thought dream 010909

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.