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.

Working Title: Freedom Is A Train

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.

 

[Angeline]

1.10

Kansas City

The Brute come scratchin
at Mary Lou's window
cause they was cuttin
something terrible
at the Yeah Man
on 14th.

Bean had drove
all from St. Joe,
so was nohow ready
to walk

and the strange gray
cat kept serving it up
cool and light.
He is long and Bean
is compact, husky-
toned but he could not
blow that reedy cat
away.

That piano man on his knees

say Brute so Mary Lou
got to wake up,
caffeinate her attitude,
flex her long fingers

which ain't no thing
as she been stridin
since she was the little
piano girl of East
Liberty Street.

She takes Brute's arm
and they hazard over the ice,
dawn maybe an hour or so
from the Yeah Man.

 

[Angeline]

1.11

Where once
culture floated
upriver
and stream,

now there are tracks
and roads, a fine pot
for simmering a gumbo
of style and tradition.

Caravans
of transport--
trains and automobiles
snake across the land
so that the roux

of blues,
those wails born
in suffering,
combine with ragtime,
march with second lines
and embrace the gaudy shame
of minstrelsy.

From barge and paddle
wheeler to the sleek silver
express or a banged
up retrofitted hearse
full of musical
ambition lost
on some road that ain't
even on the map.

 

[Angeline]

1-12

Prez Gets the Heebies

Yeah
man,
sez Prez,
a Johnny
Deathbed on a plane
is a no-eyes worrisome thing.
It's a hard luck ride.
I don't dig
that bird's
sore
wing.

 

[Angeline]

1.13

Rabbit Hops

Let's
fall
in love
the band sings
with a bounce and swing
that bubbles up like champagne rings
in the new even
though it's blue
winter
out
here.

 

[Angeline]

1.14

Messenger

When
we're
moanin
the groove is
a relentless luge
ride, an icy bone chiller slip
slide into the cool
blue caverns
hard bop
calls
home.

 

[Angeline]

1-15. [Note: this should go after Kansas City]

When lines merge
and converge,
when tracks and roads
are mapped explored
and traversed by pioneers

who putt putt bounce
whoosh whistle wheeze
somewhere in that piston
driven churn and clack
across the Plains

when all that action
passes through the moon
and clouds of empty
scarecrow nights smoky
stops in dingy rooms,
always heading
for the lights--

Kansas City, St Joe
Abilene and Tulsa, too,

why you done cooked up
one fine American stew
served at cutting contests,
breakfast jam at 5 a.m.

before it's time to move
again.

 

[12oclocktales]

I hope you don’t mind my butting in here, but these jazz poems are absolutely fantastic and have captivated me almost as much as the music does, Duke’s music especially. You capture the essence of the music in an intelligent yet emotionally honest way – not a lot of chaotic rambling thinking that’s the only way to get at the excitement. Duke and trains went together like bacon and eggs; he absolutely loved them and wrote several songs about them. In the Daybreak Express section you specifically mention 1936, which confused me because I didn’t know whether you were talking about the actual recording of that title, which was made in Dec.’33 or just generally/symbolically, and figured you meant the latter because you also mention Strays who didn’t join Duke until ’39. Boorishly picky, I know, sorry. I just remember the coals Clint Eastwood got raked over for straying off the “truth” when he made Bird. But seriously, I really love these poems.

And now just posted before I could hit Send, Lester, Hodges, and Blakey. I've got to shut up, this is fantastic.

 

[Angeline]

1.16

Daddio

had a zoot suit
brown with yellow
pin stripes hung
in the closet, an old
unattended friend I
never saw him wear.

That suit was wide
shouldered sharp creased,
cut to break just so
when rompin to that 30s
kinda bouncy blues.

Daddio could caper--
snap and point
his index fingers,
rubberneck a lindy
hoppin bop whilst I
was standing on
his toes.

It was magic swing
time like they did down
town at Roseland or up
at the Savoy.

And maybe this
is why jazz is
my joy.

 

[Angeline]

I hope you don’t mind my butting in here, but these jazz poems are absolutely fantastic and have captivated me almost as much as the music does, Duke’s music especially. You capture the essence of the music in an intelligent yet emotionally honest way – not a lot of chaotic rambling thinking that’s the only way to get at the excitement. Duke and trains went together like bacon and eggs; he absolutely loved them and wrote several songs about them. In the Daybreak Express section you specifically mention 1936, which confused me because I didn’t know whether you were talking about the actual recording of that title, which was made in Dec.’33 or just generally/symbolically, and figured you meant the latter because you also mention Strays who didn’t join Duke until ’39. Boorishly picky, I know, sorry. I just remember the coals Clint Eastwood got raked over for straying off the “truth” when he made Bird. But seriously, I really love these poems.

And now just posted before I could hit Send, Lester, Hodges, and Blakey. I've got to shut up, this is fantastic.

Thank you!!!

It's all kind of a mess now. I adore jazz, its culture as much as the music and have been listening, reading and studying it for years. I'm trying to pull all these disparate pieces together into either a chapbook or a collection (depending on how many poems I end up keeping). It's a massive job (already giving me headaches lol), but I really want to make it happen this year.

It's great to meet another jazz lover. I really appreciate your feedback and welcome it anytime. I know there are errors I need to correct...otoh anyone who loves the music knows jazz folks will argue over whether night is dark or day is light!

 

[Angeline]

1.17 [Note: Add Savoy Section]

Moe Gale Dreams Big

It's a New York story
where an immigrant
son, a natural
salesman shakes green
from Papa's American
dream, shakes
to make a scene
in risky frolics
uptown

on Lenox Avenue
the heartbeat of Harlem
in a city block of shoes
shouts and wheels
a busy honk and squeal,
a sanctuary cut loose
from pale downtown.

 

[Angeline]

1.18

Joy Spring

It bubbles up,
you walk on air don't
even care if day
is grey. Let sorrow slip
in someone else's fray.

You snap to the bop,
bashing steady
in between the high
hat beat and breeze
that floats on bouncy
keys when Clifford
blows the blue
and calls the sun
c'mon out and play.

 

[Angeline]

1.19

52nd Street

The city in a downpour--
yellow, green and red
where lines have melted
black to shine and spread

yellow, green and red
dripping on the night,
black to shine and spread
as if nothing were complete

dripping on the night
but blurry, cars and streets
as if nothing were complete
and everything unsaid

but blurry cars and streets
with one short swath of gray
and everything unsaid
in everything you see

with one short swath of gray
where lines have melted
in everything you see

the city in a downpour.

 

[Angeline]

Unrelated Snow Glosa

Fairy Snow Glosa

Fairy snow, fairy snow,
Blowing, blowing everywhere,
Would that I
Too, could fly
Lightly, lightly through the air.
~ Snow Song, Sara Teasdale

Fairy snow, fairy snow is not the nature
of duplicitous brutality set down one
little cat's paw here, one fragile white
straw stowing there and stacking, growing

hypocrisy is blowing, blowing everywhere
liar's lacework beautiful and slippery
deception that will bow my pines, ice
the step and unsettle the very air outside

my frame of reference choked in subtle fury.
Prehistoric plows lurch by and in their wake
the day is piled still. The day is dead
beyond my sill! Would that I were born

among a kinder grain, my form were lain
on a soft dune that slopes to lapis seas
and I embraced warm in a sultry breeze.
I too, might fly from such unruly sprites:

you would! If these be fairies they are imps
consumed with spite, their toothless bite
eschews all care to leave me longing for a clime
that kisses lightly, lightly through the air.