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Dear Readers:
…..Intelligence. Passion. Imagination. Wisdom. Integrity. Spirit. Loss. Curiosity. Grace. Strength. Originality.
…..These are some of the words that define jazz music at its most complex, and they also describe the essence of Connie Johnson’s poetry. Her love of the culture of jazz and inspiration found in those who championed it is evident in every poem she submits. Her unique and warm vernacular is the framework in which she reminds readers of the foremost contributors of the music, while peeling back the layers on the lesser known and of those who find themselves engaged 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 showcase. I hope you enjoy.
Joe Maita
Editor/Publisher
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The title of my collection, “Still Wild,” was inspired by the Lucille Clifton poem entitled “There Is a Girl Inside.” I have always had a fondness for that poem because of its irreverence and tenderness. I turn to it often. And I embrace the notion that any of the ‘wildness’ that we possessed in our youth is something that can always be called upon…even as we age.
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soul absolution
the harvesting
of honey & thyme
a Lucille Clifton line
………..& jazz is on
the turntable
soul absolution
it’s a thought I woke up with
……………a blending of notes
…………………………& a prayer
……………….for what was
………..mine that is
no longer mine
remnants of time / I can recall all
that was unspoken / the mended
& what remains broken
forgiveness
in the tracks
& a persistent solo
beyond the veil
the wail!
o the wail of it all
that rests in the vinyl
in the final …..wild &
blossoming
reckoning
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Listen to Connie Johnson read her poem
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No Boundaries
A resistance
To what comes too easily
No desire to be trapped
In a thumbed through
record bin of beauty:
Kind of Blue
The gateway drug to jazz
For many / a resistance
To the B-word: ballads!
Too easy / too cliché
The desire
Of Miles Davis
To not be boxed in
By any expectations
When you can
Push boundaries
And remain enigmatic
By playing what is
Not there
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Listen to the 1959 recording of Miles Davis performing his composition (with Bill Evans) “Blue in Green,” with Davis (trumpet); Evans (piano); John Coltrane (saxophone); Paul Chambers (bass); and Jimmy Cobb (drums). [Miles Davis official audio]
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Digging Crates
searching for lost gems
O Gentle One by James “Blood” Ulmer
(I always meant to listen to that again)
so I look for curated / recycled genius
blessed vinyl
& easy camaraderie
hey, what’s the staff pick…
Are You Glad to Be in America?
Ulmer’s free jazz classic
Combustible!
vocalic attacks / blue notes
of funk & radical jazz
so am I glad?
good question
as I peruse & dig these crates
always seeking reminders
of what is still great
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A Renegade Heart
& what would it even look like?
glittery headlights in the rain / a bedazzled
skull upon the bar.. / one gin & tonic
too many / slurred words of gratitude
but I don’t feel like being
grateful now ./ .silence
is easier…
in the aftermath
of Federico Garcia Lorca
killed by Franco’s troops in Spain
see what speaking out can do?
but…
……………………………………“you don’t know
………………………….what love is…”
a John Coltrane
intonation….. /.. no worry!
no intoxicated attempt at
any translation… / & why
would I deny the love
I have for your
renegade
heart?
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Listen to the 1963 recording of John Coltrane performing the Gene de Paul composition “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” with McCoy Tyner (piano); Jimmy Garrison (bass); and Elvin Jones (drums). [Universal Music Group]
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What You Serve
you are the restaurant
of my strange craving and I’m ready
to order everything on the menu
life blood and cartilage
bougainvillea of what lingers
on my tongue; graceful lyricism
of all that has been lovingly prepared
flames and inviolable secrets
as you prepare a table
fruitful in the midst of Ida Cox
and her Cherry Pickin’ Blues
a reflex of appetite
the sweetness of understanding!
everything you serve is with me
in mind: waiting./ waiting./ waiting
ever waiting
how did you know
that I stay hungry
for you?
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Romare Bearden: Bearing Witness
Jazz
As metaphor and memory
On the raw canvas of life. Romare Bearden
Giving us visual Jazz on canvas: ritual and myth
Sinners and saints / angels and haints
The American South
The call and response of Gospel!
The blood and brick tenements of the Blues!
You call to the past and it responds; the literal
Does not interest you. You are “an enchanter
Of time” – translating stories, bearing witness
Second person singular
Pertaining to metaphor and memory
Your paintings pulsate with color, stories
And music; the methodology of collage
With images torn from the pages of
Look / Ebony / Jet / and Life
The factories and the cotton fields
The barber shop, funeral parlor, train tracks
And all of the bustling city streets of wonder
Romare Bearden, the foremost African-American
Artist of the 20th Century: bearing witness!
The American South
The true homeland of your imagination
Collages mesh the Black life of history /
Ritual / Myth. As for the train motif that
You turn to over and over in your work —
Tomorrow I May Be Far Away….
What remains aside from
Mystery / myth / and ritual
Jazz / Gospel / the Blues
And / … Life?
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The Diamonds That Disappear
Into time, dazzling light-on-water phrases:
And how about the rubies? A Southern twang, what’s gone
Is now back again!……. (I am speaking to someone I lost.)
Descending stars and here are all of the diamonds that
I can gather in my hands. Dazzling like Nina Simone!
She dances naked under palm trees, save for the ruby rings
On her fingers. …..Some images disappear because they
Are too beautiful for this world.
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Listen to the 1964 recording of Nina Simone performing her composition “Images” [Universal Music Group]
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Chico
“You create a mood. That’s the only thing
you can do – the music’s already here.”
– Chico Hamilton
In Koreatown
Where Shabang Beauty
And GoGo Massage reign
Supreme, this day calls for
Its own soundtrack
Master of Grooves: Chico Hamilton
California Cool personified in my earbuds; brush against my
Eardrums! A flood of feeling, hi-hat happiness. Melodic, not percussive
The drum: a sensuous and feminine instrument. Oh the possibilities!
Black-lacquered drums and total free reign; jazz vernacular endless
In whatever you’d choose:
Swing, Avant-Garde, Samba, the Blues!
For Mods Only is a boogaloo down 6th Street —
Blue Sands, orchestral exotica; Conquistador
and Kerrys Caravan, a hypnotic sway
I can understand what you meant when you’d say:
“In order to set a style, you must have a touch.”
Chico Hamilton: jazz architect!
At one with the drums on this day when it’s
Spring Again in Koreatown, and even when there’s
No drums at all
I pause
A mood; a moving touch —
In my earbuds a flood of feeling
As your raspy whisper repeats a line
From a movie….I Hardly Knew Her
At All
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Earbud Songbirds
your blissful earbuds
a city bus full of jazz
this ride is so sweet!
a morning commute
music makes the ride just glide
play those greatest hits
slinky gymnastics
Betty Carter does backflips
on Look What I Got
why’s your brow so damp?
Peggy Lee gave you a Fever!
sir, there’s no known cure
iPhone medicine
it’s Etta James who cures you
At Last…you’re smiling
mercy in the keys
she is an ancestor now
Mary Lou Williams
what Sarah can do
it’s aural calligraphy
a stylized genius
bebop ancestry
you claim all singers as kin —
(but mostly Ella)
Anita O’Day
is about to miss her stop:
Let Me Off Uptown!
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Still Searching
is there futility in the face of apathy?
I search for a sound to transport me away
from all that is chaotic / no icy cold
indifference
just ascendance
……………………………….McCoy Tyner
………………& his Search for Peace
is the antidote to indifference
harmonic in a land that can
lack humanity
……………………………………“o say,
……………………………can you
……………………….see…?”
McCoy Tyner
sublime on the keys / a reverie
& a meditation on what peace
can feel like:
soothing
warm / with broken chords
to match our broken hearts
it’s a start
but why does the journey
feel so endless?
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Perspective
Santa Barbara for the day
Reading Corregidora by Gayl Jones
In a funky sidewalk café. Characters
Spar like notes in a free jazz composition,
Loose ends unraveled in a he said/she said
Non-connection
“I have tears for eyes….”
Hurt on the menu
20/20 hindsight in the rearview
Reminding me that I searched for you
A long time: to keep your secrets
Pay your bail, tickle your fancy
Make your love my jail
Walking alone gives you
Perspective
I’m in Santa Barbara
For the day, yet another city we
Never explored together / together
Only in my mind
Though blinded by these
Sun-marbled streets, I still see
Well enough to put one foot in front
Of the other. Undeterred by map-less
Detours, perspective so hard-earned
At last, despite all of these
Tears in my eyes
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Listen to Connie Johnson read her poem
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Paris 1939
“I tried to drown my sorrows,
but the bastards learned how to swim”
– Frida Kahlo
On the night you met
Josephine Baker in Paris
Aztec beads.. /.. a painted leather corset
Shoulder-draping hand-shaped earrings
Worn for protection
Did you speak of social justice & revolution
Radical vision / non-conformity?
Two jazz age visionaries
Each of you in service
To the muse who resided within
Contrasting colors of skin
& avant-garde boldness / were knowing smiles
Passed between you in that moment?
Differing spectrums of the female experience
Self-reflected rebelliousness
Mademoiselle Baker!
Who once expressed her fear
Of being Black in America
& wore stardom as a cloak against sadness —
O glorious madness
Paris of 1939 / city of resistance
Frida Kahlo! / roses & marigolds in a flower crown
Her sorrows swimming in the flow of the Seine River —
Would that a moment of friendship
Briefly made them drown
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Listen to the 1950 recording of Louis Armstrong performing the Louiguy/Edith Piaf composition “La vie en rose” [Universal Music Group]
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Of Those Whose
Lives Are Lonely
because you are
a jazz ballad impossible for most to sing
leg crossed at the knee / a sequined dichotomy
within the confines of a lush life / red lipstick
on a highball glass
far from Paris, but what does
geography matter in this
lost life?
stranded in a jazz
netherworld & all the drinks
are on the house because you’re a regular here
stray intentions / visceral connections in d-flat major
no need to wager how many flutes of champagne
you’ll consume in what feels
like a lost life
gilded mirror above the bar
remnant traces of a sophisticated
lady / a satin doll! / visceral pain
& a siren call of madness
it’s what you feel when
you feel too much
you’re solitary & yet not alone
not in this lush life / not in this
space with others whose stories
echo your own
so much jazz! all of it imbibed
with cocktails / it’s a world that
resembles a cautionary tale
& how do you feel
when you feel
too much?
among
………………………“… those
…………………whose
………….lives are
……lonely,
too”
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But Not For Me
When you told me your blue heart was best described
by John Coltrane, that’s when I had to reevaluate
my perspective. Your tremor of words always
echoed mine, your breath a prayer and a solid resolution.
What you withheld from me was the clink
and swoon of deep reflection.
If I had known you’d be a phantom of time in every
encounter we had I would have kept my shots
to a minimum. I still insist that your wounds
were self-inflicted! I wear gangster shoes
and pinstripes because sheer femininity
has gotten me nowhere.
It would take clarity of faith and that kiss
that I withheld from you to heal anything
between us. I object to the smirk that implied
sheer poetics can’t heal just about anyone.
I object to the way you asserted:
“that’s true for others…but not for me.”
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Listen to the 1961 recording of John Coltrane performing George Gershwin’s composition “But Not For Me,” with McCoy Tyner (piano); Steve Davis (bass); and Elvin Jones (drums). [Rhino/Atlantic]
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Still Wild
“the older you get, the more
you have to live with ghosts”
– Nick Tosches
Your spirit on the bar stool
next to mine, I welcome the company.
You always know how to find me in this
city of unheard and languishing souls.
Ghostology on the mainline, elixir in
my glass or just whiskey
I forget.
Your smile enigmatic as ever
and did you say sin or séance?
I’m too in the cups to decipher.
Jazz beguiled and ever-liquid, pour into
me now all thoughts trembled and never
uttered. I know the hour’s late, but I feel
like explaining myself now.
We once raced to each other
across time zones and constellations,
stars glistening on the sweat of your brow.
Rattled by the bones of what haunts me,
I long to transcribe you with my
bare and ink-stained hand.
I’d knock on any door in this city
to find resolution, an uncharted map
of never-say-die. I’m the girl dressed
in sin and redemption.
I’m still wild.
I still have so much to say.
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Listen to Connie Johnson read her poem
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Connie Johnson is based in Los Angeles, CA and has received four Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the author of two poetry collections: Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press, 2024) and I Have Almost Everything (boats against the current, 2025); In a Place of Dreams, her digital album/chapbook (which contains audio readings and her personal narrative), was published by Jerry Jazz Musician. You can read it by clicking here.
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Click for:
More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician
“My Vertical Landscape,” Felicia A. Rivers’ winning story in the 69th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician
Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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