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Trading Fours with Douglas Cole is an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film
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“Step Along The Night Way” arises from the poet listening to “Shhh Peaceful” from Miles Davis’ 1969 album In a Silent Way
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Step Along the Night Way
He’s a-stagger the patrilineous
hillside grove wonder tunnels
street black ribbons going bower-deep
with sunlight glitter punctuations
feeling the great payoff on the way
in-head voice knowing
you’ve been on alert since day one
just the perspective changes
father here and off the bounty
this home once friend
Ojars brings the salmon in
arm wrestle him till doomsday
he’ll always win
with mother in basement
California Avenue apartment
watching feet go by at eye level
garden box a-bloom
little English with the old world
on shelves in photograph war loss eyes
put this grey on guard duty watch all
the beach sprawl dog run
Kali finds her voice in boom boom bass
how the world looks now Marge has gone
tomorrow offers a platter of answers
what can I say to you as you slip away
you can stand looking back or forward
and see the same infinite smile
I understand your garden Haleck wants to say
Alki by and by and why not
a sound really has no boundaries
it just looks like it does
mother father grandmother grandfather
we use numbers to capture
the bigger picture in the fine details
the way a western movie runs
to an empty theater in Columbia City
and the Exact that brought you here
the brooding mycelium earth base
bully crow saying get on get on
afternoon patrigon cloud so still I see
your face there and there
and the tides so low
you’d think the sea is leaving
or a mad prophet is arriving
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Listen to the poet read “Step Along The Night Way”
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Listen to the 1960 recording of “Shhh Peaceful,” from Miles Davis’ 1969 album, In a Silent Way, with Miles Davis (trumpet); Wayne Shorter (saxophone); John McLaughlin (guitar); Chick Corea (piano); Herbie Hancock (piano); Joe Zawinul (piano, organ); Dave Holland (double bass); Tony Williams (drums). [Columbia/Legacy]
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photo by Jenn Merritt
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Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry and The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as journals such as The Chicago Quarterly Review, Poetry International, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Chiron, Louisiana Literature, Slipstream, as well Spanish translations of work (translated by Maria Del Castillo Sucerquia) in La Cabra Montes. He is a regular contributor to Mythaixs, an online journal, where in addition to his fiction and essays, his interviews with notable writers, artists and musicians such as Daniel Wallace (Big Fish), Darcy Steinke (Suicide Blond, Flash Count Diary) and Tim Reynolds (T3 and The Dave Matthews Band) have been popular contributions. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle, Washington. Click here to visit his website..
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The poet’s collection, The Blue Island
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