Jazz Poems

POEM Little brown boy, Slim, dark, big-eyed, Crooning love songs to your banjo Down at Lafayette– Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, High sort of and a bit to one side, Like a prince, a jazz prince, And I love Your eyes flashing, and your hands, And your patent-leathered feet And your shoulders jerking the jig-wa. And I love your teeth flashing, And the way your hair shines in the spotlight Like it was the real stuff. Gee, brown boy, I loves you all I’m glad I’m a jig. I’m glad I can Understand your dancin’ and your Singin’ and feel all the happiness And joy and don’t-care in you. Gee, boy, when you sing, I can close my ears And hear tom-toms just as plain. Listen to me, will you, what do I know About tom-toms? But I like the word, sort of, Don’t you? It belongs to us. Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, And the way you sing and dance, And everything. Say, I think you’re wonderful. You’re All right with me. You are. HELENE JOHNSON

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

JAZZ FANTASIA Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha- husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree- tops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans-–make two people fight on the top of a stairway and scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs. Can the rough stuff… now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo… and the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars… a red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills… go to it, O jazzmen. CARL SANDBURG

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

Jazz Band In A Parisian Cabaret Play that thing, Jazz band! Play it for the lords and ladies, For the dukes and counts, For the whores and gigolos, For the American millionaires, And the school teachers Out for a spree. Play it, Jazz band! You know that tune That laughs and cries at the same time. You know it. May I? Mais oui. Mein Gott! Parece una rumba. Play it, jazz band! You’ve got seven languages to speak in And then some, Even if you do come from Georgia. Can I go home wid yuh, sweetie?

Sure.

LANGSTON HUGHES 

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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