stuck in a cardboard refrigerator
or a towering hotel lobby,
its plaza digitally erased of people
and its colors pumped up
July 8th, 2011
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #27: “The Open Marriage,” by Ben Murray
ten minutes into sound and I have begun to lean, to lean forward in these shared chairs towards glissando, towards pluck and sizzle and crash. Ellen is a grace note, a cello curve beside me in this dark, lovely, smitten club of jazz.
that I know it’s Ellen’s thigh and hip accompanying mine is a testament to the radii of our ring fingers, the shiny bands there that play so seriously at patience and time.
July 8th, 2011
Poetry by Adam Dolewski
Crouching Sofa, Hidden Remote
Culprit Philosophy our kids behold
Media shuns us into our cold world
Therapeutic weapons couldn’t wrestle them all and
The broken lids, Therapeutic guns penetrate
Their anti-establishment walls, which crawl
With love shattered kids
June 19th, 2011
Poetry by Holly Day
The Trip
we used to pile into my dad’s van, drive
all the way from Nebraska to Texas
mostly in
silence, because complaining about the unbearable
heat would just make my dad turn the car back
around, and home
April 8th, 2011
Poetry by Samantha Noll
Impromptu Blues
The bass player was out of synch
tonight while the singer was on fire.
But she had to wait while he shuffled
through page after page of music;
the drummer tap tap tapped his drum
...March 29th, 2011
Poetry by Christopher Fog
MYSTIC
Jam on
she said, and
I played until night suffocated my trees
the garden was weary
and the sun had just died
March 29th, 2011
Poetry by Ryan Thornsberry
Morning’s Song
Sleepy summer eyes
wake, greeting crimson rays,
while swaying stalks waltz silently
on gentle rolling waves.
Tranquil, faded paths
weathered, beaten barn
both eagerly awaiting
March 29th, 2011
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #26: “The Improvisational Distance,” by J. A. Reynolds
Everyone is afraid to knock on the door when they hear the trumpet behind it. A closed door is like an On Air sign or a red light outside a dark room. Still, they have to talk to him. Sonny is nowhere to be found. And Thibodeau is too busy eye-fucking the women at the hotel bar to practice. And Baldwin is just tired.
They wait for a lull, a break. Three minutes waiting outside the door, and it comes. They knock soft, one of those we didn’t want to have to bother you but didn’t see any other recourse knocks; a musician has a way of using sound, its timbre, its breadth, to say everything. Knocking is no different.
...March 4th, 2011
Poetry by Steve Williams
¡Oh, Put On Another Record And Bring Me A Drink!
I like The Jazz
We listened to Roland Kirk
and Eric Burdon sing of
Roland Kirk
March 2nd, 2011
Poetry by Anthony Murray
Mist Past:
put tears of sun into glass of tears
raining impoverished soliloquies
balance falling curious symbols
slice the sea into
symmetrical colors
while you rip apart elastic
February 28th, 2011
Poetry by Dale Craven
BLUES AT SUNRISE
Sunrise Thinking of you
Slowly rising from sleep
All my thoughts irrational
Waking dreams
Farewell
To daft wishing
And hopes of one true love
All I’ve known and seen before
Fades away
February 22nd, 2011
Poetry by Mark J. Mitchell
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE: THE APOTHEOSIS OF MARY LOU WILLIAMS
It’s light on silver-black and white,
Grainy footage of a smoky room,
A woman at the keys. A spotlight
As perfectly round as the moon
...January 15th, 2011
Poetry by Jillian Phillips
Drunk
She was whiskey to him.
Swirling around him.
Curving over his tongue
and into him.
The wicked spiciness burned his throat.
January 15th, 2011
Poetry by Bill Boslego
PLANTATION TOUR
“They had so many slaves to take care of”
the matronly guide reverently explained
imploring our understanding of hardship and pain
Faced by gentlemen owners in those early days
We paid admission to be moved from our time
...December 29th, 2010
Poetry by Lucille Gang Shulklapper
I Am Late at My Singing
As I was waiting,
flowered buds shriveled.
Tangerine daylilies burst.
Too late, too late the music.
December 23rd, 2010
Poetry by Ron Koppelberger
Melancholy Rare
Exhorting remedies of suave chameleon song, by the
Tabby’s table in hypnotic grins and memorizing
Heartbeats in pause, in silent calm broken only by
...November 19th, 2010
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #25: “Fahrenheit,” by Danny C. Knestaut
A trumpet squealed in the hospital halls. The note, like a brass rabbit, zipped past room 334. Moments later Mr. Fahrenheit watched two orderlies jog past the open door: not too fast, not real slow. It appeared to be the speed of indicated hurry. A few more notes from the trumpet whizzed down the hall before they too slowed to a jog, and then drew themselves out into expressions of gold, blue, green then stopped before Mr. Fahrenheit could call the name of the song to mind. The next few notes he tapped out on the back of the hand he held in his own. His wife did not respond. Even he had begun to forget to expect a response. She inhaled. She exhaled. The eyes beneath her blue lids quivered and shimmered.
...November 1st, 2010
Poetry by Nicole Tricoche
Memories
Meema’s singing in the kitchen
Chicken frying
Greens simmering
Pies smelling
Chitlins boiling
October 29th, 2010
Poetry by Annika Hodges
Feel It
You have to FEEL the music rush through your veins
And STEAL their hearts away as you dance off the chains
You have to FEEL the rhythm dance through your feet
As you STEAL the stage with your rhythm and beat
October 8th, 2010
Poetry by Mary M. Schmidt
FULL MOON OVER BENSONHURST
Ralph Kramden pushes through his day
Like the Madison Avenue bus
At the height of evening rush,
Impeded by vehicles
Of lesser size, strength
And importance.
August 4th, 2010
Short Fiction Contest-winner #24: “Alone: A Love Story,” by Abby Cummins
When I was ten, I was in a movie. It was a very famous movie. It ran in theaters for over a month, bringing in more and more revenue for the production company. When it finally came out on VHS (it was old enough that it was a tape, with reels inside it), the film grossed in the millions. The director was hailed as “visionary”, the actors as “superb”. The film itself became famous for having been one of the best horror movies of the year (1992). Critics said that it had “truly ushered in a new era of horror, one in which the innocent and benign murder recklessly”. The review that held these words was taped to my wall, for I’d been mentioned by name, praised, and it was a very well known newspaper, indeed. “Sharon Ellis, a real child actor who will no doubt amount to something great, gives a phenomenal debut performance. Her emotion and sensual expression are truly remarkable for such a young girl so new to the scene.” I used to read those words, over and over again, and imagine the critic who had written them watching me on the big screen before them.
...July 10th, 2010
Poetry by Elizabeth Swados
Music
Does god play the ribs of a starving infant
In the Sudan like the kalimbe you
Can buy in the gift shop in the airport
Where tourists, doctors, murderers come and go
And we know nothing of their destinations or their
Motivations? Does god play on the bald head
July 4th, 2010
Poetry by Joe Ferguson
At the Mission
Yeah…
It was just another day at the mission.
The bums, smelling like the seats of their pants
Were stacked like a roll of wooden nickels
Under a sky with mixed feelings.
...May 13th, 2010
Poetry by Joshua Michael Stewart
VINTAGE GRAY
The morning glory —
another thing
that will never be my friend.
— Basho
Rain has a way of darkening the bark on trees,
...April 9th, 2010
Poetry by E. C. Jones
Terry on Bass, 1974
Tall
slim straight
long red hair
that cops and rednecks hated
he’d stride to his deep honey bass
feel its pleasure in his big hands
urge out music that turned souls to listen
his freedom plucking up down strings
April 2nd, 2010
Short Fiction Contest-winner #23: “Bumps Out Then Bumps Back,” by Trudy Carpenter
One black leather pump hides under the sofa; the other skidded behind the front door, keeled over in shock. Stockings lie limp on the carpet, slim legs broken, and shrunken feet awry at the heels, pale rungs shred up the thigh, as jagged and useless as fear. A gold chain lies coiled like a snake, broken beyond repair, not sparkling, just stunned.
In the bathroom, water gushes wild and wide from the metal spigot, creeps up the sides of steep white porcelain an inch at a time, swirls with thick steam and current from the source, a dank basement room, a mystery pumping system, a light hum in the pipes and a bill at the end of the month. She squeezes her lashes then twists the tap shut. Leg poised, she dips a foot
...March 10th, 2010
Poetry by Laura L. Close
Blizzard
Baffled sound distinguishes each instrument.
Oblational as bread and wine, the symphony is offered up
Daliance with obligatory matters has no place here.
Abiotic as a stone, the tone still is lively:
cabaret saxophone and trumpet indiscretion.
February 2nd, 2010
Poetry by Melanie Simms
Moon Ode (for Congressman Sam Farr)
Shall I trust the moon?
She flirts behind purple clouds
Veiling her luminous face
Like a naughty trickster
January 22nd, 2010
Poetry by Bill Freedman
Something You Can Count On
I had, once, a Captain Midnight ring
that told the weather, or so they said.
Frankly, I don’t remember Captain Midnight,
didn’t listen to him much.
Don’t know what made him special,
what made him Captain Midnight, for that matter.
But I didn’t need to, knew in my 1947 heart of hearts
December 27th, 2009
Poetry by Brad Hostetter
TRIMMING THE UNKNOWN
I open the door to the jetsam of black curls
Cast into a linoleum sea
As fluorescent light glints off scissors and smiles.
Smelling the shaving cream and my own fear,
I sit in a distant chair and pick up a magazine,
Glance up from time to time
December 22nd, 2009
Short Fiction Contest-winner #22: “No Thanks,” by Karen Karlitz
Thanksgiving, 1968. I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night, but I see that day as clearly as if I’m watching it on an old Magnavox. My mother Rose buzzes around our cramped two-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York, her hair in rollers, no makeup. She’s beautiful though, anyone would agree. It’s early in the day. She retrieves the tablecloth my grandmother embroidered when a teenager herself from the back of the hall closet, and sets the dining table in the foyer with her best dishes (black and white Noritake), silver plate from Fortunoff’s, and real cloth napkins in a tasty shade of pumpkin. She’s been up since five cooking; pies were baked the night before. But although her culinary plans are running smoothly, my mother’s mood is lethal.
...November 10th, 2009
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #21: “Parker’s Mood,” by Leland Thoburn
In the fall of 1991 I believed I would be the next Charlie Parker. Few of the bands on campus had even heard of Bird, and the few that had did not want a flute player. This did not deter me. I was out on the commons at UCLA riffing on “Confirmation” when Nadine found me.
“That makes my nipples hard.” She smiled.
I lowered my flute and stared. She was wearing a man’s dress shirt, as if she’d spent the night away. The shirt did little to hide the truth of her statement. But that wasn’t what got my attention. It was her face. She had the knack of smiling with her whole face – eyes, cheeks, lips, nose. Everything got into the act.
...July 15th, 2009
Poetry by Rolli (Charles Anderson)
Letters
Sometimes the shy miss
with cat eyes
put feather to paper
scratched and restored
worlds of politics
June 1st, 2009
Poetry by John B. Lambremont, Sr.
A big mind
Think of One with rare flat-fingered technique,
Hat and Beard gave you a distinct mystique;
Evidence early of genius unique,
Let’s Cool One while your sweet glissandos peak.
April 20th, 2009
Poetry by Charles Brice
Flash Cards
Someone’s gonna be in trouble.
Some kid’s Spanish flash cards
strewn along Maple Avenue
blown down the sidewalk,
lodged in ivy ground cover,
stuck under decrepit concrete
April 12th, 2009
Poetry by Nicholas Adell
Crazy old man walks up to me
I said, a crazy old man walks up to me
Tells me what to see
He calls to me
Makes me an offer I can’t refuse
Washes out the flames in my eyes
Burns a hole through the fabric in my clothes
April 7th, 2009
Poetry by Terri Brown-Davidson
Pantoum: Carson McCullers and Misanthropy at Yaddo
An odd child, I sprawled in bed, conjured her square pale face,
Propelled myself into her enormous dark eyes
And imagined, for years, that I curled inside her mind.
At Yaddo I drank sherry from a thermos, strode lank-legged
March 22nd, 2009
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #20: “Maybe Marrying Margaret,” by Jocelyn Crawley
There’s this painting she keeps staring at.
She imbibes it, absorbs everything it has to offer. A lilting shade of lavender, it features fourteen flawless flowers arranged with a meandering dissonance that flies in the face of the frame’s four square corners. They make its math seem maddening, symmetry superfluous.
“I like it,” she says quietly, tucking long brown strands of slightly curly hair behind her ears. She turns towards me slowly then, notes the slight adversarial something in my eyes. Intimately familiar with my proclivity for irreverent mocking, she now offers a slight smirk that seems just one shade shy of sly. Aware of my antagonism,
...March 15th, 2009
Poetry by Barry Gearing
jazz jam
so this is what no lessons gets me –
a melancholy jazz blues progression,
transgressions and mistakes.
the melody hidden in the missing bass line.
the absent drums beating paradiddles to variation.
a theme within a theme.
March 8th, 2009
Poetry by David Waite
What’s Ours
it may be that a long time ago, as a baby,
we chose the way we tasted sugar
felt cotton and heard Bessie Smith
at 3 a.m. in the back of a dream
February 25th, 2009
Poetry by Tim Greenwood
THE BUNKER
An overgrown trail is abruptly halted by a set of rusting metal gates,
Secured to a crooked post by a battered padlock and feeble chain.
A grey guard tower lies out of sight, studying the unfolding scene intently,
From the dense undergrowth where fresh raindrops glisten in the new-born sunlight.
January 22nd, 2009
“Pondering the Musical Style of Thelonious Monk” — a poem by Geordie de Boer
Pondering the Musical Style of Thelonious Monk
The-
lon- i-
us-
Monk- plunk!
makes- one-
think-
plink!
his-
next-
note-is-
sunk-
January 4th, 2009
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #19: “Offkey” by Kate Robinson
If Mom and Dad had heard about my friend Benny and all that jazz from me, they’d have handled it. But when my fifth grade teacher ratted on us, it became a big, fat deal. Mom had to meet me in the front office after school and we silently trudged back to my classroom, both taking refuge in our own mental world.
Mrs. Drake motioned us to identical chairs in front of her desk. “I don’t want to alarm you. This isn’t an emergency, Mrs. McKenzie.” She forced her goosy face into a sympathetic mask. “Cathy’s not a problem child by any means.”
Mom’s shoulders relaxed under her starched cotton housedress, but her hands clutched the white gloves and tooled leather pocketbook positioned mid-lap.
...November 7th, 2008
Poetry by Joanne Olivieri
Jazz Climax
for Sony Holland
The room hauntingly still
with mosaic tiles staring down
upon the audience.
Pink and red lights glare
like the eye of a storm
August 25th, 2008
Poetry by Bobbi Dykema
My father was a Catholic jazz musician
Say one Our Father, two Hail Marys,
and listen to twelve recordings of John Coltrane.
Dip your fingers in the font of holy water,
cross yourself,
make your way to a pew,
genuflect, take your seat,
and meditate on the perfection of Thelonious chords.
August 6th, 2008
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #18: “The Notes,” by Brian Greene
The first of my notes read I’M IN A STATE OF DISBELIEF. I left this one on top of a counter at a place where many of the thousands of people who worked in the same building as I did went to get their coffees and pastries in the morning.
The second note went AN ANGEL GOT IN BED WITH ME LAST NIGHT — OR MAYBE IT WASN’T AN ANGEL. I taped this one to the inside of the door of one of the stalls in the public bathroom of the same building.
...July 10th, 2008
Poetry by Laura Bontrager
November 14
I have to admit. this
is a new one. playing baby-sitter
to a girl, barely
reaching my hip holster. when
she comes to the door, toast
May 27th, 2008
Poetry by Taylor Gorman
LIPS OF ORPHEUS
Orpheus-
that bony black Jazz player
inhales slowly, his aged, tarred lungs
sip the pre-melodic air,
he fingers the cold brass scythe,
prolonging the moment
for his lips to buzz;
and they will, Emily,
they will.
April 19th, 2008
Poetry by Vi Ransel
Piano Rain
Cut-crystal 16th notes
scamper and dangle
drop
splink
twinkly-plink
splank
...April 15th, 2008
Poetry by C. Gerhard Buehler
“Ms. Cynthia Jazz”
Obese peacock clouds
Waltzing free from oil paintings
Summer flamboyance bristles
Under skies of no particular color
...March 30th, 2008
Poetry by Ben DeMike
Hip Hop Flavored Preachin’
Ya’ll better check your roots
You bunch of brutes
Cause you ain’t got no soul
Respect and you don’t roll
This is rhythm and blues?
Man, I don’t know
Back when we had dancin’ shoes
And things to lose
March 22nd, 2008
Poetry by John Reay
Beat
Mad jazz singers blaring,
the gathered dance and bop
Tossing ladies between their legs,
hair slicked back and eyes shimmering
March 9th, 2008
Short Fiction contest-winner #17: “Mountain,” by Mark Kerstetter
I can’t fight. I’m not made for it. When I’m backed into a corner I can run, and that’s what I’m good at. I can’t gather myself to put up an opposition. I begin to quake and crumble and the parts of myself split into ever-smaller parts that want to get away as fast as possible. I’m an explosion, a spectacle to momentarily confuse the enemy. Also a physical wreck. The only movement that suits me is flight. My parts will converge into a fluid line of energy, but only in movement. It’s the way I’m made. If I held my hand out, lengthened my fingers for you and attempted to keep as still as possible, you would marvel at the trembling. But then give me a guitar and this same hand will produce a line no less marvelous in fluid grace.
...March 5th, 2008
Poetry by E. Shaun Russell
The Crossroads
The Mississippi midnight sky was clear
As one determined man had journeyed far
With nothing but his clothes and a guitar,
To speak the incantation all men fear;
February 14th, 2008
Poetry by Loraine Campbell
The road to Giverny,
winter, 1885, by Claude
Monet, looks sad.
It looks like the
twisted road to San
Quentin, where an
execution is planned
before Christmas 2005.
January 29th, 2008
Poetry by Jason Conner
Listening to Trane
Madman rages burst
from his golden horn-
Through John’s mouthpiece
galaxies of enlightened energy
were born-
Trane’s band wailed
in dissonant bawling
January 19th, 2008
Poetry by Suzanne Richardson Harvey
BLACK SONG FOR BILLIE HOLIDAY
The night the blue saxophones died
You still remain in the spotlight’s ivory heat
A riddle that puzzles the heart
Snatching from the soil of catastrophe
A nugget of perfect sound
Glowing like an iridescent candle
January 5th, 2008
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #16: “Cipher,” by Colleen Anderson
It had been warm all day, the type of day where the heavy air presses into you and makes it hard to move. It didn’t help that her shift had been spent calling customers and listening to endless streams of why they couldn’t make their hydro payments. And they would yell, swear at her as if she had caused their loss of job, their alcoholism, their way of life. She absorbed it all, the words sinking through the membrane in her ear and resonating within the membrane of her mind long after the calls had stopped.
If there’d been a breeze, or a slight coolness to the air, then those words could have lifted from her. They heated her, churning and boiling within so that by the time she got the apartment door open her flesh looked glossy with the sweat.
...November 1st, 2007
Poetry by Sargam Garg
War as a playmate
Look at the pretty girls, pouting
and coloring their pink lips with a reddish hue.
Embellishing their glossy gossamer hair
Saturating themselves with perfume.
October 29th, 2007
Poetry by Sean Lause
The gift
The day my mother dropped a net
of oranges on the kitchen table
and the net broke and the oranges
rolled and we snatched them,
my brother and I,
peeled back the skin and bit deep
October 18th, 2007
Poetry by Shae Davidson
COUTURE
stained
this is
pale
yellow brown
along
the hem
but
too nice
August 30th, 2007
Poetry by Brian Mayer
CONVERSATION ON ROUTE 23 NORTH, NOVEMBER 1987
He leans on me like a rusted bicycle,
Tires flat against the weathered south wall
Of a lonesome, abandoned barn
Slumps into the rear seat of his old Ford
Station wagon, no longer capable of riding
August 23rd, 2007
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #15: “The Prayer For Swift and University,” by Joanne Seiff
Stories burst out of her as a magician’s trick pulls out scarves; multi-colored patterns, solids and conservative checks spilled out of her mouth and hands when she least expected it. In the end, of course, she recognized it as it was. These were the stories of all our lives, every human soul’s experience could produce that knotted, impossibly long scarf string that sprung out of the local magician.
Yet, most people did not have a new story to tell very often at all. At first, this was a wonder to her — why did all the interesting things happen only to her? But of course, this was self-centered, she realized. These things do happen to all of us on this earth. It was just that few people noticed the stories as they blossomed. It’s in the observation of it, she discovered, that one finds a good story.
...July 15th, 2007
“MATCHBOOK: The Spinnaker (Sausalito): in memory of Bill Evans,” a poem by Michael Harper
MATCHBOOK: The Spinnaker (Sausalito)
in memory of Bill Evans
by Michael Harper
Adrift in your own spittle
(eyebrows on vibrato knuckles)
we are across the bay
from reality;
but reality hits in waves
...May 22nd, 2007
“Morning,” a poem by Ann Stanford
Morning
From the center of our body
Come the bright flowers.
Draw open the curtain
...April 29th, 2007
Poetry by Bunny M.
“To a Flower”
Garden rose
My perfumed lover
Porcelain daughter of the summer
Your blossom is my red maiden
April 27th, 2007
“TATTOO,” a poem by Michael Harper
TATTOO
featuring Dexter Gordon
by Michael Harper
Though a simple rose under your skin
I look up the bugle ritual of recall
for sailors to regroup — soldiers at parade rest
and your sister who could not read as a child
April 25th, 2007
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #14: “The Red Underwear,” by Ellis J. Biderson
I have a problem, Father.
No, no “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” and the rest. Not this time.
And that’s it, really: I’m here again, in confession with you, as I have been for a long time, but I don’t think I’ve sinned.
Yes, of course, Father, I understand about confession. Penance, really, because that’s a sacrament, that’s how a person gets forgiveness of sins. There is absolution by a priest, but you I, because I am sitting here now have to have true sorrow and confess your sins, and do something about your behavior. You really have to mean it, not just want a pass for what you’ve done and may do again, unless you’re genuine in your confession and really want to change.
...March 15th, 2007
Poetry by Sandra Ervin Adams
FOR COUNT BASIE
On this day, your birthday, I want
to celebrate, although you passed last
century. I crave some birthday cake,
so I put on “One O’clock Jump”
one more time to soothe my soul, allow
your fingers to loosen my tight, sore
muscles that have taken hold, the ones
February 22nd, 2007
“10’s and Things,” a poem by Michael Harper
10’S & THINGS
in memory of Carmen McRae
by Michael Harper
Fingerings,” she says, a nobody,
intermission pianist
February 22nd, 2007
“9 23 99: Coltrane Notes on the Millenium,” a poem by Michael Harper
9 23 99: Coltrane Notes on the Millenium
by Michael Harper
“Alabama”
no protection still
that is not churchdriven
James Weldon Johnson’s alternate tune
January 22nd, 2007
“Blues for Red,” a poem by Tom Bauer
Blues for Red
I’m looking in crowds
where you won’t be
looking for you
strolling with Raphael
...December 29th, 2006
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #13: “Mystery in C Minor,” by Bruce Golden
January 30, 1946 — Allied Headquarters, Paris, France
“What is it, Captain? I’m very busy.”
“Sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but you said you wanted a report as soon as I completed my investigation.”
Colonel Washburn searched his desk muttering, “Yes, yes. I’ll read your report as soon as you’ve filed it.”
...November 10th, 2006
“Scarecrow Gardens” a poem by Madeline DeFrees
Scarecrow Gardens
Late-summer squash put out to sea
in coastal storms. All day, wet
leaves let go. I cut down three
...August 31st, 2006
Poetry by Susan Dale
Rhythms Of Life
The ferment of storm to seas
The seas’ mad tides
Our savage hearts to spawn
In the wild shoals of swollen rivers
Druid fires – spiraling discs
Raspy winds and blind/blue passions
August 22nd, 2006
“The Life of Jackie McLean” a poem by Michael Harper
The Life of Jackie Mclean
by Michael Harper
A critic trying to pass writes me about crossover played some
couldn’t make it got his Ph. D
(he’s onto new changes an advance man now active in grants
from corporations)
August 8th, 2006
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #12: “Mute,” by Mary Jo Marcellus Wyse
Megan Watson pushes open the front door of the old house, escaping the cold. On the left, a welcome mat, wet from snow, rests before the entrance to a vegetarian restaurant. Shes not hungry. Turning to the dry stairwell with the faded violin painted on the wall, she begins her ascent to the shop upstairs.
Paper taped at the top stair reads, “Press Doorbell.” When the door draws open, an older gentleman with a full, white mustache, smiles down at her. Running his palm over the top of his head, he looks tired, but curious.
...July 18th, 2006
“TATUM,” a poem by Michael Harper
TATUM
by Michael Harper
I have recovered from your blindness
so fast your arpeggios
the world of Toledo is in slow motion
for you are holding back
May 22nd, 2006
“Election Day, 1984,” a poem by Carolyn Kizer
Election Day, 1984
Did you ever see someone coldcock a blind nun?
Well, I did. Two helpful idiots
Steered her across the tarmac to her plane
May 21st, 2006
Poetry by Kim Jaxtheimer
Kind of Blue
New York
&
cross
the
Lincoln
tunnel
expose a city
through
fish eye lens
May 2nd, 2006
“ON MEETING ERIC DOLPHY,” a poem by Golda Solomon
ON MEETING ERIC DOLPHY
Between sets at the Five Spot,
She and Dolphy would
walk and talk
April 1st, 2006
“dear jesse helms,” a poem by Lucille Clifton
dear jesse helms
something is happening.
something obscene.
in the night sky
the stars are bursting
March 15th, 2006
Short Story Contest-winning story #11: “Stalking Bella,” by Hope Payson
The whole stalking thing started with the footprints. They were so large that his size twelve’s fit easily into the indents in the snow, and the space between them was so wide that following them forced him into an awkward little step-jump. Large paw prints ran parallel to the human prints. He assumed that they belonged to a dog. What else could they be? Yet, what did he know about the customs or recreational habits of these Northern Maine people? For all he knew they strutted through the pines chatting with bears.
...March 8th, 2006
“The Poet’s Heart,” a poem by Richard Jones
The Poet’s Heart
Think of the buddhist monks
who sat in the road
at the start of the war,
saffron robes soaked in gasoline,
and set themselves on fire
January 29th, 2006
Short Story Contest-winning story #10: “Uncle Evil Eye,” by Carole Bugge
My father died quickly and cleanly in the waning days of autumn, just two months before the arrival of the millennium. A massive neural hemorrhage took him — his brain, drowned in blood, was gone within hours. It was ironic that his own blood finally accomplished what years of alcoholism had not: heavy as his drinking was, he remained utterly lucid and sharp until the early morning hours of a late October Tuesday, when a tiny blood vessel in his head gave way, loosening the flood of fluid that killed him. Until then, his memory, both short and long-term, remained unimpaired. True, his body was falling apart; his liver and heart were bad, he suffered from diabetes, gout, macular degeneration — you name it, he had it — but his mind remained as sharp as the day he graduated with a PhD from Harvard.
...November 1st, 2005
“Back to the Valley” a poem by David Lee
From “Back to the Valley”
I guess mebbe you better be getting me home
now, it’s getting pretty late
and I’m getting pretty drunk
and tired
I got to get back on that swaker tomorrow
September 29th, 2005
“S’monka Tetes,” a poem by Golda Solomon
S’monka Tetes
These sounds forever
begin with a few off key
notes. A funny dance
and like Joseph’s coat many
September 22nd, 2005
“BORN INTO A WORLD KNOWING” a poem by Susan Griffin
“Born Into a World Knowing”
This will happen
Oh god we say just give
me a few more
breaths
and don’t let it be
August 1st, 2005
Short Story Contest-winning story #9: “The Sound of Dreaming,” by Mary Burns
(One)
She has begun to daydream about having an affair.
She imagines herself with the men she sits next to at dinner parties, their wives across the table pulling down their mouths as she engages their husbands intensely in conversation, as she lays her hand on their arms and smiles over her wine glass. Then she looks away, smiles at her own husband seated two or three or four people away from her, nods and smiles, raises an eyebrow.
...July 1st, 2005
“Because I Am” by Hayden Carruth
Because I Am
In mem. Sidney Bechet, 1897-1959
Because I am a memorious old man
I’ve been asked to write about you, Papa Sidney,
Improvising in standard meter on a well-known
Motif, as you did all those nights in Paris
And the world. I remember once in Chicago
June 29th, 2005
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #8: “Natural Selection,” Jackson Lassiter
The rigid wooden slats of the park bench press relentlessly against the length of my goose-pimpled back. A stocking cap rides low over my ears and most of my forehead, and a wool blanket — cocooned around my prone body — laps over my chin and tucks snugly around the sides of my face. Only my eyes, nose, and weather-cracked lips brave the raw chill. I gaze skyward as the frozen minutes slowly pass. I wouldn’t normally choose to rest here in the dead of winter, but tonight I didn’t have a choice. In life you are either a have or a have-not. Mike and I are have-not’s.
...March 15th, 2005
“SO WHAT,” a poem by Golda Solomon
SO WHAT
Baptized by vodka cleansing my throat
Baptized by sweat dripping from Tony Williams’ sticks
Thick  Summer Sunday Afternoons
at the Vanguard
February 4th, 2005
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #7: “Inheritance,” Diana Spechler
The workers at Jackson’s favorite record store wear bumble-bee striped tights, black plastic glasses, leather boots that lace straight up their thighs. Jackson’s wearing the purple beret he always wears, with his blond hair sticking out in back, and his cords, and his corduroy jacket that smells like him. It’s April, too warm for corduroy, but Jackson always wears corduroy, along with T-shirts that tell the world he’s been to every blues concert and jazz festival you could think of.
To me, it all sounds the same — jazz, the blues, whatever — it’s all horns, but Jackson’s got two hundred seventeen records — vinyl, he calls them — and a saxophone, too. Clearly, he’s got music in his blood. His dad also plays the saxophone, at bars in Harvard Square, and they kind of look alike, only Jackson’s dad has eyes like power drills that would tear your clothes clean-open if you didn’t look away in time.
...November 1st, 2004
Soul Make a Path Through Shouting, by Cyrus Cassells
Soul Make a Path Through Shouting
for Elizabeth Eckford
Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957
Thick at the schoolgate are the ones
Rage has twisted
Into minotaurs, harpies
Relentlessly swift;
So you must walk past the pincers,
October 17th, 2004
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #6: “The Place Where Colored Notes Play,” by Rebecca Marshall-Courtois
Today, Celina is going tolive up to the promise she made to him fifteen years ago, that November dayin the neurologist’s parking lot, when he told her, “When my voice goes,I go.”
Ray can still hear the pitter-patter of raindrops onthe umbrella they’d shared that day, drumming out the minutes that passedas they stood, emotionally and physically immobile, terrified at the thoughtof taking another step. And he can still recall the wet wool smell of hersweater when he tucked his face into the hollow of her neck to hide his tears.But he thought Celina had chosen to forget that day and her vow, until twomonths ago when she asked him if he’d changed his mind. “Squeeze my arm ifyou still want to,” she’d told him.
...July 1st, 2004
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #5: “Traveling Magic,” by Kay Sexton
There are coyote in The Balcones Canyonlands Preserve in West Travis County, Texas. One family; with three cubs. As always, the alpha female is the only one to breed, her two sisters will help her rear the cubs to maturity. She is a young female, less than two years old, and her sisters are her littermates: this family, barely more than striplings themselves, have fought hard to establish themselves in this reserve, managed for deer and birds, but not for coyote. Most Texans still shoot first, and ask themselves only afterwards if the beautiful golden corpse in front of them could possibly have posed a risk to livestock or pets.
...March 5th, 2004
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #4: “Anacostia,” by Qevin Oji
One. Anacostia lay there. Two. Three. Counting gunshots. Four. Five. He imagined the bullets cutting the sky, wondered how this tradition had begun. Six. The first time he held a gun, fired his first shot, he was six years old. It was on this same night — New Year’s Eve — thirteen years ago, just after midnight. Seven.
* * *
His father’s yellowy, roach-burnt fingertips stretched and folded his hand, his small fingers, barely skilled using a pencil, around the handle and trigger. I’m gonna make you a man. A chill shook his small body. He had never felt anything so cold, not a popsicle fresh from the ice cream truck, not the cold air gushing from inside the fridge onto his face in summer. Not even snow was this cold. When he had finished molding the boy’s hand to the gun, he let go. It fell immediately to Anacostia’s knees. A flat, open palm, smacked the back of his head. You ain’t no bitch. Lift that gun up, boy!
...October 15th, 2003
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #3: “Dancing Universe” by Kate Robinson
Though she sat alone, Mira wasn’t lonely. Woman, chair, patio, trees and sky merged in her nightly meditation. Mira finished her prayer, touching the crown of her head, forehead and heart center with folded hands, crossed herself, and opened her eyes to the East, observing in one smooth movement her indigenous heritage, Catholic upbringing, and conversion to Buddhism.
Gathering and tossing her long raven-wing hair over one shoulder, Mira shifted her weight from one hip to the other, rubbing her ample belly. She turned over mental stones from the last few months, examining the process of shock, resignation, and acceptance that marked this pregnancy. The youngest of five daughters, she ruefully watched her older sisters succumb one by one to the entanglements of family life. She vowed while still a teenager to never clip her wings.
...June 15th, 2003
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #2: “Tin Soldiers,” by Kirk Bjornsgaard
Donna walked into the student union on the evening of the Kent State shootings while thunderheads roiled over the Toledo River. They invoked little-girl notions that God brought storms until she checked herself with the atheism sweeping the Milestone College campus that semester. In the foyer mirror she stroked long chestnut hair and nodded terse approval of her denim mini-skirt, leotards, and khaki jacket.
Descending the circular staircase to the basement, Donna replayed the scene in the dining commons–Chris, flanked by his entourage, requesting that she report after dinner; how girl friends had flashed wide-eyed grins that heightened her excitement–“God, Donna! No freshman poly-sci’s ever been invited to work with him before!”
...February 10th, 2003
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #1: “Coloring Outside the Lines,” by Debora Ewing
I like the jazz because it plays in different colors: deep green and blue, translucent purple, ivory black; city storefronts, magenta sunsets; watercolor splashes here and there like a yellow crocus on snow or an orange goldfish tail — sudden, surprising, but always carefully placed.
Like the way people come in different colors — they just don’t know it. People walk along in darkness daily, ignorant of the color that’s surrounding them or the beat their music plays. That’s what I’m lying here thinking about, in my dark bedroom between the folds of cotton sheets. Africans, Asians, Seminoles they all come in different colors — not their skins, but their insides.
...October 4th, 2002
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Click here to read about plans for the future of Jerry Jazz Musician.
A Letter from the Publisher
The High Price of Authoritarianism– by editor/publisher Joe Maita...An essay inspired by my recent experiences witnessing the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of liberation of several World War II concentration camps in Germany.
In This Issue
Poetry
Short Fiction
The Sunday Poem
”A Poem in Search of a Title” by Terrance Underwood
The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.... Terrance Underwood reads his poem at its conclusion
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Poetry
Essay
Poetry
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Interview
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Publisher’s Notes
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