The Sunday Poem: “Five Short Poems for Freddie Green” by Daniel Warren Brown

March 1st, 2025

The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.

Daniel Warren Brown reads his poem at its conclusion.

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(Beginning in 1937, Freddie Green played rhythm guitar with
the Count Basie Orchestra and small groups such as The Kansas City Six for almost fifty years. He was content to be in the background, and rarely took a solo)

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Five Short Poems for Freddie Green

1. In the distance
a small blackbird
with red guitar epiphone wings—-
sings a far flung song, basic basie, cushioning
rushing winds and young spring crickets
—I search for hours
to isolate
its sunburst rhythm.

2. The Kansas City Six
as a painting:
blue monochrome canvas
a slight green brush stroke flourish
now as then, green is blue.

3. Lester Young speaks:
man, who left the
swing out the sauce,
there ain’t no pepper,
when Freddie’s not here.

4. hushed heavens hum, infinite stars
constellations like scattered chords in the moonlight night
Pythagoras meets Freddie Green.

5. You were never so anonymous
you could sleep in a white man’s hotel.

Listen to Daniel Warren Brown read his poem

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Daniel W. Brown has loved jazz (and music in general) ever since he delved into his parents’ 78 collection as a child. He is a retired special education teacher who began writing as a senior. He always appreciates being published in journals and anthologies. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel writes daily about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination.

Listen to the 1957 recording of the Count Basie Orchestra (with Freddie Green on guitar) playing Green’s composition “Corner Pocket” [Universal Music Group]