Jazz Poems
BIX BEIDERBECKE (1908~1931)
January, 1926
China Boy. Lazy Daddy. Cryin’ All Day.
He dreamed he played the notes so slowly that
they hovered in the air above the crowd
and shimmered like a neon sign. But no,
the club stayed dark, trays clattered in the kitchen,
people drank and kept on talking. He watched
the smoke drift from a woman’s cigarette
and slowly circle up across the room
until the ceiling fan blades chopped it up.
A face, a young girl’s face, looked up at him,
the stupid face of small-town innocence.
He smiled her way and wondered who she was.
He looked again and saw the face was his.
He woke up then. His head still hurt from drinking.
Jimmy ws driving. Tram was still asleep.
Where were they anyway? Near Davenport?
There was no distance in these open fields–
only time, time marked by a farmhouse
or a barn, a tin-topped silo or a tree,
some momentary silhouette against
the endless, empty fields of snow.
He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes.
The best years of his life! The Boring “Twenties.
He watched the morning break across the snow.
Would heaven be as white as Iowa?
DANA GIOIA
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
suddenly in the midst of a game of lotto with his sisters
Armstrong let a roar out of him that he had the raw meat
Red wet flesh for Louis
and he up and sliced him two rumplings
since when his trumpet bubbles
their fust buss
poppies burn on the black earth
he weds the flood he lulls her
some of these days muffled in ooze
down down down down
pang of white in my hair
after you’re gone
Narcissus lean and slippered
you’re driving me crazy and the trumpet
In Ole Bull it chassés aghast
out of the throes of morning
down the giddy catgut
and confessing and my woe slavers
the black music it can’t be easy
it threshes the old heart into a spin
into a blaze
Louis lil’ ole fader Mississippi
his voice gushes into the lake
the rain spouts back into heaven
his arrows from afar they fizz through the wild horses
they fang you and me
then they fly home
flurry of lightning in the earth
sockets for his rootbound song
nights of Harlem scored with his nails
snow black slush when his heart rises
his she-notes they have more tentacles than the sea
they woo me they close my eyes
they suck me out of the world
ERNST MOERMAN Translated by Samuel Beckett
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
PREZ IN PARIS, 1959
By 1959 he’d moved to ParisPrez wouldn’t eat. Sweet alcohol harassedhis system. Cooled, the jazz “To Be or Not to Be” –withdrawn, a whisper–seemed a jot.
Once there’s been ways to get bak at the world;Ex-G.I. Prez had tried and tired. He hurledhimself now–hearsay, smoky horn–down-stage.“Well, Lady Gay Paree, it’s been a dog’s age.”
he might’ve said. Or “Ivy Divey! Wrong!The way that channel swims–toocold. “This song–the lyric’s weak. We’ll drown. No eyes, my man.No, let’s don’t take it from no top. The band
can skip it.” Prez. Monsieur le Président, who played us what can work, and what just won’t.
Al Young | May 31, 1939 – April 17, 2021
Poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008.
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Jazz Poems
STRANGE FRUIT
Southern trees bear a strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
And the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
LEWIS ALLANfrom Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
C.T.’S VARIATION
some springs the mississippi rose up so high
that sound of jazz from back
boarded shanties by railroad tracks
visionary women letting pigeons loose
on unsettled skies
was drowned by the quiet ballad of natural disaster
some springs song was sweeter even so
sudden cracks split in the sky / for only a second
lighting us in a kind of laughter
as we rolled around quilted histories
extended our arms and cries to the rain
that kept us soft together
some springs the mississippi rose up so high
it drowned the sound of singing and escape
church sisters prayed and rinsed
the brown dinge tinting linens
thanked the trees for breeze
and the greenness sticking to the windows
the sound of jazz from back
boarded shanties by railroad tracks
visionary women letting pigeons loose
on unsettled skies
some springs song was sweeter even so
THULANI DAVIS
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young