UP AND FULL

It’s the anybody;
the horned rimmed glasses,
book reader, bus rider, bow tie,
felt hat or tattoo that holds the
jazz.  Distilled in flavor, an aroma
gentle and fierce.  Its nail scratching,
lip swollen, pushing the peak of night
into morning.  Lifting the dog and
running with cats.

The piano and trumpet love this
place under hot lights and fans without
strength.  The stage fills its ocean
of rhythm tides, slapping the shoreline
with waves looking for home.  Low
fat winds, heavy in bruises break out
in disorder, feeding the blood of jazz.

OVERNIGHT

There’s a river of
lazy limping past this place.
A low growling sound
swirling around water dipped
branches and elbowing john boats.
Night births the sound of water,
squeezing out a language, drawing
wandering souls from loss
into the winds of jazz.

I seen them music people with
their guitars and dancing shadows,
laughing at fire sparks and
worshipping stars without names.

Jazz finally rolled night into sleep, leaving
slumbering hands and thirsty souls
to wait on the embers of evening to
replenish the need and heal the wounds.

________

Roger Singer is a prolific and accomplished contributing poet who we have proudly published for well over ten years.  Singer has had almost 800 poems published in magazines, periodicals and online journals — 400 of which are jazz poems — and has recently self-published a Kindle edition of his book of jazz poetry called Poetic Jazz.

“Jazz poetry flows out with such ease,” Singer writes on his blog. “The people and places, the alleys and sawdust jazz clubs. The stories that bring jazz alive with horns and voices, from sadness and grief to highs at midnight and love gone wrong. The jazz is within us all. Find your poem and feel the music.”

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