Jazz Series

[Angeline]

I'm working on reviving a jazz series I started in 2015. It's too much to put it the Revise-a-Poem thread so I'm working on it here. That is all.


1.1 It Begins In Lines

It begins in lines
that wriggle and roll,
lines that wind up
and down from other lines
that cross or not
lines broken or flat
out going nowhere
but back
on themselves.

Such a welter of lines
all colors too, black
green and blue plenty
of blue but just
a hot mess a mass
like a child's scribble

unless you pull back,
take a wider view
and see it's a map.


1.2
Isn't every map
some kind of a book
of roads and rivers?
And don't forget tracks
or the people
who live on either side,
those who stay
and those who leave
insisting they'll never
come back.

Think of those lines,
of their power to bring
someone home
or take them away.

Maybe it's you
who is leaving.
Maybe not today but eventually
everyone gets in the weeds
so believe me
you're gonna need
that map.

 

[Angeline]

1.2 (continued)

Use your imagination
when you look at a map.

Get close enough
to picture a train
on a track. Hear that
clatter? That steady
clack that announces
itself before a long

long train comes
whooshing by with a long
long load of passengers,
and freight, silver sleepers,
diners, the convivial club,
the swaying corridors
and hubs, public and private
cars roll on

humanity packed in boxes
hooked together at reckless
spaces in-between
where the night blows in.

Who watches a train roll deep
in the map and the night?

Maybe an owl,
a cop at a crossroads.
Maybe no one knows
that fading whistle
blows but a sideways moon,
grinning through the trees.

 

[Angeline]

1.4
Big Shoe

Side by Side
at 6:35 starts low
but hops to it
when Papa jumps in.

Duke vamps silver
as a bell till Rabbit
slides silky smooth
as any coloratura--

pure lush with rills
and runs, agile leaps
that land soft
tossed from a small
man with a 1,000-yard
stare who blows
his ineffable breath
casual as a breeze.

 

[Angeline]

1-5

Wheels on tracks
create bounce and swing
that repeat in measures

clack a clack a wheeze clack

a steady rhythm section
keeps that train rolling--
you dig?

Long comes a whistle

one startled note attenuated,
one passing cycle
of call and respond.

That rhythm plays over
and over miles ahead
behind and in between
stops to play music
that sounds like a train.

 

[Angeline]

1.6 [this replaces original 1.3]

Daybreak Express

Private rooms
for Duke and Lil Strays,
first-class air-conditioned
comfort for the band
is the instrument.

1936

and Duke has greatness
thrust upon him.
He meets it cool
with a graceful smile,
a debonair air,
throws back his sculpted head,
his perfect hair and laughs

because we are rolling baby--

money music men
are rolling south
where Jim Crow is
a murderous monster
waiting on bloods

but these are private
cars and Duke knows gents
and wise guys,
but mainly dollars talk
louder than hate,
and a train becomes
a talisman on wheels.

And an't those porters
proud to care for these
crazy braves headed south
like magi bearing gifts
that tap and blare,
to strike at the heart
of ignorance

with pounce and stride
that make feet pat
heads nod and fingers
snap until every body
jumps like those 88s,
jumps to forget
the weary blues circa
1936, jumps
to a sound that swings
like a train.

 

[Angeline]

1-7

The best of America
burns like a candle that won't
be cursed into darkness.

The best of America
adventures over tracks
clattering in rhythm
over roads bouncing
on tires--
trains buses trucks, private
cars freight cars freight elevators.
Downstairs backstairs back
doors. Wheels and feet
in motion all a'whirr
like the busiest
of ants.

Sometimes the best
of America flies away
like a bird uncaged,
flies to Paris Stockholm
Copenhagen free
as the beautiful patriotic
half-truth that flaps
in the land of the breeze
so many miles
away.

 

[Angeline]

1-8

Have you wondered
where sound goes
when it bounces off keys
or floats from breath
to air?

Does it weave like fog
through empty trees,
leaving wraiths of song
for birds to consider
or does it hang
in one lonesome tree
as if nobody cared
but the breeze and nobody
saw but a waning moon?

Might be it's gone flat
by the side of a road
like a broken-down bus
with a tore up wheel.

That there squatty feller,
low with hands on his knees
and a scowl on his face
might be the very angel
who drove you straight
to heaven, to corny blue

flower fields and bright gold
shine when he blew right
inside you to bounce
and jive with your pulse,

made you dance in the dark
with your head thrown back--

but that
was 64 miles back
Jack

64 miles back.

 

[Angeline]

1-9

Straight Ahead

Think of parades
and second lines
ragtime stride
the deep well of blues
that floats up from the delta.

That's some cloud
of sound settled over the rails
and bouncing down roads
with maps spread wide
for the territories

are great plains
to be conquered
by pioneers of this great
migration that travels
in bands with cymbals horns,
bass drums trunks
full of music and uniforms.

These are men and women
of the new frontier,
a vanguard moving
forward baby
and they want to
take you

to the carnival, too,
sneak you to the alley
behind the tent
with the faint calliope
and peanut shells
where you can have
you a little taste.