his name was John Coltrane, and when his long fingers,touched tenor saxophone keys, his notes slapped jaded, sullen attitudes, about jazz, including my own, musical notes ,leaped, bent, twisted, soaredin the air, as he played ,with eyes closed, as if lost in,a personal dream, the saxophone moaned, cried. whispered, told the good news, on the mountaintop, Coltrane was in the house, rocking it, he did it,simply, yet, unlike any other,ever heard before ,that moment, gone now, in the shadows of time, but his music, remains, still gathers new followers attention,pointing ,an indignant finger of cool, at those, who wish, they knew,coltrane, before he left, the station

The Crickets cackle “crisp,”
With an only interruption, being I,
Atop dust, whisper and
Desert highway.
I’d tell you if I were running,
But I’m not quite sure, not yet,
Leaving the Coyote to eat,
Respite, and devoured,
The singing Crickets,
A’howl later,
To deliver answers unimpeded.

I have a faint memory –
A snake’s grip promised, via hand and
Crystal contingency,
“Wiser,” once bestowed, the mystic;
An epic complete, atop 17 years of thunder,
Steel stained crimson,
Street stained whimper
And forever remaining,
“Under-construction.”

Symbolic a more relevant scaffold,
½ bamboo and the other steel, the tower,
Note ‘fore me, it’s only purpose –
Elsewhere, and anonymous,
While I tap my belly to some
Melody we’d once enjoyed;
Maybe something by, “Coltrane,”
Or maybe not; but music we’d both
Recognize and reminisce too.

It’s an awkward alchemy of sorts,
As the Crickets, post-mortem,
Persist if only to chirp, and the Coyote mulls.
When the dust continues to cake.
When the whisper finds newer ears.
When interrupt’s abrupt, erupts,
Pacifies and interrupts again;
My precious distraction –
An amnesia loyal in away from, “then.”
Somewhere beyond, “there,”
And onward, “anew.”

Hear the bass, grace notes race all over the place
Cymbals paced, hi-hats chase, weaving between the bass
The piano - chords struck with wide spanned hands
Poly-rhythmic, multi-layered sounds in strands

The timbre of reed vibrating against warm metal
Precision; a sixth, a ninth and an eleventh interval
A major, a minor scale; a frantic modal sweat
A small sound for mankind; but a truly giant step

Each note slices through the eclectic beat-drop
Singing and whispering this post-modern be-bop
Multi-phonics scream, like controlled feedback
The seductive saxophone – this weapon of attack

The boundary is stretched, new ground broken
The holy saxophone has never thus spoken
And I pay homage, all my deepest respects
Go to the man who made those giant steps

secrets at dusk
tasted vigorous as
Coltrane blues

in a smokey nightclub
under mysterious saxophone seas

this style is not my own
but it helps me swim better

I decided to adopt it
curious why it tugs ruthless
on spit fire sleeves

deliciously drowning me free.




forest moons at night

help you drop it all
bags of unwanted programs
flung from broken chimneys

violet threads pass perfect
through kitchen chipped glass

moth wings burning summer up
like her eyelash fluttering innocently on some other guy's cheek

shattering divisions snag
on moonlight betrayal dance

enormous sea hooks chop in
helpless lips seduced
mad quicksilver rush

reserve this room for my only friend

we have private letters to write
on a future night when
god dreams come true.

This is for you.





My only friend.


What weighs heavy is certain light
how it pierces
through troubled waters.

A million traces of faces
lit up in every beam.

One night I felt it bleed through me
using rivers of sun-fire screams.

Volcanic poetry spoke without a sound.

Jim Morrison breaking through doors
under spells of hypnotic waves
wild vibrant shimmering
on multi-colored sheets.

This style is not my own
but it helped me lava streak
across bitter shores.




Now,

my voice strays away.

Gone hunting

a broken well voice
picked up by an old cracked bucket
leaking simple worded wishes

deciding to voluntarily borrow her
stolen forest eyes.

I heard them speak translucent leaf
on a summer day
when clairvoyant kids
heard God speak

on pathways of brilliant blue lake

when sunshine
whispered us
in scintillating ripples

right before our astounded,
washed feet.




I am dripping funeral summer sweat
under tombstone studded trees

smiling while choking in
liquid clouded dark.

Alone but not alone.

Mighty Ghosts of heaven
holding my head up

making sure the Nile
doesn't gush out while
I still cannot even write or speak

turn my notebooks into confetti
nothing describes this mysterious sea

a new species of saxophone waves
has belted its killer wonderland
sound out across an entire broken stage.


*

I can picture us
walking barefoot
on star contacted sand

gazing out
under champion chandelier wonders

walking on Texas Lightning storm colors
bellies full on Rumi soul food

our secret flames
burning up
plastic playgrounds

violating propriety
on some nuclear guarded beach

schools of fish cut
by saxophone hooked seas

blasted by vaults of unwrapped poems
someone else wrote perfect
in our dreams

we hope one day
the unpredictable silence
of simple worded wishes

will help us

extravagantly bloom
new spring leaves
rain stamped on tender delicious works

after winter is done
savagely wishing us dead
we are touched by other worlds.

a note before i end the pending poem.

i know i'm not writing anything "in the groove"
or whatever urban tonguing i should use to invent
the new form of glue: to stick with the trends.
                    when people read candyfloss
literature i read lead literature,
  that's how it goes, i find too many poets
angry shouting down other people's throats,
i find them in positions where they think
they empower people: but rarely do.
   i write for the sole purpose of a demographic,
a democracy of sorts, i never want to hear
my voice regurgitated back at me,
i find it prickly, apart from the half-digested content
i am actually opposing being fed it...
  i can't explain why i don't entertain,
write one poem every two years either, apart from
the fact that: well, writing a poem and then
performing it? performance doesn't really do much
for what's an ongoing voyage, performance to
the art is like a Moby **** moment:
   you get to tell the adventure of a shipwreck,
rather than the proof that the earth is not flat.
the additional benefit, you get to see how your
thinking interacts with symbols, and how these symbols
will never betray the tongue that doesn't speak them...
   you get to do x-ray upon x-ray and find that
stuff like this: is actually equivalent to a bone in your
tongue. as with the moment: when artists are quoted
as having said: words are meaningless...
     i guess there comes a time when, with that said:
punching someone dead means more.
   oh this pithy sentiments that only empower politicians
and the media... i might have said
    a baby's gluttonous gaga drool and you'd be like:
yay! happy days upon us!
                      when poetry isn't performed it continues
into the nether region of thoughts: it's not jeopardy
of suddenly fizzling out into a state of a stale champagne
bottle... the residual power is confiscates from speaking
it retains a close proximity of actually writing it,
on the basis that it becomes prolonged, and more concentrated,
it cannot be allowed to diffuse into the open,
into a crowd, for a democratic hurrah on we go.
  i wanted to simply see poetry as an optical exploration,
rather than a vocal necessity of the art,
      philosophy was clogged up in too many truths
and untruths, and basically too many paragraphs,
   i wanted to make frank the medium that abhors paragraphs,
and by the looks of it: punctuation marks.
well, it's all about pedantry to be honest,
               but then i never desired the urban lingua
of keeping with the zeitgeist... i see how keeping up
with the times is enshrined with materialism and how
fickle it all eventually becomes... you can never reach
a status of cool reaching for the obscure,
but that's what all attempts at fame end up being:
a quiz show, trivia, obscure knowledge, 0 points
means the best points available, and after that, the realisation
that all is empty, and that attempts at fame
become questions in a quiz show where the aim of
the game is to: name the most obscure answer possible...
oddly enough the same show invites celebrities to
take part in the quiz for charity... *pointless celebrities,
first word, yep, that's the name of the show.
oh no, i don't shun television, i do admit that watching
a brick wall is more entertaining drunk than television,
but the sober me has to do something from time to time.
so poetry: a medium that's opposite of vocally necessary,
a medium to explore the bone inside the tongue
that writing invokes: ****** stalemate...
      would i care to say why every word has a meaning?
unless you can speak hundsprechen i'd say only this,
that sort of reasoning is dangerous...
            we wouldn't get anything done is units of language
was meaningless... (hold on, i'm going to create
a crescendo for this point)...
you can say language is meaningless when you're
singing... vocalising language from these depths of
what would otherwise be known as the graveyard of surds
on the pure basis of optics and all cognitive parameters...
      sure, from these depths into an angelic gospel choir
you can get a meaninglessness: because it's so ******
    pleasurable... you can't deny a good song, you
can't compare the use of language in singing to the use
of language in lecturing some obscure topic by simply
talking... for thus words are sounds, and not the dreaded
pluralism of conventional talking: i.e. meanings.
              unlike the Chinese who have a certain capacity
to remember about 3000 ideograms, we have a much
bigger capacity, but our words are shrapnel and what we
don't have that the Chinese do have is:
                 a capacity for the multiplicity of meaning.
i can't imagine any ambiguity with Chinese ideograms
in the range of 3000 symbols... but there is clearly ambiguity
in our system...
                      obviously we can say words are meaningless
at times when rules of using language are lax given
the lies of politicians and the media roulette:
the fact that media is not state owned is even worse,
shadow brokers and a tarantula venom disorientating people.
   singing is an escape route from the socio-political
conventions of using language, hence the ambiguity trail
of what's deservedly called: socially-acceptable mode
of conduct, something that doesn't receive the ****** frown
of what would probably look like a lemon smiling.
  yet, if language doesn't give you a chance to see a labyrinth
then you have the shallows of singing... mm, yeah, mm, boo...
         ye-ha! ******* cowboys the whole lot of them...
but it's what it's supposed to be, something to be sung
for someone else to hear... it's not something written
down for someone else to see... and subsequently maybe
think about... oh how dreaded that statement seems in
English, a bit like denken scheiße / shy-se!
          people only make statements about the meaningless
of language when they sing... but that's the point:
you're making sounds, akin to the rhythm of my heart,
hence i don't think and subsequently go into a moshpit
or nod my head with some pigeon-like "cool" approval...
language is a bit like Shrek talking about onions...
it has layers, "spooky" other dimensions, oooh oooh...
Casper asked for a weener so he could invert necrophilia
and ghost-**** that ***... it has layers...
         somewhere between the Antarctica and the Arctic,
perhaps in the tropic of Capricorn, but who knows?
but i'll tell you one thing... it's not a white guy thing...
i finally understand why i don't like rap...
a bit like saying: a crowd shouting at a football match
is not an onomatopoeia of whatever is **** sapiens worthy...
   i think that classification actually predates
the expression of it... it's out there, but on the fringes...
         it's like this standard of protestantism with the concept
of predestination: we might just get there by Sunday
in the year 2099, but who knows?
        now i do understand why i don't like rap...
never liked it... couldn't stomach it...
   then i come across a beauty... so all those things i said
before, it culminates into this...
    Akua Naru, ring a bell? probably not,
3mil is nothing in today's celebrity cut-throat backstabbing...
     http://tinyurl.com/lt8ayhg... now that's entertainment...
that's what i love, how every instrument is
actually heard... the bass kicks in to set the tone
with the tickly percussion accents...
                       she's baking a cake...
she's layering...
  it's unlike that ****-culture music of pounding pounding
overly rhythmic and for every band these days
   it's one guitar = 20 violins of an orchestra's worth...
                  this is the new-jazz, or what John Coltrane
insinuated with the words: a love supreme, a love supreme.
            i don't know if it's poetry...
                                   a weak message on a stage might
always require a backing band, like a weak voice
might require a backing band... but this little critique doesn't
necessarily mean i can appreciate it,
   and is the reason why i don't understand rap, and never will.

1.

From our
safe windows,
we crane our necks,
rubbernecking
past the slow
motion wreckage
unfolding in Homs.

We remain
perfectly
perched
to marvel at
the elegant arc of
a mortar shell
framing tomorrows
deep horizon,
whistling through
the twilight to
find its fruitful
mark.

In the now
we keep
complicit time,
to the arrest
of beating hearts,
snapping fingers
to the pop
of rifle cracks,
swooning to
the delicious
intoxication of
curling smoke
lofting ever
upward;
yet
thankfully
remain
distant
enough to
recuse any
possibility
of an
intimate
nexus
with the
besieged.

2.

From our
safe windows,
we behold the
urgent arrivals of
The Friends of Syria
demanding
clean sheets
and 4 Star
room service at a
Tunisian Palace
recently cleaned
and under new
management
promising a
much needed
refurbishment.

The gathered,
a clique of
this epochs
movers and shakers,
a veritable
rouges gallery of
ambassadorial
prelates, Emirs and
state department
bureaucrats
summoned
with portfolio
from the
darkest corners
of the globe.

They are
eager to
sanctify
the misery
of Homs,
deflect and
lay blame
with realpolitik
rationalizations,
commencing
official commissions
of inquiry,
deliberating
grave considerations,
issuing indictments
of formal charges for
Crimes Against
Humanity
while
remaining
urgently
engrossed
in the fascination
of interviewing
potential
process servers
to deliver the bad news
to Bashar al-Assad
and his soulless
Baathist
confederates,
if papers
are to be
served.

Yes, the diplomats
are busy meeting
in closed rooms.

In hushed circles
they whisper
into aroused ears,
railing against
Russia’s
gun running
intransigence
and China’s
geopolitical
chess moves.

Statesmen
boast of the
intrepid justice
of tipping points
and the moving poetry
of self serving tales,
weighing the impact
of stern sanctions
amidst the historical
confusion of the
asymmetrical
symmetries
of civil war.

Caravans
of Arab League
envoys roll up
in silver Bentleys,
crossing deserts
of contradictory
obfuscations,
navigating the
endless dunes
with hand held
sextants of
hidden agendas.

The heroic
Bedouins are
eager to offload
their baggage
and share
on the ground
intelligence from
their recent soirées
across Syria.

They beg
a quick fix,
the triage of a
critical catharsis
to bleed their
brains dry
of heinous
recollections,
pleading
release from a
troubled conscience
victimized by
the unnerving paradox
of reconciling
discoveries of
perverse voyeurism
with the sanctioned
explanations
of their respective
ruling elites.

The bellies
of these
scopophiliacs
are distended;
grown queasy
from a steady diet
of malfeasance
an ulcerated
world parades
in continuous loop;
spewing the raw feeds
of real time misery;
forcibly fed
the grim
visions of
frantic
fathers
rushing
the mangled
carcases
of mortally
wounded
children
to crumpled
piles of smashed
concrete that were
once hospitals.

We despondently
ask how
much longer
must we
look into
the eyes
of starving
children
emaciated from
the wanton
indifference
of the world?


3.

From our
safe windows
we wonder
how much
longer can
the urgent
burning
ambivalence
continue
before it
consumes
our common
humanity in
a final
conflagration?

My hair already
singed by the
endless firestorms
sweeping the prairies
of the world.

How can we survive
the trampling hoards,
the marauding
plagues of acrimony
fed by a voracious
blood lust aspiring to
victimize the people
of Homs and a
thousand cities
like it?


4.

From my safe
window I stand in witness
to the state execution of
refugees fleeing the
living nightmare
of Baba Amr.

The ****** of innocents,
today's newly minted martyrs,
women and children
cornered, trapped
on treacherous roads,
mercilessly
slaughtered and
defiled in death
to mark the lesson
of a ruthless master
enthralled with the
power of his
sadistic fascist
lordship.

I cannot avert my eyes
marking sights
of pleading women
begging for the
lives of their children
in exchange for
the gratification
of a sadists
lust.

My heart
is impaled
on the sharp
spear of
outrage
beholding
careening
children mowed
down with the
serrated blades
protruding
from marauding
jeeps of laughing
soldiers.

I drop
to my knees
in lakes of
tears
reflecting
a grotesque
horror stricken
image of myself.

My eyes have
murdered my soul.

The ghastly images
of Homs have chased
away my Holy Ghost
to the safety of a child's
sandbox hidden away
in a long forgotten
revered memory.


5.

From my safe window
I seethe with anger
demanding vengeance,
debating how to rise
to meet the obscenity of
the Butcher of Damascus.

The sword of Damocles
dangles so tantalizingly close
to this tyrants throat.  

The covered women
of Homs scream prayers
“may Allah bring Bashar to ruin”

Dare I pray
that Allah trip the
horsehair trigger
that holds the
sword at bay?

Do I pick up
the sword
a wield it
as an
avenging
angel?

Am I the
John Brown
of our time?

Do I organize
a Lincoln Brigade
and join the growing
leagues of jihadists
amassing at the
Gates of Damascus?

Will my righteous
indignation fit well
in a confederacy
with Hamas and
al-Qaeda as my
comrades in arms?

Do I succumb to
the passion of hate
and become just
another murderous
partisan, or do I
commend the power
of love and marshal
truth to speak with
the force of
satyagraha?

I lift a fervent prayer
to claim the justice
of Allah’s ear,
“may the knowing one
lift the veil of foolishness
that covers my heart in
cloaks of resent, cure
my blindness that ignores
my raging disease of
plausible deniability
ravaging the body politic
of humanity.”

6.

Indeed,
physician heal thyself.

I run to embrace my
illness.

I pine to understand it.

I undertake the
difficult regimen
of a cure to eradicate
the terrible affliction.

This
pernicious
plague,
subverting
the notion
of a shared
humanness
is a cunning
sedition that
undermines
the unity of
the holy spirit.  

The bell from
the toppled steeples
still tolls, echoing
across the space of
continents and eons
of temporal time.

The faithful chimes
gently chides us
to remove the wedge
of perception that
separates, divides
and undermines.

Time has come
to liberally
apply the balm
that salves the
open wounds
so common to
our common
human condition.

The power of prayer
is the joining of hands
with others racked
with the common
affliction of humanness.

Allah,  
My eyes are wide open,
my sacred heart revealed,
my sleeves are rolled up,
my memory is stocked,
my soul filled with resolve,
my hand is lifted
extended to all
brothers and sisters.
Lift us,
gather us
into one
loving embrace.

Selah


7.

From the safe
windows of
our palaces
we live within
earshot of
the trilling
zaghroutas
of exasperation
flowing from
the besieged
city smouldering
under Bashar’s
symphony of terror.

Our nostrils
fill with the
acrid plumes
of unrequited
lamentations
lifting from the
the burning
destruction
of shelled
buildings.

Our eyes spark
from the night
tracers
of sleeking
snipers
flitting along
the city’s
rooftops.

The deadly jinn
indiscriminately
inject the
paralysis of
random fear
into the veins
of the city
with each
skillful
head shot.

These
ghoulish
assassins
lavish in their
macabre work;
like vultures
they eagerly
feast on the
corpses of their ****,
the stench of bloated
bodies drying in the
sun is the perfume
that fills their nostrils.


8.

From our
safe window
we discern the
silhouettes of militants
still boldly standing
amidst the
mounting rubble of an
unbowed Homs
shouting;

Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!
Allah Akbar!!!

raising pumped fists,
singing songs
of resistance,
dancing to
the revelation of
freedom,
refusing to
be coward by
the slashing
whips of a
butchers
terrible
sword.


9.

From my
safe window
my tongue laps
the pap
of infants
suckling from
the depleted
teats of mothers
who cannot cry
for their dying
children;
tears fail
to well from
the exhaustion
of dehydrated
pools.

10.

From my
safe window
my heart stirs
to the muezzin
calling the
desperate faithful
from the toppled
rubble of dashed
minarets.

We can
no longer
shut our ears
to the adhan
of screams
the silent
voices that echo
the blatant injustice
of a people under siege.


11.

From my
safe window,
I pay
Homage to Homs
and call brothers
and sisters to rise
with vigilant
insistence
that hostilities
cease and
humanity be
upheld,
respected and
protected.


12.

From my safe
window
I perceive
the zagroutas
of sorrow
manifest as a
whiling hum,
a sweeping
blue mist,
levitating
the coffins
from the rubble
of ravaged streets.

The swirling
chorus of
mourning
joins my
desperate
prayers;
rising in
concert
with the
black billows
of smoke
dancing
away
from the
flaming
embers
of scorched
neighborhoods.


13.

From my
safe window
I heed
the fluttering
wings
of avenging
angels
furiously
batting
as they
climb
the black
plumes,
lifting from
the scattered bricks
of the desecrated
city.

It is the
Jacob’s
Ladder
for our
time;
marking
a new
consecrated
place
where
a New Adam
is destined
to be formed
from the
pulverized
stones of
desolation.

14.

From our
safe windows
we peer into
resplendent
mirrors
beholding
the perfect image of
ourselves
eying
falling tears
dripping blood,
coloring death
onto the
blanched sheets
of disheveled beds.


15.

From our
safe windows
our voices are silenced,
our words mock urgency
our thoughts betray comprehension
our senses fail to illicit empathy
our action is the only worthy prayer


16.

From my
safe window
I hear the
mortar shells
walking toward
my little palace,
the crack
of a ******
shot
precedes
the wiz of a
passing bullet
whispering
its presence
into my
waxen
ear.


17.

From my
safe window,
my palms scoop
the rich soil
of the flower boxes
perched on my sill.
I anoint the tender
green shoots of  the
Arab Spring
with an incessant flow
of bittersweet tears.

Music selection:
John Coltrane
A Love Supreme
Acknowledgment

Oakland
2/28/12
jbm

/notably concerning graduate education at the university of Edinburgh: why do these doctors think they can teach, who made them so, well, what's the word, useless, demeaned at having to teach? every time a doctor of chemistry was asked to teach it was like watching someone being tortured in an iron maiden... sure, a professor of chemistry could teach, just like every single post-graduate, PhD student should have taught, a doctor of chemistry didn't teach, unless he taught as Americans are prone to speaking in acronyms, and they say the Scots speak an undecipherable english... like **** they do, understood them like I might understand the zest pinch of a hobskotch chili! after all, the chemistry doctor doesn't exactly make use of his PhD students, but since they were the sheep first to the slaughter before the guillotine of knowledge, they could translate the higher tier chemistry to the undergraduates... no one sane enough would want to learn chemistry from a doctor of chemistry... those men and women are lost to their own enterprises, to their own Faustian romance, to teach chemistry at university, it would be best to be taught by those inclined to further adhere to advanced pedagogy... post-graduates ought to replace doctors in teaching undergraduate material... balanced out by the fact that the said doctors would not require the help of PhD students in research, with what already is time wasted on lecturing, what to them is, the ****** obvious... but then again... the supply and demand isn't there... even though PhD students could teach, they don't, smug chemistry doctors lecture in the guise of solipsism... theyd rather be engrossed in their research than give lectures... but since those trained PhD monkeys do all the trial and error, wasted time, which the doctors themselves could do... they waste their time on giving undergraduate lectures... because these recent protests at universities, where students complained about not having enough time spent with doctors in the field... I'd start by bemoaning not being given enough post-graduate time... after all, the people who closest to jumping over the waiting benchmark.../

in vino veritas:
due proof that snobbery
and that indie collection
of the smiths' reissue
only goes so far,
    comparatively,
Miles Davis' kind of blue
isn't overrated nor is
it overplayed,
notably a conversation
with Boris, the Russian
in Edinburgh,
who had to pick sketches
of spain as his favourite...
pop music versus ******
fetishes... people will be
ashamed of pop song guilty
pleasures than any bedroom
"deviances",
the boat the boat, whatever floats
yours...  
mine? seven years late,
Britney spears' criminal...
because John Coltrane'
a love supreme is easier
to digest than ******* brew?
fudged packed *******
and a perpetuated crescendo...
Boris could have took to
Porgy and Bess...
         or the birth of cool...
whatever it was,
high above Steppenwolf
   desiring the immortality
of a Bach... still:
       there's Händel...
but let's face it,
both sides lost something,
whatever the iron curtain
was, there was also
something akin to the,
jazz window...
                  because can you
even imagine jazz being learned
at a music liceum?
       i still don't know why
the Japanese love classical music,
or why it's Chopin rather than
List embedded in their heads,
not the gentle fingers of Satie
or Debussy...
         two Portuguese jesuits did
little to spread Christianity,
but music written by Chopin
found its atom, its universality
of translation...
                  even withe the Higgs...
something that is non-divisible,
not atomic, not sub-atomic,
                               über-atomar...
supra-atomic, which includes
the sub-atomic spectrum...
         a perpetuated ad continuum
     of ad per se, in addition to:
an addition, an addition,
        a void brimful of a lost
paraphrasing...
                          in the name of...
in the direction of (the) ortho-
   and of (the) meta-
    and of (the) para-...
                  amen.
                       the upright,
rigidness of: jump off a building,
see pancakes at the bottom...
the desire for a hier-und-nach...
well.. telegram cipher from 1930s
**** Germany,  in response
to heidegger's da-sein...
     da-nach...
                 no need to explore
the paragraph, just enough tease
to block out images of, "paradise"...
       para or besides norms,
    a phenomenon and
      an anomaly that's a res per se,
Kantian for: noumenon...
          a proposition without a school,
or tree of logic, which,
Husserl did manifest...
    in phenomenology...
              I can't help but notice
that classical music is only
relevant today because of movies...
listen to any classical music chart,
7/10 times it's music accompanying
a movie...
               comparing
kind of blue to midnight sonata?
yep, the later is overplayed...
   it's no longer a piece of music,
but a literary cliché...
      even in such wonderful books
like geek love by Katherine Dunn...
jazz is the only genre of music
that comes close to prog. rock,
    id est, no song: an album...
      even though I admit
king crimson's in the court...
     with children of men
      as a backdrop...
once upon a time the iron curtain
and the jazz window...
    rap, shmap, shpindle me dingo...
and the old man still lectures me
on work, born in 1939,
who still remembrance the Soviet army
of boy-soldiers and black-clad SS-men...
oh there was work just after the war,
given what Aries took with
the harvest just years prior...
                       woe to the aspiring poets
born in a cocoon of a father
who laboured by perfecting a trade
that, apparently,  no future Englishman
would take up! or if they did...
only via the trickling down
of the plutocratic, extended family...
and a ****** job they did too...
         well... if everyone is willing
to be and only be, a pop star entertainer...
I'd hate to imagine this piece
to be an instruction manual,
   a cohrent: whip and stirrup
demanding a gallop...
                       perhaps less cabaret voltaire,
and more jackson *******,
because why should painters be
allowed all the excuses under the sun?
and when will I see a poetry anthology
written solely by critics?
          oddly enough:
or rather, the pitfall...
     reading a poem never manifests
itself in a drive to write one myself...
an enzyme of a blank,
      a substrate of a butcher's novel...
or rather... a meaty novel, preferably
historical, notably one
that serves as an answer to Muslims
with regards to:
   remembering the Crusades,
forgotten the Golden Horde...
           and never really bothering
to look into the other crusades
against the Prussians, Lithuanians,
Kashubians et al.
                   such feral lands...
perhaps if you speak the language
as well as Norman Davies...
  you might, just might, not stand out
like a sore thumb in these parts.

Nima looked bored
as we walked
the art gallery
she was only allowed out

of the hospital
for a few hours
promising no drug fixes
or *****

can't we go elsewhere?
she asked
bored here
I felt her boredom

it seeped into my bones
let's go for a coffee
I said
so we went for a coffee

in a coffee bar
across the road
and had a smoke
you were late

she said
I only have a few hours
out of that mad house
sorry I popped

into the jazz record shop
and left me waiting
in Trafalgar Square
she said

what did you buy?
nothing yet
I said
I'll go back later

saw a Coltrane LP I liked
I said
***** that jazz stuff
she said

we drained our coffees
and walked back
to the train station
and I saw her

on her train
and kissed her
at the window
and the train went off

and I watched
until she was out of sight
then back tracked
to the jazz record shop

to buy the Coltrane LP
thinking of Nima
and the time
we had a ***

in that cheap hotel
by Charing Cross
and the bed creaking
and the odd

hot and cold water taps
and she and I
laying there
I walked back

to the gallery
for a last look around
thinking of the Coltrane
and the Coltrane sound.

Rain soaks through my shoulders
And trickles down my spine
Like fingers over cracked and fractured stone.

Your breaths come like zephyrs
Your limbs tangle up with mine
Your voice, the only one I've ever known.

   And Coltrane blows a story tall
   To a bass line like a siren call
   Building tapestries of Cashmere
   For a dry and blistered blank concrete wall.

   You'll always be the bright full moon
   That filled my chest and filled the room
   While Rome is burned to embers
   The drums of war rose carrying the tune.


Footsteps on city walls
Hands upon splintered wood.
The battles lead to losses for all sides.

Honey comes from stinging bees
I'd get some for you if I could
But winter left us lost on drifting tides.

   Still Coltrane blows a story tall
   To a bass line like a siren call
   Building tapestries of Cashmere
   For a dry and blistered blank concrete wall.

   I'll offer you a silk cocoon
   A watercoloured afternoon
   While Rome is burned to embers
   The drums of war rose carrying the tune.


Morning sun brings the day
The smell of candles still
Clothes hang to dry from chairs along the walls.

Take our time to wake up
Arms protect you from the chill
"Yesterday," the radio news recalls.

   Then Coltrane blows a story tall
   To a bass line like a siren call
   Building tapestries of Cashmere
   For a dry and blistered blank concrete wall.

   The sunrise like the silver moon
   Paints us in gold and fills the room
   While Rome is burned to embers
   The drums of war rose carrying the tune.

Having met Julie
at Victoria railway station
and travelled by tube
to Charing Cross Road

you sneaked
into Dobell's
jazz record shop
and listened

to some Coltrane
in the small record booth
up close
she having got out

of the hospital
for the day
although
the drug withdrawal

was getting her tight
her short skirt
was riding high
as she sat there

squashed up
near to you
her eyes closing
and opening

her hands
in prayer mode
in her lap
can we go now?

she said
I need a drink
and smoke
so you left the booth

giving the guy
back the Coltrane
record sleeve
and left the shop

taking it on foot
to the café
and ordering
two coffees

and she took out
her smokes and lit up
and she gave
you one too

and she talked
of how her parents
hadn't visited
and how

the whole show
at the hospital
was getting her
on the edge

and you sat
watching her
the dark hair
drawn back

with a black ribbon
the red
high necked jumper
the short black skirt

her eyes bright
as stars
her lips making
a large O

then closing up
and going
like a narrow slit
you remember

that quickie
we had
in that small cupboard?
she said

those brooms
and boxes
and then she smiled
and you smiled too

that was my last time
she said
last time I had it
she said louder

she took a drag
of her smoke
and sat silent
watching the smoke

rise before her eyes
Warwick’s worried
about you
you said

is he now
she said sarcastically
well he can go pray
to his God

for me then
she said
sitting back
in the seat

yes you thought
the ***
had been good
but quick

unexpected
out of the blue
she in her night gown
(and little else)

and in the background
the music playing
from the radio
some Beatles' song

along the hospital ward
what did you think
of the Coltrane album?
you said

breaking the silence
in the café
bored my **** off
she said

I’ll get it anyway
you replied
and she looked out
the window darkly

as if someone
had fingered her
slowly
then died.

Each finds
their own salvation
or not,
Nima said.

Birds fed
in her hair.

Her eyes ******
in black holes,
gave birth to dreams.

I sat beside her,
drank black coffee,
smoked menthol cigarettes,
heard Coltrane
on the HiFi.

How deep
does my soul go?
She asked,
what is *** after all?

I inhaled and looked
at the cavern
of her small
firm *******.

Cold turkey,
she said,
rather have
a cool fix.

I sat exhaling
menthol smoke;
the Coltrane runs
on saxophone
caught in my ears.

I think I’ve spiders
in my ******,
she said;
******* ones
with hairy legs.

I closed my eyes
supping on
the menthol smoke,
sensing Coltrane's sound
invade my soul.

Nima lay back down,
legs spread,
black beetles
and insects
inside
her drained out
head.

I’ve always been the quiet type, never one to do the speaking, just listening and observing the lives of those around me.
If I can remember correctly, I began as a light blue, sheltering a newborn baby, Conner, I was covered in wallpaper lined by teddy bears with white silk bow ties like pin stripe pants.
Those few days before his birth in ’62 were filled with anxiety and anticipation, with his parents sneaking in to gaze upon my blue coat, tears in their eyes for the gift that they were days away from receiving. However, they would soon find that the young baby spent little time in my embrace other than evening naps, otherwise his cries became loud with the longing for his mum.

Six years later the teddy bears came down from the walls along with the crib, to be replaced by a bed, the baby blue coat replaced by a loud red.
Watching him grow, I saw his good days and his bad, he was built for math, fast cars, and jubilant laughter.
He had come to me in the midst of April when the flowers outside the windows bloomed, and left for a university after they flowered a mere twelve times.
Once again, his parents visited me, with tears in their eyes as if by being with me his presence would be restored.

His father had talked of a promotion he’d dreamed of, so with more money they were off to a more luxurious home, I was not sad, I was not lonely, I was happy.

I was alone for a while, while the wallpaper had been striped from me and I lay bear and exposed for quite some time, only briefly being introduced to new families by a smiling woman with high heels and big hair.
A group of four moved in, Tom, Adam, Lana, and Louisa. They painted my walls a bright yellow and carpeted my wooden floors, they added filing cabinets, desks, a white board, a telephone, and a book shelf that decorated my left side.
The boys were mechanics, around thirty years at the time, and worked strenuous hours. They bent over their desks re-drawing, re-scaling, and re-shaping until perfection.
Blue prints poured from their cabinets. The two girls owned a boutique down by the grocery store, I saw them less often, but they didn’t bring home their work, only their stories and their stress. It was a short acquaintance with the group, as their hearts were set on the big city and soon their paychecks were capable of supporting that lifestyle.

I was not sad, I was not lonely, I was happy for them.

The following year in ’88 a family of four moved in.
John, Ali and their twin girls converted me to a gym with barbells and some odd-looking mechanism called a “Bo Flex” used for hanging up dry cleaning and attracting the dust.
By then my vibrant yellow walls had faded to beige and my beige carpet had faded to yellow.

I don’t know much about those folks, as in-home gyms are more for decoration than utilization, I guess. The girls visited on days when the heat was unbearable in the Texas sun, running in with loud laughter as they let their weight thud into the ground. They sprawled themselves out on my floors making snow angels, in my warm, worn carpet. Oh, how I loved their attention!

They also left the windows open unlike Adam and Tom, so even when they weren’t around the sunshine kept me company. After fourteen years Bailey left shortly after Annie. I rarely saw anyone for a year or so after that.
The house became too big for John and Ali, and they decided to make the move to Florida that they’d always dreamed of.

The movers came and lifted the heavy weights from my creaking floors, but I was not sad, I was not lonely, I was happy.

The last person that came to live among my embrace was the eldest daughter of three girls. She and I became the closest of all prior inhabitants. Perhaps it was because of the frequent lack of happiness in her eyes, it was the only time I’d had an issue with my inability to intervene in a situation and speak as opposed to listening.
She left my walls there bare color, but adorned me with newspaper clippings and photographs. I was never lonely because her sisters looked up to her, never wanting to leave me, because they never wanted to leave her.
She was more imaginative than the young boy, and more precise than the mechanics.
The music she played was constant and expansive, from Sinatra and Coltrane to A Tribe Called Quest and the Rolling stones. It all correlated with her mood, causing me great joy when the tempo was fast, and depression in times when the dark music fell upon the room.
Her life appeared to be a struggle, as she often threw herself upon the carpet crying until late hours in the night. Only to wake up before the sun rose to write lengthy accounts of the inexplicable sadness she frequently experienced.

Soon she found the help that I was unable to provide with a therapist who visited her in the privacy of her own bedroom. The kind woman encouraged her to participate in activities beyond the confines of my four walls.
She had dreamed to be a psychologist, she wanted to help people, because she knew first hand how much some really needed it. And at age eighteen, that’s exactly what she set off to become.

She moved to Boulder the university she had written about and had wanted to attend for years past.
So I was not sad, I was not lonely, I was happy for her.

She doesn’t rest within my walls and doesn’t watch my flowers bloom, but the sisters, they often come back to visit and roll up the blinds to let the sun shine in, practice their own talents, and fall in love with their own dreams, I am not lonely, they don’t leave me. In fact, one of them is sprawled out upon my floor now, taking over her sister’s absence with a pen and paper of her own.