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 | 1962from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young
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