poem for swing
I ask what, my dear, would you like to hear
on this fine Sunday morning?
Jazz, she replies, I’m enjoying the horns, how
they sing and sweetly siiiigh
hello and goodbye, OK, my dear, let us embark
on that melodious sea
you and
me,
I find my mind being left behind in time
to pops on the vinyl, Dixieland
on the tube, never Coltrane or 5/4 rattling my door,
I swore the slops on AM radio
make you sick in the very soul
sure, poetry nuts are born not made
Dylan never fades far from my view,
bebop on vinyl from my local shop (Diz and Bird how absurd!)
took me to the tippity top dig it!
imagining a scene, I had no right to visualise
suits and skinny ties,
Slowly surely, I descend into Sunday morning, sans amens
my repertoire from the stream
of algorythmic swill still tantalises and teases
my teenage self
listening to Nighthawks at the Diner
nothing finer, or the sweet Wes on Bock to Bock
put some swing in the strings!
(octave finger stretch in private I failed)
but right here, right now
Sunday morning jazz prevails.
Next week it could easily be
new wave or Krautrock,
but my wife she gets first shot
on Sunday morning.
Chris
Chris' Poetry 