Jazz Poems

HERE WHERE COLTRANE IS

Soul and race

are private dominions

memories and modal

songs, a tenor blossoming,

which would paint suffering

a clear color, but is not in

this Victorian house

without oil in zero degree

weather and a forty-mile-an-hour wind;

it is all a well-knit family:

a love supreme.

Oak leaves pile up on walkway

and steps, catholic as apples

in a special mist of clear white

children who love my children.

I play”Alabama”

on a warped record player

skipping the scratches

on your faces over the fibrous

conical hairs of plastic

under the wooden floors.

Dreaming on a train from New York

to Philly, your hand out six

notes which become an anthem

to our memories of you:

oak, birch, maple,

apple, cocoa, rubber.

For this reason Martin is dead;

for this reason Malcolm is dead;

for this reason Coltrane is dead;

in the eyes of my first son are the browns

of these men and their music.

MICHAEL S. HARPER | 1938 ~ 2016

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

FOR OUR LADY

billie if someone

had loved u like u

shud have been loved

ain’t no tellen what

kind of songs

u wud have swung

gainst this country’s wite mind

or what kind of lyrics

wud have pushed us from

our blue / nites

yeh billie

if some blk / man

had reallee

made u feel

permanentlee warm

ain’t no tellen

where the jazz of yo/songs

wud have led us.

SONIA SANCHEZ

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

ART PEPPER

It’s the broken phrases, the fury inside him.

Squiggling alto saxophone playing out rickets

And jaundice, a mother who tried to kill him

In her womb with a coat hanger, a faltering

God-like father. The past is a bruised cloud

Floating over the houses like a prophecy,

The terrible foghorns off the shore at San Pedro.

Lightning without thunder. Years without playing.

Years of blowing out smoke and inhaling fire,

Junk and cold turkey, smacking up, the habit

Of cooking powder in spoons, the eyedroppers,

The spikes. Tracks on both arms. Tattoos.

The hospital cells at Fort Worth, the wire cages

In the L.A. County, the hole at San Quentin.

And always the blunt instrument of sex, the pain

Bubbling up inside him like a wound, the small

Deaths. The wind piercing the sheer skin

Of a dark lake at dawn. The streets at 5 a.m.

After a cool rain. The smoky blue clubs.

The chords of Parker, of Young, of Coltrane.

Playing solo means going on alone, improvising,

Hitting the notes, ringing the changes,

It’s clipped phrasing and dry ice in summer,

Straining against the rhythms, speeding it up,

Loping forward and looping back, finding the curl

In the wave, the mood in the air. It’s

Splintered tones and furious double timing.

It’s leaving the other instruments on stage

And blowing freedom into the night, into the faces

Of emptiness that peer along the bar, ghosts

Shallow hulls of nothingness, Hatred of God.

Hatred of white skin that never turns black.

Hatred of Patti, of Dianne, of Christine.

A daughter who grew up without him, a stranger.

Years of being strung out, years without speaking.

Pauses and intervals, silence. A fog rolling

Across the ocean, foghorns in the distance.

A lighthouse rising from the underworld.

A moon swelling in the clouds, an informer,

A twisted white mouth of light. Scars carved

And criscrossed on his chest. The memory

Of nodding out, the dazed drop-off into sleep.

And then the curious joy of surviving, joy

Of waking up in a dusky room to a gush

Of fresh notes, a tremoring sheet of sound.

Jamming again. Careening through the scales

For the creatures who haunt the night.

Bopping through the streets in a half-light

With Laurie on his arm, a witness, a believer.

The night is going to burst inside him.

The wind is going to break loose forever

From his lungs. It’s the fury of improvising,

Of going on alone. It’s the fierce clarity

Of each note coming to an end, distinct,

Glistening. The alto’s full-bodied laughter

The white grief-stricken wail.

EDWARD HIRSCH

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

LUSH LIFE

I used to visit all   the very gay places,

Those come-what-may places,

Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life

To get the feel of life

From jazz and cocktails.

The girls i knew had sad and sullen gray faces,

With distingué traces

That used to be there.

You could see where

They’d been washed away

By too many through the day

Twelve o’clock tails.

Then you came along

With your siren song

To tempt me to madness.

I thought for a while

That your poignant smile

Was tinged with the sadness

Of a great love for me.

Ah, yes, I was wrong,

Again, I was wrong!

Life is lonely again,

And only last year

Ev’rything seemed so sure.

Now life is awful again,

A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.

A week in Paris will ease the bite of it.

All I care is to smile in spite of it.

I’ll forget you, I will,

While yet you are still

Burning inside my brain.

Romance is mush, stifling those who strive.

I’ll live a lush life in some small dive,

>And there I’ll be, while I rot with the rest

Of those whose lives are lonely too.

BILLY STRAYHORN

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Jazz Poems

ALABAMA, c. 1963: 

But

Shouldn’t this state have a song?

Long, gliding figures of my breath

Of breath

Lost?

Somebody can’t sing

Because somebody’s gone

Somebody can’t sing

Because somebody’s gone.

Shouldn’t this landscape

Hold a true anthem

What

You can’t do?

Whom

You can’t invent?

Where

You can’t stay?

Why

You won’t keep it?

But

Shouldn’t this state

Have a song?

And shall we call it

My face will murder me?

And shall we call it

I’m not waiting?

CORNELIUS EADY

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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