MIDNIGHT LISTENING TO DEXTER GORDON

the pain contained within those
seemingly effortless sounds
lifts us from our couches
to applaud years
after the event

the tone arches stretches slinks struts
leaps to fence tops and deftly prances
the length of a city block

moonlight flashes off a switchblade
and a world freezes awaiting
the spurt and stain of red

honey slides slowly
golden and thick
from a horn we slide
deeper into seats
to rediscover love

when silence is starkly
once again upon us
we don’t move hoping
to hear even the faintest
of echoes lingering

eventually we remember
to breathe

First published in A Stranger to the Land (Garden Street Press, 1997)

Michael L. Newell was a long time expatriate teacher (over twenty years) who has recently retired to coastal Oregon after living in thirteen other countries on five continents. He has also lived in thirteen of the United States. His work has been published in, among other places, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, Bellowing Ark, Culture Counter, Ship of Fools, Lilliput Review, and Rattle. He has had a number of books and chapbooks published. Among them are Traveling without Compass or Map (Bellowing Ark Press), A Long Time Traveling, Seeking Shelter, and Collision Course (all from Four Sep Press).