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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