Jazz Poems

FOR ERIC DOLPHY

on flute

spinning    spinning    spinning

love

thru / out

the universe

i

know

exactly

whut chew mean

man

you like

titter

my sister

who never expressed LOVE

in words (like the white folks always       d

she would sit in the corner                      o

and cry                                                   i

everytime                                               n

I                                                             g

got a whuppin

Etheridge Knight

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

DARK TO THEMSELVES

Invent, experiment–Jazz

that doesn’t swing but dances tight

as a drumhead so taut it might

explode: whole notes cleaved

into sixteenths with a single blow, melodies

recoded as arpeggios. Say, what he calls this 

composition? Tiny fingers divining

an architectonic flow, forearms jacking

cracks in the keyboard as wire

and wood cry out in agony:

duo follow, ringing changes.

Liberate the dissonance without killing

the blues. Unit structure cut it.

They don’t teach this joint in the Conservatory.

Varèse via Jelly Roll, serial Waller,

harmony ribbons in a Möbius strip. Recut it.

Enough is enough. Brother can’t play

here again, the customers ain’t paying.

Even Miles was giggling in the darkness.

It’s always a bitch to be out

front. He summons the bassline

of his thoughts in the shadows, tracing a new theory

of silence. Don’t worry about the next gig.

Their ears are still learning.

JOHN KEENE 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

SNOW

I cannot help noticing how this slow Monk sol

seems to go somehow with the snow that is coming down this morning

how the notes and the space accompany

its easy falling on the geometry of the ground, on the flagstone path, the slanted roof, and the angles of the split rail fence

as if he had imagined a winter scene

as he sat at the piano late one night at the Five Spot playing “Ruby My Dear”.

Then again, it’s the kind of song

that would go easily with rain or a tumult of leaves,

and for that matter it’s a snow

that could attend an adagio for strings, the best of the Ronettes, or George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

It falls so indifferently

into the spacious white parlor of the world, if I were sitting here reading in silence, reading the morning paper or reading Being and Nothingness not even letting the spoon touch the inside of the cup, I have a feeling the snow would ever go perfectly with that. BILLY COLLINS  

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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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

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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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

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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