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Image by Matthias Gabriel from Pixabay

 

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Up in the Attic

 

……………“If only this: in tough times, it is important
…………….to find your own pockets of joy in life.”—John Cobb

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stepping up the stairway
I carry my trumpet up here

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up here in the partial dark
at seventy-two years

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it’s just about me
and my old trumpet

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after a couple of tries
I can still hit high “c”

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I am also playing along
to a chet baker songbook

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though not practicing and playing
for crowds anymore

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just playing, for the bare roof
and rafters, reverberating overhead

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it’s o.k. … though

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it’s where I want to be playing
in a small pocket place

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if I could just play & see
(out of the attic window)

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just see, more of what
chet baker played and saw

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at his beginning
on his stairway to the stars

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just way up here

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up in the attic

 

 

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Alan Yount, 72, has written and published poetry for over 50 years. His many poems have appeared over the years in publications such as WestWard Quarterly (where he was invited to be the Featured Writer and Poet for the summer, 2018 issue), Big Scream, Green’s Magazine (Canada), Spring: the Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society (academic journal), Wind, Legend, Roanoke Review, Tidepool, Art Centering Magazine (Zen Center of Hawaii), Wormwood Review, Palo Alto Review, Barefoot Grass Journal, Frontier: Custom & Archetype, Modern Haiku, and The Pegasus Review.

He has been in three anthologies: Passionate Hearts (New World Library), Sunflowers and Locomotives: Songs for Allen Ginsberg (published by Nada Press and the poet David Cope). Alan was one of 31 poets along with Gary Snyder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The third anthology was The Chrysalis Reader.

Alan also plays jazz trumpet, and has led his own dance band. He is a direct descendant of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone.

 

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Chet Baker plays “Stairway to the Stars”

 

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