god pity me whom(god distinctly has)
the weightless svelte drifting sexual feather
of your shall I say body?follows
truly through a dribbling moan of jazz
whose arched occasional stepped youth swallows
curvingly the keeness of my hips;
or,your first twitch of crisp boy flesh dips
my height in a firm fragile stinging weather,
(breathless with sharp necessary lips)kid
female cracksman of the nifty,ruffian-rogue,
laughing body with wise breasts half-grown,
lisping flesh quick to thread the fattish drone
of I Want a Doll,
wispish-agile feet with slid
steps parting the tousle of saxophonic brogue.
*
OL’ BUNK’S BAND - William Carlos Williams
These are men! the gaunt, unfore-
sold, the vocal,
blatant, Stand up, stand up! the
slap of a bass-string.
Pick, ping! The horn, the
hollow horn
long drawn out, a hound deep
tone—
Choking, choking! while the
treble reed
races—alone, ripples, screams
slow to fast—
to second to first! These are men!
Drum, drum, drum, drum, drum
drum, drum! the
ancient cry, escaping crapulence
eats through
transcendent—torn, tears, term
town, tense,
turns and backs off whole, leaps
up, stomps down,
rips through! These are men
beneath
whose force the melody limps—
to
proclaim, proclaims—Run and
lie down,
in slow measures, to rest and
not never
need no more! These are men!
Men!
*
CHASING THE BIRD - Robert Creeley
The sun sets unevenly and the people
go to bed.
The night has a thousand eyes.
The clouds are low, overhead.
Every night it is a little bit
more difficult, a little
harder. My mind
to me a mangle is.
*
FOR MILES - Gregory Corso
Your sound is faultless
pure & round
holy
almost profound
Your sound is your sound
true & from within
a confession
soulful & lovely
Poet whose sound is played
lost or recorded
but heard
can you recall that 54 night at the Open Door
when you & bird
wailed five in the morning some wondrous
yet unimaginable score?
*
From WRITTEN TO MUSIC
if the pain is greater
than the difference
as the bird in the night
or the perfumes in the moon
of witch of question
oh lips of submission
in the flesh of summer
the silver slipper
in the sleeping forest
if hope surpasses the question
by the mossy spring
in the moon of harvest
between the pillars of silk
in the luminous difference
oh tongue of music
oh teacher of splendor
if the meat of the heart
if the fluid of the wing
as love
if birth
or trust as
love as love
*
time turns like tables
the indifferent and blissful Spring
saves all souls and seeds and slaves asleep
dark Spring
in the dark whispering human will
words spoken by two kissing tongues
hissing union
Eve’s snake
stars come on
two naked bodies tremble
through bodiless Christmas tree
blazing like bees and rosebuds
fire turns to falling powder
lips relax and smile asleep
fire sweeps
the hearth of the blood
on far off red double stars
they probate their own tied wills
*
EPISTROPHE - Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones)
It’s such a static reference; looking
out the window all the time! the eyes’ limits . . .
On good days, the sun.
& what you see. (here in New York)
Walls and buildings; or in the hidden gardens
of opulent Queens; profusion, endless stretches of leisure.
It’s like being chained to some dead actress;
and she keeps trying to tell you something horribly maudlin.
e. g. (“the leaves are flat and motionless.”)
What I know of the mind
seems to end here;
Just outside my face.
I wish some weird looking animal
would come along.
from the anthology Jazz Poems, selected and edited by Kevin Young, publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
in English · Texts · Poetry