Poems by D.R. James, John Stupp and Alan Yount

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“Couple in Love” by Richard Revel/CCO Public Domain

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All Her Jazz

           ……………….. —after W.C.W.

My striking wife
is the cat’s strut—

cello sass
with a syncopated

escalator to
move

these languid feet—
Bet yer bottom

her fleet laugh
‘s enough to please.

Wham
giv’er the day

and watch’er de-roost—
She quakes my phase-y

ass with tympani—
Scoot it, Jimmy!

Ev’body
Ev’body else

and me—
We bop to it.

 

………………..—for Suzy

              ……………….. (first published in Third Wednesday, December 2017)

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– by D.R. James

 

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Love Letter

………………..for Bette

The music coming from the barn sounds like Bill Evans
so these sheep may safely graze with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian
at the Vanguard
the sheep must have musical hearts under coats suitable for 7th Avenue
now in a corner of a Pennsylvania field
wind pierced and bleating
I think
love must be like this
the sheep rubbing together like nickels
the farmer with warm hands
and a cigarette

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– by John Stupp

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Just For Jerra

………………..(For Our 18th Anniversary)

I am playing
my old upright kay bass.

jerra, has also picked up her violin,
and joined in.

and we both
started playing along with

the oscar peterson’s trio song
“let’s fall in love.”

(why
shouldn’t  we !).

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*****

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our strings seemed
perfectly in tune !

we played along
exactly balanced.

I sounded off
some harmonics …

after just touching
the strings,

only so lightly,
thinking of you.

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we were, just the two of us.
we were, just two random people

meeting, on any one, given day
just by a total chance.

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*****

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and now years later
playing our songs together:

now we mean …
even beyond “absolutely  everything”

with

each

other.

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– by Alan Yount

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The Oscar Peterson Trio plays “Let’s Fall in Love”

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D.R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 35 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. Poems and prose have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, his latest of eight poetry collections are If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press) and Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box), and a microchapbook All Her Jazz is free and downloadable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

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John Stupp’s third poetry collection.Pawleys Island.was published in 2017. His manuscript.Summer Job.won the 2017 Cathy Smith Bowers Poetry Prize and was published in August 2018. A chapbook entitled.When Billy Conn Fought Fritzie Zivic.will be published by Red Flag Poetry in 2020.  He lives near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  From 1975-1985 he worked professionally as a mediocre jazz guitarist.

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Alan Yount, 71, has written and published poetry for over 50 years. His many poems have appeared over the years in publications such as WestWard Quarterly (where he was invited to be the Featured Writer and Poet for the summer, 2018 issue), Big Scream, Green’s Magazine (Canada), Spring: the Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society (academic journal), Wind, Legend, Roanoke Review, Tidepool, Art Centering Magazine (Zen Center of Hawaii), Wormwood Review, Palo Alto Review, Barefoot Grass Journal, Frontier: Custom & Archetype, Modern Haiku, and The Pegasus Review.

He has been in three anthologies: Passionate Hearts (New World Library), Sunflowers and Locomotives: Songs for Allen Ginsberg (published by Nada Press and the poet David Cope). Alan was one of 31 poets along with Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The third anthology was The Chrysalis Reader.

Alan also plays jazz trumpet, and has led his own dance band. He is a direct descendant of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone.

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