Jazz

Hello Poets, writers or not, today is the day.


Jazz

His hands, like alligators, are eating up the keys
And he’s there, facing the music, jumping up a little on the bench
To pull the notes out of that battered old box,
Running up the keyboard to hit the one note that gets you,
Left hand laying down the beat for the trumpet to soar over.
We’re pinned to our chairs and know there is nothing else to do
Except, take it in.

The trumpet now is overstated, but no matter, the moment will pass
And another will come to take its place and then it will be now again.
Always now, moving to the next bar, the next inspiration,
One note coming out of the one before it, without thought,
All made from feeling, rising to drive us crazy.

- Ted Ringer



And, oh, the past.



Canis Major

The great Overdog.
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye,
Gives a leap in the east.

He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.

I'm a poor underdog,
But tonight I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

- Robert Frost