STORM WARNING
Wind-swept sheets of rain, notes
gusting from Oscar Peterson’s fingers, grounded,
soaked up by rock-steady Ray Brown, the night’s pulse,
and the swaying, whispering bushes—brushes
in Ed Thigpen’s hands, thunder rumbles miles off,
a drumroll beneath the music’s surface.
No weather report, this, it is a front
moving through, leaving everyone and
everything changed.
_____
Michael L. Newell is a retired secondary school English/Theatre teacher who currently lives on the south-central Oregon coast. He has had poems recently published in (among other places) Verse-Virtual, Culture Counter, The Iconoclast, Ship of Fools, and Red Eft Review.
I’ve been witness to a few of those nights where you walk away from a jazz club feeling like something has shifted inside that you just want to hold on to. Thanks, MIke!
Nice, Michael…. I can feel the storm and the human reflections on it. I
recall nights like that. They do change things and people and leave us groping for more such experiences.
You have a very cool way with words. I like your vision of Oscar and trio. Keep on keepin on…and writing!