Jazz Poems

THE BLUES OF THIS DAY

The blues of this day
are as elegant and as sad
as the minor thirds and we all try to sing it.

What we want is to be brass
The horn-scratched voice blown through.
Valves as golden as his. Lord as crazy sex
or first real heartbreak.

It was always his back slightly bent away
from all of us who adored him, gazing across his

shoulders as the band jumped into the party
one solo at a ti
Or they could be rocking way off-ke
going as far away from the melody as Venus to Mars.
Funk can be as easy as t
getting together in the dark.

And as hard as the breaking light
that catches the throat of sated lovers, the morning after.
The talk the night before by the last of his men
who knew the way of the world and then some,
about Miles and his two steps ahead of the century
like the first Black man to leave the Delta humming
I gotta go, but I can’t take you.
I gotta go, but I can’t take you.
If you want to follow, then do what you want to do.

Patricia Spears Jones

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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