Poetry by Roger Singer

 

 

HIS MESSAGE

 

His hands speak
A thousand
Songs
Drawing breath from
The ivories before
Him
With mixtures of
Heat and spice
Burning
The air as it
Collapses flat
Making way
For the coming
Of jazz
From his soul
Of shadows past
And gains and losses
Ups and downs
Like stars from
A sky to
Heavy with dark
To hold them
Tumbling wet
Like tears
Forming the body
Of man
To release his life
Into music
As if he were the
Father of song.

 

LIKE A LOVER

 

The sound
received him
welcoming the
steady
beat from his
bass
slapping alive
like babies
are when
shocked into
breathing
he slipped
a soft message
into open ears
like windows
letting pass
thieving winds
stealing into
the room
where he
stands in love
as the bass
leans on him
like a lover
begging for
more.

 

ALWAYS RIGHT

The silk of your eyes own me,
turn me,
like warm hands of summer.

Ears drown in smiles as they
resign to the
sound of her jazz.

Her words are washed in the wet
of the blues:
ribbons of pain tied into packages of
tears.

The vision of her past
walks, runs,
presses a path never with easy,
yet always right.

 

 

LISTENING EYES

A first breath builds within;
a crying life births a soul
into notes for the living.

Music pulled from years
of hard blues sets firmness into
a laboring of sounds
darkly moaning lost names.

Jazz stirred from the pain of
absent arms and lips without smiles
scratches wounds into bleeding;
paths of scars have no rest.

He rightly possesses sweetness
of a struggling color.
His light is cast without
prejudice;
he sees the face of man crying.

 

 

GIFT OF GOT

 

You get
Up the music
With notes burning
Like the fire
In your fingers
Grabbing at
And pulling
On listening
Ears and eyes
Desiring
What you got
Until it
Flows rough
Like a river
Growling low
Like a dog
Hungry to bite
Dripping with
Drool
Getting your
Attention
Flushing your
Thoughts
Leaving behind
Fat desire
Raw and open
Waiting for
The fill
Of jazz
And the gift
Of got.