Written by
Adrian Green |
New moon on the lake.
Your voice and the nightingale
serenade springtime.
Full moon on the lake.
Your voice and the waterbirds
celebrate summer.
Old moon on the lake.
Owls hunting autumnal food -
your voice still singing.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
Not blues in twelve
but there is joy
and pink champagne,
the maker’s music
trading eights
in syncopated synergy
from Dixieland to Rock ‘n’ Roll,
and here the cornet-master
leads in tones
a trumpet cannot blow.
The sidemen nod their harmonies,
engrossed;
their music coursing
through an energy of swing;
piano-player’s fingers
dancing round the tune;
a lover’s touch
caressing melody from bass;
and sax, deep throated tenor
shouting counterpoint
above the drums’
percussive ricochets.
Not blues in twelve,
but upbeat late
and shimmying
like Sister Kate.
The cornet-master
blows
an emptiness away.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
There are no lies
in the morning
no cheating of age
an illusion of eye
smoothing skin over bone.
No portrait hidden away
becoming skeletal
and demanding release.
Another day to face,
my confessor, so laugh
at this charting of years.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
in the soft jazz and midnight hour
your eyes are dancing close to mine
a sway of hips, a touch of lips
while on the stand
piano player’s fingers
dance around the tune
above a gentle touch
caressing music from the bass
your fingers up and down my spine
in the soft jazz and midnight hour
we lose ourselves in bluenote time
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Written by
Adrian Green |
Some like to dominate,
others caress
a voluptuous rhythm
on pliant strings.
This pulse drives life
through wanton counterpoint,
the heart and harmony
of things.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
Drifting on a tide from long ago,
They swing at anchor silently
Wreathed in early morning mist,
Like ghosts grown mellow with antiquity.
With names like Gladys, Will and Edith May
Heroic legends motionless on ancient bows,
They are waiting for the breeze, patiently
Submissive to the whims of air and ebb.
Later, with windlass rattling as anchors are weighed,
Sails set at the stirring of wind over tide
They bear away a pageant of remembered trade -
A flock of stately seabirds through the lanes.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
The curlew and the heron call,
the hissing mud and whispering wings
beat eery through the idle air
until the moonlit midnight silence falls
and then the tide flows softly
through the gut and sluice of estuary sands
and dark against the dreamlit sky
the trees arise from hedgerows,
and the hills
alive with monstrous shapes
are menacing with soundless fear,
and still below the blundering man,
the beery and uncertain head,
the stubbled fields hold secrets now
and silence fills the river bed.
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Written by
Adrian Green |
Pottering around the stage,
a hyperactive ancient in his own backyard -
independent of the band it seems.
Disrhythmic shuffling of ashtray,
beer, a pack of cigarettes,
adjusting microphones,
then in the middle eight
he draws, exhales, and catches breath,
stoops forward to the mouthpiece
and blows,
a tumbling counterpoint,
scales soaring from his horn.
The melody flows
until the break,
and then he shoulders arms,
a truce between the music and his ailing lungs.
Between choruses he sits apart
to light another cigarette,
a sideman counting out the bars
until he rises for the coda -
this Lazarus of swing.
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