was the whiskey and the jazz playing
On too many black nights with too
Many lonely women and not a poem
Between them
How many times can you run
From the shadow of the voices that
Surround you
Beating like drums in the darkness
Tasting more of your flesh each time
Not leaving enough for a man to breathe
No way for a man to live
How could the hep-cat jive survive
When my voice can only spit silence
Wasn't a dream left to filter thru
The night worn inside and out and
Bled dry a bottle singing the page blank and life in the hands of
the haves laughing at the broken shadows of the have-nots
There was a club on 34th and Second Ave where the jazzman
swung
All night long beat poets recited Tuesdays' nights and Jack was
always drunk in the third booth
Scrawling poems on paper bags and notebooks
Taking life hard on the chin and after a while not fighting back
anymore
Ain't the road thzt donev Jack in
Sweetness is a Jasmine January
Seeds its scent along the inkberry
Starflowers streaming a fecund path
I bask in a heavenly perfumed bath
Winter bouquets an Elysian Field sanctuary
Jasmine scents ladies of the night
Jazzman ticklin’ ivory ‘neath a sultry light
With a surging merge all kept warm
During the raunchy ruckus and snowstorm
New Orleans brothels wintery delights
i see him there, bathed in the light,
the sound the music melding quite,
the jazz man suddenly jerks upright,
a fluid cresendo comes, incites,
the crowds resounding,
pure delight,
re : pd "JAZZ MAN"
Don
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.