The Sunday Poem: “Reservation for One” by F.E. Scanlon

April 19th, 2025

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

Francie Scanlon reads her poem at its conclusion.

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Igel B TyMaHe, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

LeRoy Neiman in front of the mural he created for the triple crown of polo

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Reservation for One

I didn’t take the call of inquiry
I don’t much care who did
I reckon’ you wouldn’t either
I know it changed the world.

Some say Miles Davis should get the credit.
I don’t think Max Roach is in that Chorus.
Matter of fact Miles would take the ‘big up’ with glee but for one cold fact
Miles Davis was dead.

It’s a hard melody line to twist
But somebody had to lay down the law
Why couldn’t it be a self-described street kid himself
Who never thought that this school basement boxer would re-engineer everything from The Olympics to Jazz?

Imagine that he did…over and over…as the Official Painter of five Olympics
From Playboy to Playboy columns accompanying illustrations for 18 years
With pure naked color schemes that made many a meteor shower blush with envy
When things fall together an auspicious lightshow symbolizes arrival creation.

But remember I didn’t take the call and I still don’t give a C-note who did.

He stayed in charge for 91 years.
His color-scape illuminated sounds heard but not yet seen.
Sounds that were out of this world
Floated through his G Clef color palette.
He auditioned colors to portray beats that could shimmy off banana oil, neo-impressionist, neo-expressionist.

The 2012 Summer Solstice Transitioned his Being.
You never get to Heaven on an empty stomach.
He was ready full.
The Soul who became the Triple Crown media magician illustrating every sport from polo to jacks set sail his Legacy.

Only 19 years earlier did he make that Reservation.
Why rush?
Everybody supposedly gets 29-30,000 days
It all ebbs and flows with a little bit more and a tad less here and there.

Jay McShann who Arrived just on the cusp of the Easter Rising in 1916
Did him a solid and swang Charlie Parker as long as Birdland could put him at the epicenter of Pop.
Jazz was once pop-ular, it was THE real breadstick.

But that was too short a stretch for The Angel of the Alto Sax
As this year bears Witness to the denouement of 70 years since his 1955 Stanhope-less Hotel Exit.
This other Pop-Art color-atura
Wouldn’t short-sell the Be-Bop Diviner.

Stop wondering why, in 1993, the year Dizzy Gillespie re-located to a real night in Tunisia,
Your man dropped the dime not knowing his time.
He yearned to swing from one plane to another and as Miles had already checked in circa 1991
He wanted a place on that Band Stand.

Indeed in 2009 he configured the “Big Band”
With Woodlawn Cemetery Compatriots-In-Waiting front and center:
Duke, Miles and Lionel.
Still others have visiting privileges including Billie, Louis, Ella, Lester, Benny, and of course, Bird.

It’s a decade since the SMITHSONIAN, the World’s largest Museum complex,
Embraced his “Big Band”, all 9 x 13, showcasing 18 iconic Jazz Musicians
Alongside his namesake hangout:
THE LeROY NEIMAN JAZZ CAFE.

LeRoy Neiman, the Sketcher, the Colourist, the one individual other than George Wein, responsible for putting the NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL on Eternity’s map, via his scintillating Posters.

What Art Kane Memorialized in “A Great Day in Harlem” (1958),
LeRoy Neiman, a half Century later, re-birthed in his swinging, soaring, syncopation of bedazzling sights and sounds in the “Big Band”.

LeRoy Neiman, the Jazz Artist,
made an early reservation for the Ages and beyond when he contacted the Woodlawn Cemetery.

LeRoy Neiman was and will always be ahead of his time.

“Now’s the Time,” once, forever.

Listen to F.E. Scanlon read her poem

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A jazz-lifer, born and raised in Manhattan, Miss Scanlon is an Attorney and SAG-AFTRA Member. Her feature articles and film reviews have appeared in Newsday, “W”, Irish Echo, Times Ledger News Group, Queens Gazette, and Corona Times. Selected poetry and narratives have been published in Anthologies and Journals.