4tete 85  All That Music

Bobby Blue, blow your horn,
encircle the night in smoky yellow sounds
and down narrow brass streets,
home of spotty cats with pink-eyes,
ring the raucous plea of bugle calls
and temperate timbre of Viking halls.

We'll clap, cry and dance and shout Amen.
We'll pop fake drumsticks upon empty dishes,
half-smoked cigarettes afloat on curdled cream,
as the drummer snaps his bones
and the singer scats her way around
spirituals until morning comes to ground.

Gig done, club locked, left to mice,
the drummer's off to pinch a game,
the singer watches her lover's crazy sleep,
and you, Boy Blue, tune your reed.
But the music does not stop.
Beyond cribs and donut shops,

over rusty bridges,
past all-night diners closed in the light,
pocket parks and corroded headstones,
bowery bums rich on a nickel,
the melody drifts long lazily
until on the south side, it finds an alley.

The passage hosts doors, all broken locks
and windows more air than glass.
Through one high in the darkest corner,
the music seeps to disturb to disturb
a crack baby's sleep as he lays on dirty sheets.
And your beat, Blue Boy's, your beat

melds with the thin child's dreams,
finds and fills an emptiness, a hole,
to years later boil a new jazzman's soul.






June Thomas and new Gar trash at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html

*New*  Wild/Eliot  Hyperpoem at:  http://wildhyper.homestead.com/front.html

Poets for Peace.  ¡Poemas sí, balas no!