JAZZ POEMS

TRANE

Propped against the crowded bar

he pours into the curved and silver horn

his old unhappy longing for a home

the dancers twist and turn

he leans and wishes he could burn

his memories to ashes like some old notorious emperor

of rome, but no stars blazed across the sky when he was born

no wise men found his hovel, this crowded bar

when dancers twist and turn,

holds all the fame and recognition he will ever earn

on earth or heaven. He learn against the bar

and pours his old unhappy longing in the saxophone

KAMAU BRATHWAITE

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Jazz Poems

CANARY For Michael S. Harper

Billie Holiday’s burned voice

had as many shadows as lights,

a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,

the gardenia her signature under the ruined face.

(Now you’re cooking, drummer to bass,

magic spoon, magic needle.

Take all day if you have to

with your mirror and your bracelet of song.)

Fact is, the invention of women under seige

has been to sharpen love in the service of myth.

If you can’t be free, be a mystery.

RITA DOVE

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Jazz Poems

WHAT I’M WILD FOR

I broke when I was ten and forty-

year-old Mr. D. was clambering on top of me

and it was all I could do to kick him back, keep

the red ceiling light in sight, and wait

for her to find me. So this is what she’s on

her knees for every night, praying

for Pops to come on back, rip her skirt off

and ride her until it’s only skin she ever wants

to feel again. I wanted to fling that in her face

the way a slick trumpeter cat from Philly

flung any panties at me summer I was fifteen.

I’ve seen more love in Alderson, behind

the warden’s back, behind Jim Crow’s back

on the way home from movies: dykes would touch

hands, feed cigarettes to one another

like they were kisses, before the cells broke us all up–-

forgers, whores, boosters, pushers, users.

The soldiers had it, too, begging for pieces

of my dress and stockings, tearing them to petals

under their noses because they have the smell 

of woman on them. I could love a whole

army like that. But two husbands later

and the hungry I feel is not the 600-miles-a-night

on a bus flashing slow silver between gigs

while my stomach opens wide. The cure

for that is simple as a couple bucks, red beans

and rice. What I’m wild for is a few grains

of dope and the shakes I get from head to satin

feet when it’s “Strange Fruit.” One night, my

body can’t

hold me down, the notes break clean, and no one

can see me, but they point to the voice flying over

the band and say, Billie, nobody sings 

hunger like you do, or love.

JANET M. CHOI

SUITE TABU 200

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Jazz Poems

JAZZ


I’d like to know everything

A jazz artist knows, starting with the song

“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.”


Like to make some songs myself

“Goodbye Rickshaw,”

“Goodbye Lemondrop,”

“Goodbye Rendezvous.”


Or maybe even blues:


If you fall in love with me I’ll make you pancakes

All morning. If you fall in love with me

I’ll make you pancakes all night.

If you don’t like pancakes

We’ll go to the creperie. If you don’t like pancakes

We’ll go to the creperie.

If you don’t like to eat, handsome boy,

Don’t you hang around with me.


On second thought, i’d rather find

The fanciest music I can, and hear all of it.


I’d rather love somebody

And say his name to myself every day

Until I fall apart.


ANGELA BALL

SUITE TABU 200

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Jazz Poems

FALL DOWN

in memory of eric dolphy

All men are locked in their cells.

Though we quake

In fist of body

Keys rattle, set us free.

I remember and wonder why?

In fall, in summer; times

Will be no more. Journeys

End.

I remember and wonder why?

In the sacred labor of lung

Spine and groin,

You cease, fly away

To what? To autumn, to

Winter, to brown leaves, to

Wind where no lark sings; yet

Through dominion of air, jaw and fire

I remember!

Eric Dolphy, you swung

A beautiful axe. You lived a clean

Life.

You were young–

You died.

Calvin Hernton 

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