SHARPS AND FLATS
In a high rise block in Toxteth lived a Jazz clarinettist called Joe.
His fans in the Jazz club worshipped him and flocked to every show.
And night after night in that smoke filled club, his fingers weaved a spell,
While the audience cheered to the echo, unaware of his private hell
For, every night, in his tenth-floor flat, before he could play again,
He injected himself with Dutch courage to deaden the inner pain
It began with soothing cannabis, which the law doesn’t class as abuse
Just so long as that stash in the biscuit tin is purely for personal use
It can’t do any harm, they said, to smoke the occasional spliff;
Then the drummer introduced him to a line of white powder to sniff
It was just an occasional habit he wasn’t dependent upon
But he found that his music lost its edge when the buzz of the powder had gone
His dealer had something better at an introductory price
He wouldn’t become addicted if he tried it once or twice.
His music got better and better and the audience howled for more
But now he was hooked on heroin and stealing in order to score
One Sunday he didn’t turn up at the club so the band was reduced to three
Who thanked him as they pocketed a larger slice of the fee
When they tried to ‘phone on Monday, his mobile wasn’t on.
The neighbours hadn’t seen him and thought he might have gone
They found him three days later in his squalid tenth-floor flat
When they forced the front door open past the junk mail on the mat.
“Death by misadventure”, said the Coroner’s report.
“A tragic waste of talent,” he told the crowded court.
The church was overflowing on the chill November day
As they gathered to remember him and send him on his way.
A host of jazz musicians and a multitude of fans
Joined in celebrating the life of a gifted man.
His own band followed the coffin as they took him from the nave
Out to the wintry churchyard to lower him into his grave.
They have a new clarinettist now but, although he’s very good,
He doesn’t have Joe’s magic; well nobody ever could.
He lacks that extra something that no-one can define.
But the drummer’s offered a helping hand – in the form of a thin white line
Copyright © Bryn Strudwick | Year Posted 2025
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