Jazz Poems
POEM IN WHICH I MAKE THE MISTAKE
OF COMPARING BILLIE HOLIDAY TO A
COSMIC WASHERWOMAN
We were driving back from the record store at the mall
when Terrance told me that Billie Holiday
was not a symbol for the black soul.
He said, The night is not African American either for
your information,
it is just goddamn dark,
and in the background
she was singing a song I never heard before
moving her voice like water moving
along the shore of a lake
reaching gently into the crevices, touching the pebbles
and sand.
Once through the dirty window of a train
on the outskirts of Hoboken, New Jersey,
I swear I saw a sonnet written high up in a
concrete wall,
rhymed quatrains rising from the
dyslexic alphabet of gang signs and obscenities
and Terrance said he saw a fresco
of brown and white angels flying
on a boarded-up building in Chinatown
and everybody knows
there’s a teenager genius somewhere out there,
a firebrand out of Ghana by way of Alabama,
this very minute in a warehouse loft,
rewriting Moby-Dick-The Story of the Great
Black Whale
When he burst out of the womb
of his American youth
with his dictionary and his hip-hop shovel,
when he takes his place on stage
dripping the amniotic fluid of history,
he won’t be any color we ever saw before,
and I know he’s right, Terrance is right, it’s
so obvious
But here in the past of that future,
Billie Holiday is still singing
a song so dark and slow
it seems bigger than her, it sounds very heavy
like a terrible stain soaked into the sheets,
so deep that nothing will ever get it out,
but she keeps trying,
she keeps pushing the dark syllables under the water
then pulling them up to see if they are clean
but they never are
and it makes her sad
and we are too
and it’s dark around the car and inside also is very
dark
Terrance and I can barely see each other
in the dashboard glow.
I can only imagine him right now
pointing at the radio
as if to say, Shut up and listen.
TONY HOAGLAND | 1953~2018
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
STARDUST
Lady singsthe blues
the reds, whatever
she can find—
short
changed, a chord—
God bless
the child
that’s got his own
& won’t mind
sharing some—
“BILLIES BOUNCE”
“BILLIES BOUNCE”
Miss Holiday’s up
on four counts
of possession, three-
fifths, the law
—locked up—
licked—the salt
the boot—refused
a chance to belt
tunes in the clubs—
ex-con. Man,
she got it
bad—Brother
can you spare
a dime
bag? MEANDERING
WARMING UP
A RIFF—
she’s all scat,
waxing—
SIDE A
SIDE B
OOH
SHOO DE
OBEE—
detoxec, thawed
in time
for Thanksgiving—live
as ammo, smoking
—NOV. 26 1945—
Day cold as turkey
KEVIN YOUNG
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
GYRE’S GALAX
Sound variegated through beneath lit
Sound variegated through beneath lit through sound beneath variegated lit sound variegated through beneath litVariegated sound through beneath lit dark
Variegated sound through beneath lit dark sound variegated through beneath lit variegated sound through beneath lit darkThrough variegated beneath sound lit
Through variegated beneath sound lit through variegated beneath sound lit through variegated beneath sound lit Through variegated beneath sound lit Through variegated beneath sound lit through beneath lit through beneath lit through beneath lit through beneath lit Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath through beneath lit Thru beneath through beneath lit Thru beneath through beneath lit Thru beneath Thru beneath through beneath lit Thru beneath Thru beneath through beneath lit Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath Thru beneath Through beneath litTwainly simple of amongst
twainly simple of amongst Twainly simple of amongst twainly simple of amongst Twainly simple of amongst twainly simple of amongst In lit black viewly viewly viewly in viewly viewly viewly in viewly viewly in viewly viewly in viewly viewly viewly viewly in viewly viewly In lit black viewly in dark to stark In dark to stark In dark to stark in dark to stark In dark to stark in dark to stark In dark to stark In above beneath In above beneath In above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath above beneath lit above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath above beneath litN. H. PRITCHARD
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
LEAVING SATURN
Sun Ra & His Year 2000 Myth Science
Arkestra at Grendel’s Lair Cabaret, 1986
Skyrocketed—
My eyes dilate old
Copper pennies.
Effortlessly, I play
*
Manifesto of the One
Stringed Harp. Only
This time I’m washed
Ashore, shipwrecked
*
In Birmingham.
My black porcelain
Fingers, my sole
Possession. So I
*
Hammer out
Equations for
A New Thing
Ogommetelli.
*
Ovid & Homer
Behind me, I toss
Apple peelings in
The air & half-hear
*
Brush strokes,the up
Kick of autumn
Leaves, the Arkestra
Laying down for
*
New dimensions,
I could be at Berkeley
Teaching a course—
Fixin’s How to Dress
*
Myth or Generations
Spaceships in Harlem
Instead, vibes from Chi-
Town, must be Fletcher’s
*
Big Band Music—oh,
My brother, the wind—
I know this life is
Only a circus. I’m
*
Brushed aside: a naïf,
A charlatan, too avant-
Garde. Satellite music for
A futuristic tent, says
*
One critic. Heartbreak
In outer space, says
Another, —lunar
Dust on the brain.
*
I head to New York
New York loves
A spectacle wet pain
Of cement, sweet
*
Scent of gulls swirling
Between skyscrapers
So tall, looks like war
If what I’m told is true
*
Mars is dying, it’s after
The end of the world.
So, here I am,
In Philadelphia,
*
Death’s headquarters,
Here to save the cosmos,
Here to dance in a bed
Of living gravestones.
MAJOR JACKSON
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
THELONIOUS SPHERE MONK
Cold, the day you leave
you can use that hat.
Ahh Monk, the station fades
as the suburbs begin
you bent the notes right
they will not lose their ring.
I see your shuffle dance
up from the 5 Spot piano
and hear you, wordless, sing.
BILL CORBETT
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet