Poetry by Ed Corrigan

April 15th, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

my funny valentine

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
wuwuwuwaaaah
don’t know myself no more
what goes around comes around
my heart in lost and found.

Coltrane blow that sax
ride the rhythm
sweet and blue
way beyond blue
cool man cooool
big daddy you
really got ahold on me.

all the while Miles riffs
ripityripityrip
pippippip
bipitybipitybip
shake that thing
zizzyzizzyzoomzingaling
Miles blow my mind
takes me way out beyond
the ocean’s waves
he starts the newest craze
crazy for Josephine
know what i mean?
blow baby blow
horn aphonic sound
lost and found
sweet comic valentine
be mine all mine.

all in a sweet cool stream
don’t wake me
from this dream
stay little valentine, stay…
dreaming the blues away.

 

 

 

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

Tiga Tiga boom boom
Tiga tiga twiddly mac twat
Tweet tweet twat
Bang a dong
Never ever, never ever mind
So what
The song
Bang a dong
Free me baby, free
So what
Give it to me

The beat, the beat
The unintended
Syncopated beat
On the street
Off my feet
Down the street
Moves on
No song
No memory
No intentions
An uninterrupted stream
A stream of consciousness
Beat beat beat

Searching a rhyme
A rhyme divine
Searching for a mind

No clash
A movement
From my head
To my heart
To and fro
Sway and fro
Brain and soul
A rhythm
A non rhythm
Bang those strings
Bang those skins
Bang a dong
Rough rough roughillicious
I am all
Tongue tied twisted
Beat up inside
King Kong and his bride
His lily white
Princess bride
Whitey tighty twiddly diddly twat

Searching for a string of notes
A parade of floats
Blue blue aqua velvet green
What a scene
A parade of boats
Rocking, rollicking bouncing
The wavy undulating heat
Strike those strings
Zizzy zizzy bingaling

And that horn
Blare blare mocaholic sound
Beat beat
Blow baby down
To the ground
A ground zerooooooo
You are the one
You are the one
Be mine every
Be mine in
And every
Time
Baby, it’s so good
For what ails you
Move body, mind
Heart, soul
The beat goes on
In a song
Without a song
Bang a dong
Within your mind
Oh baby be mine
All you need is
Love Love Love
Beat Beat Beat
All the time
Loony toony
Rhapsodic
Time
Incredible
Tripper-cerrific rhyme
Be mine
Be my
Valentine
Ffff fade away baby…

The Stand of Birch

Protector of dark
Secrets inside
Halos of fairy dust
Tinker Bell tracers
Castle like spires
Splendiferous
Translucent
Lunatic-licious
A cloud gate
You must pass thru us
We will wash your
Mind
Then push you on
Into dark forest
Beyond
All experience and imagination
We will cleanse your soul
For your trip
Upon a path of no return
A shining cloud gate
Etherealite
Sparkling souls
Remnants of rusting leaves
Shuddering in the wind
Clinging like loose buttons
To a threadbare thread
Silver shadows with
Barely hanging ornaments
On bones so white
So straight
As not to bend
To your will
We will cleanse your being
As you walk and breathe
Air, dust, cloudy steam
A world beyond
Blinded minds
In our timbre of existence

 

don’t know jack

what if i were jack kerouac
would that be
wac
or wut?
i would know the perfect
word to write
every time
i needed a line
is this too much rhyme?
if i were jack kerouac
i’d be cuul all day
beat in every way
seattle blue
if i wanted to
Criss crossing
screaming
across america
stories looking for me
if i were he.
was it all in his head
those amazing things
he wrote and said
or was it shoved in
like meat to a grinder
making a massive meat burger
from not so thin air?
the traffic light just
turned red
it really fucked up
my head.
jack kerouac is dead and
if i were he
who
would
be me?
cuul de sac is the nu b wac. beautiful beat…lives on…
jack uac is jazzdelicious, lost in space baby…

 

 

 

Saeta

The war was born
of a firestorm.
The band went marching on
and trumpets blasted to the heavens
as the earth scorched below.
The war was born
by men of no imagination
living illusions, delusions
who cared not for music
or the children of others.
Men who loved and were loved by their mothers,
or so they say…
Jack and Jill
marched up the hill
on a path
of their own construction and
destruction.
The band played on and
the trumpets sounded the story
of souls lost in their ways.
The war was born
of a firestorm.
Consuming all in its wake
burning flags and all else without discretion.

Indeed, the storm became
a demon of our dreams.
It took on a life of its own
stealing the air that we breathe
melting eyes beyond disguise
consuming all that it sees
and all that sees it.
Sucking up people off sidewalks and streets
burning all fruit, leaves, branches
pulling up the very roots of trees.
Melting all that melts and
all God’s creatures, innocent or not.
A reddish, yellowish, hellish tornado
not taking us somewhere over the rainbow
but only way down below
beyond protection and redemption.

Jack and Jill
went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water.
But were soon ascending to a fire cloud
sadly to return never after
rudely sent to their ever after
by men who knew not
what was true
who cared not, for me and you.
By men who were succoured by mothers,
women who were ultimately consumed
by their bombs and napalm.
The war was born
of a firestorm.
A storm which consumed all in its path
incinerated the haves and the have nots,
the know and the know nots
the first and the last
and the band played on.
We step to the beat of death drums
and the trumpets
extol our glory
to the bitter end.
We march to the boom boom beat of the drummer
only to be finally silenced
by the shattering of already deaf ears.

 

Share this:

2 comments on “Poetry by Ed Corrigan”

  1. Really cool poems-love the poetic devices of Valentine that make it flow to the soul like a song; the Kerouac poem is a neat idea-of all the “beats,” I’d want to be in his mind,too.
    Ed is such a talent; so glad his work is up for all to read!

  2. I’m glad that there was a Jack Kerouac and I’m also glad that I am me and not him, cause I’m already pretty “wac” in more ways than one. 😉

    Your Saeta really touches me as well. Like Jack and Jill we all march on our own paths of construction or destruction, depending on whether or not we choose to value all human lives- our own as well as all the people on this planet who have been loved by their mothers. Beautiful poetry, truly enjoyable.

Comment on this article:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Site Archive

Your Support is Appreciated

Jerry Jazz Musician has been commercial-free since its inception in 1999. Your generous donation helps it remain that way. Thanks very much for your kind consideration.

Click here to read about plans for the future of Jerry Jazz Musician.

In this Issue

Announcing the publication of Volume II of Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry...The second edition of Kinds of Cool, an Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry has just been published, and is now available for sale on Amazon.com. This edition is dedicated to publishing women poets from all over the world who share their personal passion for and relationship with jazz music, and the culture it interacts with. With a foreword by Allison Miller, one of the world’s most eminent jazz drummers, and photography and design by Rhonda R. Dorsett

Community

A collection of poetic responses to the events of 2025...Forty poets describe their experiences with the tumultuous events of 2025, resulting in a remarkable collection of work made up of writers who may differ on what inspired them to participate, but who universally share a desire for their voice to be heard amid a changing America.

The Sunday Poem

Mallory1180, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

"Second Set" by Patricia Joslin

The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work...

Patricia Joslin reads her poem at its conclusion


Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem

Interview

photo by Warren Fowler
Interview with John Gennari, author of The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life...The author discusses how in the 1950s the Berkshires – historic home to the likes of Hawthorne, Melville, Wharton, Rockwell, and Tanglewood – became a crucial space for the performance, study, and mainstreaming of jazz, and eventually an epicenter of the genre’s avant-garde.

Community

Ricky Esquivel/Pexels.com
Community Bookshelf #6...“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (September, 2025 – March, 2026)

Poetry

painting by Linnaea Mallette
21 jazz poems on the 21st of March, 2026...An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician. This edition features poets – several new to readers of this website – writing about their appreciation for the music, and the diversity and aesthetics of its sound. Along the way, readers will encounter poems that include the great musicians Horace Parlan, Shelly Manne, Keith Jarrett, Zoot Sims, Sun Ra, and Garland Wilson.

Feature

photo by Laura Stanley via Pexels.com.
Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 28: “Little Samba”...Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film. This edition is based largely on a documentary – They Shot the Piano Player – about Tenório Junior, a Latin jazz musician who only produced one album (1964) before he “disappeared” in 1976.

Poetry

art by Marsha Hammel
“Learning the Alphabet of the Blues” – a poem by Mary K O’Melveny...A poem from Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry, Vol. II

Interview

A Women’s History Month Profile: Interview with Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz, authors of But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the 60’s Girl Groups...Little is known of the lives of many of the young Black women who – in the Girl Groups of the ‘60’s – sang, wrote, created, and popularized their generation-defining music, and even less about the challenges they faced while performing during such a complex era, one rife with racism, sexism, and music industry corruption. In this February, 2024 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz discuss their book’s endeavor at giving them an opportunity to voice their meaningful experiences.

Poetry

photo via Wikimedia Commons
“Empire State of GRIME” – a poem by Camille R.E....The author’s free-verse poem is written as an informal letter to tourists from a native New Yorker, (and sparing no bitter opinion).

Short Fiction

photo via Freerange/CCO
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #70 – “The Sound of Becoming,” by J.C. Michaels...The story explores the inner life of a young Southeast Asian man as he navigates the tension between Eastern tradition and Western modernity.

Poetry

art by Martel Chapman
"Ancestral Suite" - A 3-Poem Collection by Connie Johnson...The poet pays homage to three giants of mid-century post-bop jazz – Booker Ervin, Lou Donaldson, and Little Jimmy Scott

Feature

“Bohemian Spirit” – A Remembrance of 1970’s Venice Beach, by Daniel Miltz...The writer recalls 1970’s Venice Beach, where creatives chased a kind of freedom that didn’t fit inside four walls…

Poetry

Linnaea Mallette/publicdomainpictures.net
A 2026 jazz poetry calendar...12 individual poets contribute a jazz-themed poem dedicated to a particular month, resulting in a 2026 calendar of jazz poetry that winds through the year with a variety of poetic styles and voices who share their journeys with the music, tying it into the month they were tasked to interpret. Along the way you will encounter the likes of Sonny Stitt, Charles Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, Wynton Kelly, John Coltrane, and Nina Simone.

Feature

Boris Yaro, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
“The Bowie Summer” – a personal memory, and how art can fundamentally reshape identity, by G.D. Newton-Wade

Poetry

photo via NOAA
“Taking The Littlenecks” – a prose poem by Robert Alan Felt...Expressing the joy and sorrow of life at age 71 with grace, wisdom, and appreciation.

Short Fiction

photo by Iryna Olar/pexels.com 
“The Fading” – a short story by Noah Wilson...The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – examines the impact of genetic illness on a family of musicians and artists.

Poetry

Poems on Charlie “Bird” Parker (inspired by a painting by Al Summ) – an ekphrastic poetry collection...A collection of 25 poems inspired by the painting of Charlie Parker by the artist Al Summ.

Short Fiction

Los Angeles Daily News, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
“The Pet Shop” – a short story by Sherry Shahan...The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest, – is about an octogenarian couple who accept a part-time caretaker position at Crazy Goose Burlesque when the theater is temporarily shuttered due to archaic public indecency laws.

Poetry

Laura Manchinu (aka La Manchù), CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

A Letter from the Publisher

The gate at Buchenwald. Photo by Rhonda R Dorsett
War. Remembrance. Walls.
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.

Jazz History Quiz

photo by Mel Levine/pinelife, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jazz History Quiz #186...While he had a long career in jazz, including stints with, among others, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz, he will always be remembered primarily as the pianist in Charlie Parker’s classic 1947 quintet. Who is he?

Playlist

photo by Robert Hecht
“Spring is Here!” – a playlist by Bob Hecht...With perhaps Lorenz Hart’s most sardonic lyric — which is saying something! — this song remains one of the greats, and has been interpreted in many ways, from the plaintive and melancholy to the upbeat and hard swinging, such as John Coltrane’s version. Check out this bouquet of ten tracks to celebrate this great season!

Poetry

Wikimedia Commons
“Dorothy Parker, an Icon of the Jazz Age” – a poem by Jane McCarthy

Short Fiction

“Lies, Agreed Upon” – a short story by M.R. Lehman Wiens...The story – a finalist in the recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest – uncovers a man’s long hidden past, and a town’s effort to keep its involvement in it buried.

Feature

photo via Wikimedia Commons
Memorable Quotes – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, on a pitiable nation

Short Fiction

photo by Bowen Liu
“Going” – a short story by D.O. Moore...A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 70th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, “Going” tells of a traumatic flight experience that breaks a woman out of her self-imposed confines and into an acceptance that she has no control of her destiny.

Community

Nominations for the Pushcart Prize L (50)...Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. L (50), whose work appeared on the web pages of Jerry Jazz Musician or within print anthologies I edited during 2025.

Interview

Interview with Tad Richards, author of Listening to Prestige: Chronicling its Classic Jazz Recordings, 1949 – 1972...Richards discusses his book – a long overdue history of Prestige Records that draws readers into stories involving its visionary founder Bob Weinstock, the classic recording sessions he assembled, and the brilliant jazz musicians whose work on Prestige helped shape the direction of post-war music.

Poetry

“Still Wild” – a collection of poems by Connie Johnson...Connie Johnson’s unique and warm vernacular is the framework in which she reminds readers of the foremost contributors of jazz music, while peeling back the layers on the lesser known and of those who find themselves engaged by it, and affected by it. I have proudly published Connie’s poems for over two years and felt the consistency and excellence of her work deserved this 15 poem showcase.

Feature

Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity – A Classic of Our Time, and for All Time – an essay by Peter Valente...On the essence of Albert Ayler’s now classic 1964 album…

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Coming Soon

An interview with Paul Alexander, author of Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year; New poetry collections, Jazz History Quiz, and lots of short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and much more in the works...

Interview Archive

Ella Fitzgerald/IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Click to view the complete 25-year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Judith Tick on Ella Fitzgerald (pictured),; Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz on the Girl Groups of the 60's; Tad Richards on Small Group Swing; Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb; Brent Hayes Edwards on Henry Threadgill; Richard Koloda on Albert Ayler; Glenn Mott on Stanley Crouch; Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake; Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.