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

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet

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

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet

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 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet

Jazz Poems

LISTENING TO SONNY ROLLINS AT THE FIVE SPOT

There will many other nights like

this be standing here with someone, some

one

someone

some-one

some

some

some

some

some

some

one

there will be other songs

a-nother fall, another–spring, but

there will never be a-noth, noth

anoth

noth

anoth-er

noth-er

noth-er

Other lips that I may kiss

but they won’t thrill me like

thrill me like

like yours

used to

dream a million dreams

but how can they come

when there

never be

a-noth–

Paul Blackburn

From Jazz Poems | Selected and edited by Kevin Young

More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet

Jazz Poems

SNAKE-BLACK SOLO For Louis Armstrong, Steve Cannon, Miles Davis & Eugene Redmond with the music up high boogaloo bass down way way low up & under eye come slidin on in mojoin on in spacin on in on a riff full of rain riffin on in full of rain & pain spacin on in on a sound like coltrane my metaphor is a blues hot pain dealin blues is a blues axin guitar voices whiskey broken niggah deep in the heart is a blues in a glass filled with rain is a blues in the dark slurred voices of straight bourbon is a blues dagger stuck off in the heart of night moanin blike bessie smith is a blues filling up the wings of darkness is a blues & looking through the heart a dream can become a raindrop window to see through can become a window to see through this moment to see yourself hanging around the dark to see through can become a river catching rain feeding time can become a window to see through Quincy Troupe

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

More Posts: book,classic,collectible,history,jazz,library,poet