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Sun 11 Jul, 2004 01:53 pm
JAMMING (orignally posted in Spontaneous Poems)
Guitar in hand, I jam.
In free-form musical verse
my memories live and become whole.
I remember
jamming with junkies and drinkers,
deep thinkers all,
raggedly aloof,
kings of strings and sundry things.
I jam to an ocean breeze
and a calypso beat.
I take a seat
beside a leathery bluesman,
and shout out his pain
in pentatonic glory.
As the music plays,
the dance begins,
and I remember.
I dance between the flurrying fists
of schoolyard bullies,
with a smile on my face
and diplomacy on my mind.
I dance to the rythym
of a man crying for loss of love,
and coax an awkward waltz
from his tortured soul.
I dance to make allies
out of enemies.
I dance around a world in limbo.
I dance so that I never forget
the nature of the heart,
the drum-taps of life,
all the while
holding my guitar,
strumming out the stories.
Sound and fury,
beauty and pain.
I stand upon a mountaintop and play,
and all of it comes back to me
in echoes.
THE HUNCHBACK AND THE HORN
The wind weeps and bends
with the weight of sorrow
emanating from the bell
of a battered saxophone
deftly handled
by a shadowy hunchback.
Tears flow down his weathered cheeks
to be transformed
into sound sublime.
The slaves of urban souls
are set free, and they sing,
bleating for the battered child,
moaning for the mothers abandoned and abused,
honking for the hardened hearts of whores,
droning in Dorian for the darkness
of the downtrodden, the drug addicts and their demons,
praying in polyrythm for the passing
of the endless, poisonous night.
In sillouhette, against the moon,
the hunchback and the horn seem the same,
two question marks in unison
pasted across the heavens.
INTERMEZZO
Velvet-pawed, the pianist
cautiously caresses the keys,
black and white,
reflecting the odd, fleeting calm
of the city at dusk.
(Okay, I've only got three out of five planned verses so far. More to come.)
Wow, Cav! Those poems are fantastic: so vivid; so engaging; so much to be said about their style and words... that's some of the best that I've seen. I can't wait until the next two.
Very good. I particularly like the Intermezzo with the mention of the piano player, "Velvet-pawed, the pianist cautiously caresses the keys." Very poetic!
RIM SHOT SNARE
Tappety-tap, rat-a-tat-tat,
staccato Krupa thunder
keeps richochet time
with the gunfire in the streets.
Tappety-tap, rat-a-tat-tat,
caught in the crosshairs
of a rim shot snare.
Boom boom boom, the bass drum
groans a backbeat called hope
like a howitzer, beating back the bleak,
banal yoke of entropy.
Swish, clash, the cymbals
ring melodious metallic
through the fabric of time,
the blacksmith's hammer,
the rumbling gears of industry,
the hum of automation,
the steady breeze of labour,
the whine and buzz of failing flourescent,
the fiberoptic messages tripping across
the waves, brushed gently
into the air above.
The drums capture all
in the crosshairs of a rim shot snare.
REQUIEM
Play, piper, play a mournful air
in a solemn modal key
for all our fallen heroes.
Play for them piper,
that their souls may rise upwards
on the gossamer feathers
of dreams diverted, declined, deserted.
Pipe with burning breaths of fire,
and lift the raging red that stains
the waters, the plains, the desert sands,
all our hands, the lives interrupted.
Play on, piper, in sonorous, sinewy tones,
anchored by the pipe's constant drone,
lest we forget the lost ones
caught up in a silent, smoky scream,
the never ending hopscotch
of a pipe dream.
i think we need one more movement Cav, bring us back to the 'promise of the future'!
you have it in you, you've shown us that.
BoGoWo wrote:i think we need one more movement Cav, bring us back to the 'promise of the future'!
you have it in you, you've shown us that.
That might be my next project. I think it needs a suite of it's own. :wink:
so far it's "sweet"! :wink:
I bet this suite would sound really good orchestrated as a musical composition.
colorbook wrote:I bet this suite would sound really good orchestrated as a musical composition.
I've been thinking about that. Most of the poems were written listening to jazz.
Cav, I'm groping for words to tell you how true you are to the music. Can't find any. Suffice it to say that your suite is far better than Sandburg's "Oh,Jazzmen." (think that was the title). He never got it!
Why, my goodness. Bo a muse? <smile>
You take such unusual things to create solemn beauty. Brought to mind Dizzy Gillespie's reply to someone who asked him, "Who taught you, Diz."
His reply:
Ain't nobody taught me ****.
That's because he was original, Cav, just as you are.
Letty, I remember that Sandburg poem. It was 'Jazz Fantasia', and it was pretty poor. I like Sandburg, but I think in terms of jazz rythm, 'Chicago' grabs it for me. Had there been jazz at the time, I think Whitman would have approved.
Right! Whitman's Body Electric would take on a new tenor, too.
It did, when Weather Report named their classic hit after it.
Oh, dear. Guess I had better start movin in 2004 circles. I'll check out the group.
"everyone solos, and no one solos" ....need to find that song and listen to it... Thanks, Cav. I've had strange vibes recently. It's very close to precognition.
I should have said hit album...that's what you should find Letty. There was a song 'I Sing the Body Electric' from the 'Fame' soundtrack, but that's not what you want.
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