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James A Emanuel Short Poems

Famous Short James A Emanuel Poems. Short poetry by famous poet James A Emanuel. A collection of the all-time best James A Emanuel short poems


by James A Emanuel
 Four-letter word JAZZ:
naughty, sexy, cerebral,
but solarplexy.



by James A Emanuel
 He dug what she said:
bright jellies, smooth marmalade
spread on warm brown bread.

"Jazz" from drowsy lips
orchids lift to honeybees
floating on long sips.

"Jazz": quick fingerpops
pancake on a griddle-top
of memories. Stop.

"Jazz": mysterious
as nutmeg, missing fingers,
gold, Less serious.

"Jazz": cool bannister.
Don't need no stair. Ways to climb
when the sax is there.

by James A Emanuel
 I
My friends do not know.
But what could my friends not know?
About what? What friends?

II
She sleeps late each day,
stifling each reason to rise,
choked into the quilt.

III
"I'll never find work."
She swallows this thought with pills,
finds tears in the glass.

Greens  Create an image from this poem
by James A Emanuel
 Lid's on, steam's risin':
collard greens, Lord, bubblin' JAZZ!
That's appetizin'.

by James A Emanuel
 EVERYTHING is jazz:
snails, jails, rails, tails, males, females,
snow-white cotton bales.

Knee-bone, thigh, hip-bone.
Jazz slips you percussion bone
classified "unknown."

Slick lizard rhythms,
cigar-smoke tunes, straight-gin sky
laced with double moons.

Second-chance rhythms,
don't-give-up riffs: jazz gets HIGH
off can'ts, buts, and ifs.



by James A Emanuel
 I hear a whistling
Through the water.
Little Emmett
Won't be still.
He keeps floating
Round the darkness,
Edging through
The silent chill.
Tell me, please,
That bedtime story
Of the fairy
River Boy
Who swims forever,
Deep in treasures,
Necklaced in
A coral toy.




* In 1955, Till, a fourteen-year-old from Chicago, for
allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi, was murdered
by white men who tied a gin mill fan around his neck and threw his
body into the Tallahatchie River.

by James A Emanuel
 Stairstep music: ups,
downs, Bill Robinson smiling,
jazzdancing the rounds.

She raised champagne lips,
danced inside banana hips.
All Paris wooed Jo.

Banana panties,
perfumed belt, Jazz tatooing
lush ecstasies felt.

Josephine, royal,
jewelling her dance, flushing
the bosom of France.

by James A Emanuel
 A little bit of fool in me
Hides behind my inmost tree
And pops into the narrow path
I walk blindfolded by my wrath
Or shrunken by some twist of pain,
Some hope that will not wind again.
He ogles with his antic eyes
and somersaults a you're-not-wise
Until the patches in his pants
Go colorwheeling through my glance
So fast that I cannot recall
That I was mad or sad at all.
A little bit of fool in me
Keeps evergreen my inmost tree.

by James A Emanuel
 There ain't NO-BO-DY
can dance like THAT, 'cept them twins
Jazzlene and Jazzphat.

by James A Emanuel
 Satchmo's warm burlap,
Duke's cool cashmere: fine fabrics
make your love "Come here!"

by James A Emanuel
 To every man
His treehouse,
A green splice in the humping years,
Spartan with narrow cot
And prickly door.

To every man
His twilight flash
Of luminous recall
 of tiptoe years
 in leaf-stung flight;
 of days of squirm and bite
 that waved antennas through the grass;
 of nights
 when every moving thing
 was girlshaped,
 expectantly turning.

To every man
His house below
And his house above—
With perilous stairs
Between.

by James A Emanuel
 In tight pants, tight skirts,
Stretched or squeezed,
Youth hurts,
Crammed in, bursting out,
Flesh will sing
And hide its doubt
In nervous hips, hopping glance,
Usurping rouge,
Provoking stance.

Put off, or put on,
Youth hurts. And then
It's gone.

by James A Emanuel
 Pin- La- SCATS :
 ball dy
tis- tas- bumps
 ket raps ket, back.

 yel- bas-
Wins low ket.

by James A Emanuel
 « I sing the LORD'S songs »
(palms once tough to stay alive,
alarm clock on five).

Cinnamon cheeks, Lord,
cornbread smile. SONGS feed your ribs
when you're hungry, chile.

Washboard certainties,
soldierly grace, text and style
in her brimming face.

Your hand on your heart,
her voice in your ear: pilgrim,
rest easy. Sit here.

by James A Emanuel
 Once Ugly Duckling,
rich plumage grew. Poised, Bird flew.
Flocks followed. Me too.

by James A Emanuel
 "Love Supreme," JA-A-Z train,
tops. prompt lightning-express, but
made ALL local stops.

by James A Emanuel
 Always searching, may you find;
if you run-down,
may you wind;
every year
may you grow
reaping only
what you sow
sowing only in the seed
what will ripen into need
what will sweeten to the touch
seeming little, being much.

May your playmates be a song,
may your friends just skip along
laughing you into their game
letting you remain the same
in their hearts and on their lips
even when their fingertips
have to let you go your way—
glad they saw Alix today.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry