Concerning a singular day, one day,
with many contrasting, repeating means,
the sagacious savant emerges
to watch the jazz quartet perform.
Trumpet, piano, bass, drum,
bop and bump melody number one.
A day is but a way.
The cityscape diverts the
drudgery below.
The men stomp down sidewalks,
Branching into buildings,
like tributaries they flow.
It was in the land of trinkets,
and the time was right.
Yes, the time was like licorice sticks,
malleable and slowing being nibbled away.
A widow peers out a window,
and, anecdotally, men by the thousand
walk by and by, boots trudging through
the streams that run down the curb.
Say it Mr. Mingus!
Give me notes and I'll stitch them with glue,
This is melody number two.
Play it once, play it twice,
bend them up, bend them nice.
To fuel what's right, live in ice.
Fill your tank with a contradictory Christ.
The anarchist alchemist
Stomps his boots in triplets,
The drums thud and the city catcalls are crickets.
In his mind he must discard the lifelines,
Yet he is branded with his own sign.
When looking for ties to sever,
One should look to the weather.
Scorch it high and blaze it black,
On Groundhog Day the clock forever turns back.
Call it either smooth whiskey sipped to the lees,
or notes sailing over sea, this is melody number three.
A young man thumbs an ice cube
in the old man's bar. The waves
lap up against the rocky shore.
A squirrel's steps crunch freshly fallen snow.
Above all, the crimson cloaked expanse
spreads throughout the heavens,
obscuring the black balloon filled with men.
Not the metaphor of clock,
but simply in the clock, and the space it takes,
For a cigar is just a cigar,
Just as, forgoing the mindless menace of violence,
A man is just a man.
A day is but a pastry without a tray,
Smushed snapshots left outside an empty cafe.
Freedom is man's loneliest whore,
This is melody number four.
The freest man in Paris
is the one who was raised on a train
and now converses with Pharaohs
behind the Louvre. He sits
on benches and distinguishes
pretty lies from eternally dreaming
one-man jalopy riders.
The poorest man in Paris
is the one who puffs through
the day with his mind cracking
like damp plaster.
The herd of Paris itself
sinks in an overflowing, demonic procession
into the heart and mind of the voracious one.
The band winds down,
And the original observer
walks out into that great black night,
Stepping over stones and
smiling out into the heavenly nothingness,
Biding his time before
the sacred right of judgment comes again.
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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This is a wonderful poem... I love the italics, they are brilliant... the whole poem is captivating and superbly written... my partners dad is a jazz musician and I'm sure that he would love this too...
I'm very glad to have found this wonderful poem
Keep writing
Polly -
This is like four cuts on a jazz album - perhaps on a rainy day - this is how to enter the world. Four vignettes, of various vintage - the working stiffs, the nonconformist breaking ties (Mingus Moves, abhorring the shuffle - carrying a bitter burden), the lush life and the decadent - Paris evokes excess - the extremes. While the poem speaks of judgement it seems more like keen observation with some morality. The judgement seems to be in the inevitability of each succeeding stage in the poem - going from mundane, to cool, to lush, to self-indulgent. Is the original observer God - it seems to make sense - sagacious savant - both wise (future) and knowing - a self-starter.
Great jazz feel - the rhyming works like jazz poems set to music in the 60's. It definitely passes the cool test. The band performs through-out with allusions to the various sounds - bending, crunching, etc.
Is that preform or perform?
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A-ha..Nice. There's a small jazz club in Melbourne Australia called Tony Starrs Kitten Club. It has a small red velvet smoke filled room, with high class looking paupers drinking heavily and listening to your poem to the beat of a double bass and a howling horn. It's a fucking great place, and for your poem to remind me of that, it must be a fucking great poem.
Nice. -
As with most good featured, the title was the first step. Odd and attention grabbing, but also practical for the peice.
If I was to pick favourites, it would be melody number one.Particularly these lines:
"Yes, the time was like licorice sticks,
malleable and slowing being nibbled away."
When I read this poem outloud, that part played on my tongue like it was elementary school recess. Another mentionable reaction from me the reader was from this dippety farther down:
"A day is but a pastry without a tray,
Smushed snapshots left outside an empty cafe."
And again I read it out loud to fully take it in and enjoy it.
While I may agree with the other's that it is a tad bit long, I really wouldn't have had it any other way, as this was a great peice to read to myself.
Great job on this.
Paper Cranes
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interesting, very vivid images, I liked the way you broke the verses with melody number one etc, a chewy write, which is a good thing, lots to digest all at once, a little too much maybe, but good writing and great imagery.
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Nice write. Honestly can't say I followed every line, but the rhythm was fun and you've painted a great picture.
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