Coltrane playing "The Damned Don't Cry,"
1961
Africa / Brass.
It could be midnight
from the sound of that double bass,
but it's not.
It's just morning on a bus
headed nowhere. The horn section
tragic and mournful.
Booker Little
(dead at 23)
on trumpet, calling out
to some dark or vanished god.
I'm still waking up.
Trying to make sense of the
hollowness that has become my life.
The routine much heavier
than I expected. The air
crushing downward
upon the shoulders.
Eric Dolphy
(dead at 36)
orchestrating.
One of the reeds
in that cloudy response
from the darkness.
Some people fight in wars
and die
or become heroes (momentary).
Some people save lives
for a living. Nothing
in the catalog
about a respectable job,
face-painted emptiness,
the dry mouth,
the slow, stunned silence.
It's too dull
to even grieve or shed a tear.
Monday, January 19, 2009
thought dream 010909
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7 comments:
I'm glad you're putting these things up -- I'm enjoying them. I'm also glad to hear the full version of this one. You started reading it to me at the Pour House but couldn't decipher your own handwriting.
Hmm... I'm going to guess that was towards the end of the evening, as I have no recollection of having read that to you. Not good.
And if I don't remember that . . . I have to ask the dreaded question: Did I start weeping in public? Please tell me I didn't start weeping in public.
Thanks for the feedback. It means a lot that you like these.
Actually there wasn't any weeping that I recall (that sounds like a Hillaryesque "as far as I know," doesn't it?). We had a good conversation.
One bitchy criticism: I would take the hollowness line out.
I didn't remember any weeping. And I do remember having a good conversation. And I certainly remember paying $9 each for Chimay Ale on tap. I should've known better. I was just curious. Should've stuck with the Brooklyn Lager. Just didn't remember the thought dream part, though now it sounds vaguely familiar.
That's not bitchy criticism at all. It's a very valid remark. I felt it's thudding, heavy-handed, "oh-woe-is-me" pity-party egocentric weight when I typed it in today. If I were to work on this as a poem, it would go away. Along with a couple of other parts.
I wouldn't go that far -- I just think it states too obviously what you've already expressed more elegantly in the rest of the poem.
I like it. :)
There was an anthology of poetry out awhile ago called the jazz poetry anthology. No clue if it's still in print, but I read the hell out if it in college.
I have this Jazz Poetry Anthology, and it is great. Was that the one, or was it another? If so, I'd love to know what it was.
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