my tribute to jazz

Big Band induces a Lazy Ode
(Based on Model Poem: Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Sadness)

a lone trumpet bleats
stretches
yawns
Ellington’s rolling Black and Tan Fantasy

wa-wa-wa-dwa-dwah-dwah-dwaah-dwaaah-dwaaaah

Carmichael, Miller, Shearing, Count Basie
45s scratching gently at silence
man, beer, cigar, an old empty diner
Gamma knittin’ an’ rockin’—
rockin’
rockin’

my mind starts to idle
threatening to retreat
even as deadlines—

BAHH-dup!

—loom in a lush furry carpet of lichen and moss
hippos mud-bathe with wide gaping mouths
belly-up tabby
basks
long drawn-out blues
Billie Holliday
croons
an upside-down sloth
chomps at time—
savors—
every—
tick

when Armstrong serenades
little else matters
velvety lull

BAHH-dup!

languid and weak
too—

BAHH-dup!

something——to resist

Freddie Freeloader
Sketches of Spain
sounds
of Ellington’s A Train
Milessss——BAHH-dup!
kinda blue


BAdum-ch.