Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 23: “The Wave”

March 12th, 2025

Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film.

In this edition, Douglas’ poem is written partly as a reference to the Antonio Carlos Jobin song “Wave,” but mostly to get in the famed Japanese artist Hokusai’s idea of the wave as being a huge, threatening thing. (The poem initially sprang from listening to Cal Tjader’s “Along Came Mary”).

A recording of Mr. Cole reading his poem is found at its conclusion.

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa. By Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)

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The Wave

Imagine that you’re beachside
after a couple cubre libres,
not a care in the world in all
that low bronze sunlight,
and could be a mushroom cloud
out there, could be any time now—
the war gods took the gloves off,
the earth is tipping dangerously,
so better keep playing music,
here in the tsunami zone.

Looks like fires up and down the coast.
Can’t tell if ships are heading out or in,
but I know an Armada when I see one.
So, yeah, maybe try your A-game, brother,
because it’s feeling sort of Phrygian
for most of us in the tsunami’s path.

…………….You can duck and cover
…………….throw salt over your shoulder
…………….hope for the best and
…………….put your best foot forward—
…………….something’s in the wind,
…………….something’s in the water
…………….makes your skin crawl
…………….face to face with a stranger.

No way I’m going out after this.
What’s happening in the street?
They’re tearing down Cal Tjader,
the campus is boiling over.
I wish I had that energy, conviction,
not just three chords and the truth.
And it’s good thing they pay in drinks
and hillside shelter in tsunami land.

All to fear is fear itself and the mob,
agents going through your mail,
agents going through your trash,
mob on a mission, mob mentality
with a dose of end-of-the-world fever.
Who here thinks they’ll get to heaven?
Hold off for a little while, okay?
Some of us have jobs to do
out here in this tsunami field.

See, you’re top deck, cocktail hour,
sunset-grooving in the key of G,
then you’re running for your life—
you get it? You know what I mean?
Any minute now, any moment
it could all come tumbling down.
It’s a minefield of bad Intel,
a talking head parade, warm breeze
stirring up the coals again—
windblown hills and big boom
rolling tides across Tsunamiville.

It’s a Dorian mood that blows
no good, a people’s concert
with star of Mary singing ohh
my tribulations no one sees
the curse of faults in me—
settling into the sounds until
that air raid siren goes off,
people running, beautiful pandemonium,
with nowhere to go in a tsunami bowl.

So you can cha cha, mambo,
play the cubano loco amigo,
fierce on the congas dilating
cascade wall of—timbales,
and there’s some code in there
goes right over our heads,
while the boots arrive, orders,
and it’s a top-down show, you know,
the way that tsunami flows.

Oh maybe it’s not fair to say
he compares to the original greaser,
but he sure has a hate on, he’s not alone—
they’re crawling out of their holes,
banging against trees, telephone poles,
and all that work, and all those notes,
that knowledge going up in smoke—
it feels more like no one’s in charge
when that tsunami rolls.

…………….You can duck and cover
…………….throw salt over your shoulder
…………….hope for the best and
…………….put your best foot forward—
…………….something’s in the wind,
…………….something’s in the water,
…………….something’s calling us to wander.

So I’m buying a boat, that’s my next move.
I’ll collect up the animals of the land,
head out to Japan, maybe, if they’ll have me,
or circle the globe with nowhere to go,
eternal refugee looking for a magic shore
beyond the hissing cloud and the quick
liquefaction while all the pinched mouths
and pearl-clutching bystanders say, what?
beneath that high curling tsunami wave.

Listen to Douglas Cole read “The Wave”

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Listen to Cal Tjader playing “Along Comes Mary” [Virgin Music Group]

Listen to the 1967 recording of Antonio Carlos Jobim playing his composition “Wave.” [Universal Music Group]

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photo by Jenn Merritt

Douglas Cole has published eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner of the Best Book Award in Urban Poetry. His novel, The White Field, won of the American Fiction Award, and his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. His work has appeared in journals such as Beloit Poetry, Fiction International, Valpariaso, The Galway Review and Two Hawks Quarterly. He received the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by RiverSedge. He has been nominated Eight times for a Pushcart and Nine times for Best of the Net.

Douglas’ poem, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Kind of Blue,” published as part of his “Trading Fours” series, was nominated for the XLVIII Pushcart Prize

Click here to visit his website.