Jazz Poems

JAZZ

It starts with an alto horn, and a young 

boy who’d grown faster than he should have, and 

who’d become great before he should have, and 

who sought for the source of the feeling deep in-

side before he should have. He stood in his room 

and started with a short burst of notes, and then 

sought the tone he’d felt inside him, but which 

he couldn’t match he couldn’t match by blowing. 

He blew, fast, and beautifully; seeking the right 

burst of notes, notes blown so fast that only God’s 

perfection would be a match for it. He tried for 

a tone that he’d never heard, but which he knew 

as a sensation of mystery, of greatness, a feeling 

that he was bigger than he seemed to be, could 

blow faster than his fingers were letting him,

could cry out the tone that cried within him. All 

this strained inside him, strained and drove him, 

pushed him and made him whip his fingers upon 

the valves of his horn until they hurt. And his 

lungs seemed to bleed inside; his eyes ran water,

and he kept blowing, and blowing, with his eyes 

closed to the white of the daytime and the touch 

of the wind and the sound of the fists banging 

at the door, and the bark of the voices outside

his door, shouting: Open up! It’s the police!

What’s going on in there?

FRANK LONDON BROWN | 1927~1962

2019 Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Inductee

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

 

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