& on power lines
singing between the cuts—Yardbird
in the soul & soil. Boplicity
takes me to Django’s gypsy guitar
& Dunbar’s “broken tongue,” beyond
god-headed jive of the apocalypse,
& back to the old sorrow songs
where boisterous flowers still nod on their
half-broken stems. The deep rosewood
of the piano says, “Holler
if it feels good.” Perfect tension.
The mainspring of notes & extended
possibility—what falls on either side
of a word—the beat between & underneath.
Organic, cellular space. Each riff & word
a part of the whole. A groove. New changes
created. “In the Land of Obladee”
burns out the bell with flatted fifths,
a matrix of blood & language
improvised on a bebop heart
that could stop any moment
on a dime, before going back
to Hughes at the Five Spot.
Twelve bars. Coltrane leafs through
the voluminous air for some note
to save us from ourselves.
The limbo & bridge of a solo …
trying to get beyond the tragedy
of always knowing what the right hand
will do … ready to let life play me
like Candido’s drum.
THE SAME BEAT
I don’t want the same beat.
I don’t want the same beat.
I don’t want the same beat
used for copping a plea
as well as for making love
& talking with the gods.
I don’t want the same beat
like a windshield wiper
swishing back & forth
to the rhythm of stolen pain
& counterfeit pleasure.
I don’t want the same beat
when I can listen to early
Miles, Prez, Yardbird, Sonny
Stitt, Monk, Lady Day, Trane,
or the Count of Red Bank.
I don’t want the same beat
as I gaze out at the Grand Canyon
or up at the Dogstar
in a tenement window
or at an eagle who owns the air.
I don’t want the same beat
as the buffoon on the turntable
selling his secondhand soul
to the organ-grinder’s monkey.
I don’t want the same beat
like a pitiful needle
stuck in a hyperbolic groove
at the end of The Causeway.
I don’t want the same beat
as only background
for the skullduggery
of Iceberg Slim on a bullhorn.
I don’t want the same beat
as the false witness,
because I know any man
with that much gold in his mouth
has already been bought & sold.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
TO BEAUTY
Just painting things black will get you nowhere. —Otto Dix
The jazz drummer’s
midnight skin
balances the whole
room, the American
flag dangling from his breast
pocket. An album
cover. “Everything
I have ever seen is
beautiful.” A decade
before a caricaturist
draws a Star of David
for a saxophonist’s lapel
on the poster of “Jonny
spielt auf,” his brush
played every note & shade
of incarnadine darkness.
Here’s his self-portrait
with telephone, as if
clutching a mike
like Frank Sinatra—
posed as an underworld
character, or poised
for a dance step.
Shimmy & Charleston.
Perfumed & cocksure,
you’d never know
he sat for hours
darning his trousers
with a silver needle,
stitching night shadows
to facade. The rosy lady’s
orange hair & corsage
alight the dancefloor,
all their faces stopped
with tempera & time.
The drummer’s shirt
the same hue & texture
as a woman’s dress,
balanced on the edge
of some anticipated
embrace. The yellow
feathers of a rare bird
quiver in a dancer’s hat,
past the drum skin tattooed
with an Indian chief.
IGNIS FATUUS
Something or someone. A feeling
among a swish of reeds. A swampy
glow haloes the Spanish moss,
& there’s a swaying at the edge
like a child’s memory of abuse
growing flesh, living on what
a screech owl recalls. Nothing
but