“Acquiring Taste” — a poem by Michael L. Newell
Ignorant of jazz in 1965, I sit quietly reading
(perched on my bunk at Clark AFB)
Archive for “Poetry”
“Coldest Winter Night” — a poem by Ed Coletti
When Miles Davis gets back into his mood
I go where I need to be in my own
somewhere in or near Matt Waldron’s Love Span
over the River Tender where moons flow
reflecting piano keys rippling night
“Far Cry” — a poem by Ed Coletti
Eric Dolphy blowing out little curlicues
Booker Little baby-burping back to him
trumpeted weird diminutive 2-way messaging
thump thump thump and thump again
bass bass you grandfather clock clocking
“Harry Inspired by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band” — a poem by Michael L. Newell
rattlin’ bones rattlin’ bones just the cost an old man pays
dancin’ round his livin’ room tryin’ to enjoy life alone
but full of zest ripplin’ with vim vigor and hot sauce fuelin’
“Portugués (for Astrud Gilberto)” — a poem by Ed Coletti
This truly foreign language
absorbs me into its differences,
rosetta stone hidden
in a cave of similarities
certain words share
with those of spanish
“Rusted Wind Chime” — a poem by Naylet Leon
A deep, raspy New Orleans jazz
Its staccato notes shoot up my pulse
My legs shiver from that long, wavy vibrato
Born-again in your love, I cry like a baby
Yearning to be
“A Brubeck Landscape” — a poem by Michael L. Newell
all day a light breeze baptizes the landscape
gentle and captivating as a Paul Desmond solo
bushes rap windows and walls with rhythms
unusual and unexpected that Joe Morello would
approve would groove to and trees sway with
“The Jazz DJ (remixed)” — a poem by Sabrina Cold Mountain
In the hazy glow of streetlights through the window
the jazz man sits
drinking in the music
sipping slowly with his mind
He thinks of all the past loves
the broken promises
the unpaid
“Nina” — a poem by Luis Lazaro Tijerina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, also known as
Nina Simone — I hear you now —
O no one has ever been Blue like you!
So long, Miss Blue, your ways more blue than indigo,
your heart that sung to piano jazz in hot notes
that fell like a shower of stars, dazzling the
shadows of the night…
No other woman sang
Two new poems, by Michael L. Newell
WHY HE ASKED
Bereft of family, his only voice
a sax that created a neighborhood
of lost love and no future,
he slipped into memory where his story
was etched into daguerreotypes,
sketches of abandonment and hints of
