Jazz Poems
FOUR BONGOS: TAKE A TRAIN
for Vinnie
The drummer wears suspenders to look like
an old-timer, and plays a salsa
“Caravan,” bad boy from the panyard with
an evil, evil beat. The conga man
chants Yoruba and shakes his sweat loose on
a girl up front. His hand worries the drum
like a live fish thrashing. Call the bassist
“Pops,” with his grizzly goatee, his Banshee
yelp, his rhumba step. Tha hall is fluorescent.
“Take a Train,” Lawrence Welk called that tune,
and played. Ellington, hovers above this group
like changeable weather, in gabardine.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER | 1962
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
ELEGY FOR THELONIOUSDamn the snow
Its senseless beauty pours a hard light through the hemlock. Thelonious is dead. Winter drifts in the hourglass; notes pour from the brain cup. Damn the alley cat wailing a muted dirge off Lenox Ave. Thelonious is dead. Tonight’s a lazy rhapsody of shadows swaying to blue vertigo & metaphysical funk. Black trees in the wind. Crepuscule with Nelly Plays inside the bowed head. “Dig the Man Ray of piano!” O Satisfaction, hot fingers blur on thosewhite rib keys. Comingon the Hudson. Monk’s Dream. The ghost of bebop from 52nd Street, footprints in the snow. Damn February. Let’s go to Minton’s & play “modern malice” till daybreak. Lord, there’s Theloniou wearing that old funky hat pulled down over his eyes.Yusef Komunyakaa | 1947
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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Jazz Poems
SHAKING HANDS WITH MONGO
for Mongo SantamariaMongo’s open hands
huge soft palms
that drop the hard seeds
of conga with a thump,
shaken by the god of hurricanes,
raining mambo coconuts
that do not split
even when they hit the sidewalk,
rumbling incantation
in the astonished dancehall
of a city in winter,
sweating in a rush of A-train night,
so that Chano Pozo,
maestro of the drumming Yoruba heart,
howling Manteca in a distant coro,
hears Mongo and yes,
begins to bop
a slow knocking bolero of forgiveness
to the nameless man
who shot his life away
for a bag of tecata
in a Harlem bar
forty years ago
Martín Espada | 1957
from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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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–Jazzthat doesn’t swing but dances tight
as a drumhead so taut it mightexplode: whole notes cleaved
into sixteenths with a single blow, melodiesrecoded as arpeggios. Say, what he calls this
composition? Tiny fingers diviningan architectonic flow, forearms jacking
cracks in the keyboard as wireand 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 playhere 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 basslineof his thoughts in the shadows, tracing a new theory
of silence. Don’t worry about the next gig.Their ears are still learning.
JOHN KEENEfrom Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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