Two Jazz Poems
#1
Yeah here am i
am standing
at the crest of a tallest
hill with a trumpet
in my hand & dark
glasses
on.
bearded & bereted i proudly stand!
but there are no eyes to see me.
i send down cool sounds!
but there are no ears to hear me.
my lips they quiver in aether-emptiness!
there are no hearts to love me.
surely though through night’s gray fog mist
of delusion & dream
& the rivers of tears that flow
like gelatin soul-juice
some apathetic bearer of
paranoidic peyote vision (or some
other source of inspiration) shall
hear the song i play. shall
see the beard & beret shall
become inflamed beyond all hope
with emotion’s everlasting fire
& join me
in
eternal
Peace.
& but yet well
who knows?
#2
there he stands. see?
like a black Ancient Mariner his
wrinkled old face so
full of the wearies of living is
turned downward with
closed eyes. his frayed collar
faded blue old shirt turns
dark with sweat & the old
necktie undone drops
loosely about the worn
old jacket see? just
barely holding his
sagging stomach in. yeah.
his run-down shoes have
paper in them & his
rough unshaven face shows
pain
in each wrinkle.
but there he stands. in
self-bought solitude head
still down eyes
still closed ears
perked & trained upon
the bass line for
across his chest lies an old
alto saxophone --
supported from his next by
a wire coat hanger.
gently he lifts it now
to parted lips. to
tell all the world that
he is a Black Man. that
he was sent here to preach
the Black Gospel of Jazz.
now preaching it with words of
screaming notes & chords he
is no longer a man. no not even
a Black Man. but (yeah!)
a Bird! --
one that gathers his wings & flies
high
high
higher
until he flies away! or
comes back to find himself
a Black Man
again.
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