Best Poems - Music

“It started with an alto horn, and a young
boy who’d grown faster than he should have, and
who’d become great before he should have, and
who sought for the source of the feeling deep in-
side before he should have. He stood in his room
and started with a short burst of notes, and then
sought the tone he’d felt inside him, but which
he couldn’t match he couldn’t match by blowing.
He blew, fast, and beautifully; seeking the right
burst of notes, notes blown so fast that only God’s 
perfection would be a match for it. He tried for
a tone that he’d never heard, but which he knew
as a sensation of mystery, of greatness, a feeling
that he was bigger than he seemed to be, could
blow faster than his fingers were letting him,
could cry out the tone that cried within him. All
this strained inside him, strained and drove him,
pushed him and made him whip his fingers upon
the valves of his horn until they hurt. And his
lungs seemed to bleed inside; his eyes ran water,
and he kept blowing, and blowing, with his eyes
closed to the white of the daytime and the touch
of the wind and the sound of the fists banging
at the door, and the bark of the voices outside
his door, shouting: ‘Open up! It’s the police!
What’s going on in there?'”

“First hold the needle
     like a lover’s hand
Lower it slowly
     let it tongue
     the record’s ear
Then cultivate
 the sweet beats
     blooming in the valley
     of the groove
Laugh at folks
     that make requests
What chef would let
     the diners determine
Which entrees
     make up the menu?
Young boys
     think it’s about
flashy flicks
     of the wrist
But it’s about filling the floor
     with the manic
     language of dance
About knowing the beat
of every record
     like a mama knows
     her child’s cries
Nobody cares
how fast you scratch
Cuz it ain’t about
     soothing any itch
It’s about how many hairstyles
     are still standing
At the end of the night.

“She was a girl
no one ever chose
for teams or clubs,
dances or dates,

so she chose the instrument
no one else wanted:
the tuba.  Big as herself,
heavy as her heart,

its golden tubes
and coils encircled her
like a lover’s embrace.
Its body pressed on hers. 

Into its mouthpiece she blew
like, its deep-throated
oompahs, oompahs sounding,
almost, like mating cries.”

“It was ’34 Oklahoma and L.C. was doing a gig
People were doing the Texas Two Step
And greasing on the pig
There were mounds upon mounds of ice cream
The pies were crusty and fine
The following story is true and I ain’t lying’
Good Rockin’ Robinson was packing them in 
But the noise of a Ford sedan disrupted the 
Din
A woman and a man
The man had a grin

They were 
Just rollin’ along
Just rollin’ along

Her lap held a Thompson
The barrel was long
‘I’ll give you 12 silver dollars,’ she said
‘If you play our song’
‘I’m sitting on top of the world’
‘I’m sitting on top of the world’

They were Just rollin’ along
Just rollin’ along

They paid Good Rockin’ and
Were on their way
Very few in the crowd will forget that
Day
The policeman pulled up
He was all out of breath
‘Did you see a couple in a Ford
Come this way?
She was dapper,’ he said
‘He wore a Newsboy cap
And a pistol on his side.’

Good Rockin’ asked who was
In that ride
The policeman said
‘It was Bonnie and Clyde’
The policeman said
‘It was Bonnie and Clyde’

They were
Just rollin’ along
Just rollin’ along”

“Still tingling with Basie’s hard cooking,
between sets I stood at the bar
when the man next to me ordered
scotch and milk. I looked to see who had
this stray taste and almost swooned
when I saw it was the master.
Basie knocked his shot back,
then, when he saw me gaping,
raised his milk to my peachy face
and rolled out his complete smile
before going off with friends
to leave me in that state of grace.

A year later I was renting rooms
from a woman named Tillie who wanted
no jazz in her dank, unhallowed house.
Objecting even to lowest volume of solo piano,
she’d puff upstairs to bang on my door.

I grew opaque, unwell,
slouched to other apartments,
begging to play records.
Duked, dePrezed, and unBased,
longing for Billy, Monk, Brute, or Zoot,
I lived in silence through
that whole lost summer.

Still aware of divine favor, I bided time
and waited for the day of reckoning.
My last night in Tillie’s godless house,
late—when I knew she was hard asleep—
I gave her the full One O’Clock Jump,
having Basie ride his horse of perfect time
like an avenging angel over top volume,
hoisting his scotch and milk as he galloped
into Tillie’s ear, headlong down her throat
to roar all night in her sulphurous organs.”