" I'm A Jazz Singer, " She Replied

Related poetry:

1. Jazz Chick Music from her breast, vibrating Soundseared into burnished velvet. Silent hips deceiving fools. Rivulets of trickling ecstacy From the alabaster pools of Jazz Where music cools hot souls. Eyes more articulately silent Than Medusa’s thousand tongues. A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles Reveal her presence singing Of cool remembrance, happy balls Wrapped in swinging Jazz […]...
2. O-Jazz-O Where the string At Some point, Was umbilical jazz, Or perhaps, In memory, A long lost bloody cross, Buried in some steel cavalry. In what time For whom do we bleed, Lost notes, from some jazzman’s Broken needle. Musical tears from lost Eyes. Broken drumsticks, why? Pitter patter, boom dropping Bombs in the middle Of […]...
3. Bluenote Time in the soft jazz and midnight hour Your eyes are dancing close to mine A sway of hips, a touch of lips While on the stand Piano player’s fingers Dance around the tune Above a gentle touch Caressing music from the bass Your fingers up and down my spine In the soft jazz and midnight […]...
4. Jazzanatomy 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....
5. Jazz Fantasia DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like […]...
6. French Quarter Singer Strumming your polished guitar with long, nail-lightened fingers, Where are you now, leaning forward a peasant-dressed arm – Lark on the near side of midnight, my crescent curb lady, Ear to your sound, dangling each with a silver folk charm? Sweet was your voice for an evening, amid the brash jazzy – Seamless soprano, your […]...
7. Crimson Changes People DID I see a crucifix in your eyes And nails and Roman soldiers And a dusk Golgotha? Did I see Mary, the changed woman, Washing the feet of all men, Clean as new grass When the old grass burns? Did I see moths in your eyes, lost moths, With a flutter of wings that meant: […]...
8. The Missing All prevented Me The Missing All prevented Me From missing minor Things. If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a Hinge Or Sun’s extinction, be observed ‘Twas not so large that I Could lift my Forehead from my work For Curiosity....
9. O Singer in Brown O, singer in brown! O, bird o’ th’ morn! O, heart of delight In th’ deep o’ th’ thorn! Glad is thy song Thou joy o’ th’ morn, Thou palpitant throat In the heart o’ th’ thorn! Thy song of the nest, O, sweet o’ th’ morn! A nest and an egg In the thick […]...
10. The Fair Singer To make a final conquest of all me, Love did compose so sweet an Enemy, In whom both Beauties to my death agree, Joyning themselves in fatal Harmony; That while she with her Eyes my Heart does bind, She with her Voice might captivate my Mind. I could have fled from One but singly fair: […]...
11. A Singer That which he did not feel, he would not sing; What most he felt, religion it was to hide In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring Of tremulous tears, arising unespied, Became a holy well that durst not glide Into the day with moil or murmuring; Whereto, as if to some unlawful thing, He […]...
12. The Master Singer A LAUGHTER in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass; And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass: “I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moon-glow in the mind; My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind. I am the fire […]...
13. Singer in the Prison, The 1 O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! O fearful thought-a convict Soul! RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison, Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard, Reaching the far-off sentry, and the […]...
14. The Late Singer Here it is spring again And I still a young man! I am late at my singing. The sparrow with the black rain on his breast Has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past: What is it that is dragging at my heart? The grass by the back door Is stiff with sap. The […]...
15. A Singer of the Bush There is waving of grass in the breeze And a song in the air, And a murmur of myriad bees That toil everywhere. There is scent in the blossom and bough, And the breath of the Spring Is as soft as a kiss on a brow And Spring-time I sing. There is drought on the […]...
16. Round About Midnight Jazz radio on a midnight kick, Round about Midnight. Sitting on the bed, With a jazz type chick Round about Midnight, Piano laughter, in my ears, Round about Midnight. Stirring up laughter, dying tears, Round about Midnight. Soft blue voices, muted grins, Excited voices, Father’s sins, Round about Midnight. Come on baby, take off your […]...
17. Songs For A Colored Singer I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong to me. The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; we got a little portable. They got a lot of closet space; we got a suitcase. I say, “Le Roy, just how much are we […]...
18. Room 5: The Concert Singer I’m one of these haphazard chaps Who sit in cafes drinking; A most improper taste, perhaps, Yet pleasant, to my thinking. For, oh, I hate discord and strife; I’m sadly, weakly human; And I do think the best of life Is wine and song and woman. Now, there’s that youngster on my right Who thinks […]...
19. To My Brother George Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn;-the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;- The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, Its voice mysterious, which […]...
20. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
21. The Mysterious Cat A chant for a children’s pantomime dance, suggested by a picture painted by George Mather Richards. I saw a proud, mysterious cat, I saw a proud, mysterious cat Too proud to catch a mouse or rat- Mew, mew, mew. But catnip she would eat, and purr, But catnip she would eat, and purr. And goldfish […]...
22. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
23. Cassidy's Epitaph Here lies a bloke who’s just gone West, A Number One Australian; He took his gun and did his best To mitigate the alien. So long as he could get to work He needed no sagacity; A German, Austrian, or Turk, Were all the same to Cassidy. Wherever he could raise “the stuff” A liquor […]...
24. Under Her Dark Veil Under her dark veil she wrung her hands. “Why are you so pale today?” “Because I made him drink of stinging grief Until he got drunk on it. How can I forget? He staggered out, His mouth twisted in agony. I ran down not touching the bannister And caught up with him at the gate. […]...
25. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
26. Mystery WHY does this sudden passion smite me? I stretch my hands, all blind to see: I need the lamp of the world to light me, Lead me and set me free. Something a moment seemed to stoop from The night with cool, cool breath on my face: Or did the hair of the twilight droop […]...
27. The Noon Hour SHE sits in the dust at the walls And makes cigars, Bending at the bench With fingers wage-anxious, Changing her sweat for the day’s pay. Now the noon hour has come, And she leans with her bare arms On the window-sill over the river, Leans and feels at her throat Cool-moving things out of the […]...
28. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
29. Turns And Movies: Dancing Adairs Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel, Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight, And into the shadow again, without a whisper!- Firefly’s my name, I am evanescent. Firefly’s your name. You are evanescent. But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness, And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always, […]...
30. Bojangles And Jo 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....
31. From "THE TALK OF FLOWERS&quot I do not know, whether the sun Accomplished it, The rain or wind – But I was missing so The whiteness and the snow. I listened to the rustling Of spring rain, Washing the reddish buds Of chestnut-trees, – And a tiny spring ran down Into the valley from the hill – And I was […]...
32. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
33. The Alligator Bride The clock of my days winds down. The cat eats sparrows outside my window. Once, she brought me a small rabbit Which we devoured together, under The Empire Table While the men shrieked Repossessing the gold umbrella. Now the beard on my clock turns white. My cat stares into dark corners Missing her gold umbrella. […]...
34. Dream Song 29: There sat down, once, a thing There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart Só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. Starts again always in Henry’s ears The little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. And there is another thing he has in mind Like […]...
35. An Opera House Within the gold square of the proscenium arch, A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds, Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind. Gold carving edges the balconies, Rims the boxes, Runs up and down fluted pillars. Little knife-stabs of gold Shine out whenever a box door is opened. Gold clusters […]...
36. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
37. PEACEFUL GROUND Cool Morning spit on bladed grass. A Thousand silky fingers tickling toes. The strong scent of natures freshly cut hair. Mans spiritual stamping groung toward inner Peace....
38. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
39. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
40. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...