Jazz Poems

LESTER YOUNG

Sometimes he was cool like an eternal

blue flame burning in the old Kansas

City nunnery

Sometimes he was happy ‘til he’d think

about his birth place and its blood

stained clay hills and crow-filled trees

Most times he was blowin’ on the wonderful

tenor sax of his preachin’ in very cool

tones, shouting only to remind you of

a certain point in his blue messages

He was our president  as well as the minister

of soul stirring Jazz, he knew what he

blew, and he did what a prez should do,

wail, wail, wail. There were many of

them to follow him and most of them were

fair–but they never spoke so eloquently

in so a far out funky air.

Our prez done died, he know’d this would come

but death has only booked him, alongside

Bird, Art Tatum, and other heavenly wailers.

Angels of Jazz–they don’t die–they live

they live–in hipsters like you and I

TED JOANS

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

SUITE TABU 200

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