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Asha Ryder Feb 2013
Thelonious Tree had so long been in slumber
that no one alive could remember the number
of years he'd been snoozing, and it became understood
that Thelonious Tree was asleep now for good.

On the first day of spring dawned a day calm and fair
when a horrible noise pierced the still morning air.
It rattled his roots, yes it shuddered his trunk
and dimly Thelonious heard the cathunk
that rustled his leaves where birds were at nest
till grim and confused, he was roused from his rest.

Ancient Thelonious opened one bleary eye
saw the soil caked with concrete, saw how smog choked the sky,
and worse still he saw that clamorous sound
belonged to a man far below on the ground
with an axe in his hand and the axe went cathunk
each time it was buried in the side of his trunk.
From a slumber so deep it had lasted an age,
Thelonious now woke to a terrible rage.

He shook of the very last traces of sleep
as he pulled out his roots from their place in the deep;
he reached down and with a sickening smack
threw that axeman so far he would never come back.
The man landed far off in the limbs of some trees
where he threw down his axe and he yelped out a "please!
that the trees were alive, why I never did know,
I'm done with my axe now; I'll just help things grow!"

Meanwhile Thelonious found that nothing was green,
there were but stumps in the earth where his friends once had been.
They were now houses and fences and tables and chairs
they were burning in chimneys and polluting the air.
Heavy with grief, he at last understood
that the humans cared nothing for trees; only wood.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2020
someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way...

exploring the last remains of thought -
well then... suit and boot me up for some "thinking"
as i extend it into writing...

if i were of the native stock... "elsewhere":
most probably h'america or australia... even in italy
having tea with mussolini i'd be:
an expat... as an outsider among outsiders
but among my sameness-namesakes of surnames
akin to jones and smith:

i will never be an "immigrant" among...
it's not even a voice of cocern, this little voice of
mine...
an englishman who decides to move
to h'america is an expatriate for the native
englishman who stayed behind...
he's never an immigrant...

perhaps other nations view the people that left
them in such a positive light?
where else to emigrate to that doesn't
speak basic english with a tinge of
a "welcoming" plethora of accents?

proudly having expatriated...
or having to have had to humbly emigrated...
bark bite and tail in tow...
my the luck of being an expatriate...
readily prepared with a francophile basis...
e.g., or some other: less frost-bitten
idealism as the work ethic of:
work work work...

we know the english immigrants
as expatriates... but i doubt that people
from where i from would call me...
an expatriate... they'd call me...
eh... hangman noose... a deserter...
god forbid the fact that i somehow managed
to integrate... but then found myself wondering...

have, have integrated into... "what"?!
today i was truly astounded...
after all... Romford, Essex... England...
can boast about a few things...
notably? it's the past place you can buy vinyl
without amazon.co.uk...
you can actually play the buyer and the person
that loiters with his shadow...
flicking through a dictionary of sorts...
finding a record...

i actually left the house for ulterior motives...
but i succumbed to the allure...
and as i walked the January 2nd 2020 highstreet
in Romford...
i heard english... as a spoken language...
twice in the pedestrian commute...
and of course when it came to a lingua franca
scenario of buying or selling something...
otherwise:

perhaps i retained my primitive instincts
and the tongue and should have left it with a ghost
of me back in the clarifying vicinity of
an airport 50 miles from Warsaw...
i have bigger things to worry about though:
how i should start learning Romanian...
even though: i thought bilingualism was a good
idea?
it's not?

not among the natives could i ever be
an expatriate...
an ever: never... like any more thesaurus
sharpening would do the trick to balance
the optics of "perspective"...

if it wasn't a mistake...
it has still been a purchase:
freddie hubbard on the trumpet,
jackie mclean on the alto sax,
kenny drew on piano,
doug watkins on bass
and pete la roca on drums...

the only reason as to why i bought
a gramaphone was to buy the only cheap vinyl
there is... jazz...
to escape the earphones...
to find the complete volume of space
that would later be deemed:
confined to a room... cell... or some alternative
variation: but... oh jeez...
how wrong it was of me...

make a note: alto sax jazz is not for you...
remember: alto sax jazz is not for you...

a sensation of being a foreigner in
an already double-dutch foreign sense of land...
anything that drops from clinching
to the London transport system
with the trains and the tubes and buses
is: england...
the england of my youth where i remained
like that... dunce in the ****** tunes cartoons
interlude...

and what of my citizenship on paper?
wave a passport around
like a benchmark or an otherwise easy
accent-identifier?
perhaps i don't even know:
Bristolian - my best guess with this acquired
tongue...

but at least buying jazz is getting easier...
freddie hubbard a known name...
but... no... alto sax jazz is not for me...
now it figures...
i can get away on a whim when
a trumpet solos... but not when an alto sax
solos... i really can't stomach it...
will i give this Bluesnik record back?
no, i need a testament -
i have bought something
but the self-reflection is free...

there's only so much classical music escapism
you can try -
before long you realise that the people
listening to classical music...
mostly... when they make requests...
want "something soothing"...
want "something jovial"...
or usually it's a piece of music that has
been attached to a movie...
classical music - apparently doesn't feed
people a subtle stream of images...
and it's obvious: those requests are not phoned
in on by blind people...

imagine... the ****** of F... when you have ⠋
to work with...
what is an sunrise... a sunset but a dash
of colour... a spring of the heavens
an autumn of the heavens...
but my my... in this inverted listening of jazz...
⠙⠑⠑⠏
⠃⠇⠥ ⠑    DEEP BLUE...

if i were blind: and came to the pearly gates...
i'd ask for letters: primo pronto!
later i'd worry about colours and shapes...
as i'd probably stick to my first passion
and hearing this fathomless shapeless
sounds that... abide to no lineage with a recant
of a triangle's use of 90°...

otherwise... what if you've been fed
the: classical music when listened to when a child
will increase your i.q. -
but what are the chances that you will:
"regress" from listening to classical
music and take to jazz?
perhaps because jazz has to be felt,
it has to be heard, first,
rather than... the silence and scribbles
of a composer at his desk -
where a classical music composition
is very much like writing:
that whole a prior shabang!
none of the a posteriori zigzagging
of impromptu and jazz?

one thing is certain... i'm not going to
be a fan of alto sax jazz...
sonny clark on piano - yes...
art blakey on drums - yes...
kenny burrell on guitar - yes...
alto sax no... ah... but give me tenor sax
and... no please no big bang jazz
equivalent to thelonious monk...
at least jazz gives you pedestrian tastes
and whims...
nothing akin to bowing at the altar
of a Beethoven: or talking lightly of
the man - "the man"...

and who the hell said that being
objectivity "works all the time"
that objectivity "runs the marathon"...
alto sax jazz is pedestrian music...
don't get me wrong...
you want to walk down a busy street
and you want to drown the sounds
of progress: no horses sneezing,
no horses' hooves playing tic-tac-toe
chess on cobweb stones...
alto sax jazz is your take-out
walk-through...
but when you're hunched in a chair
and pecking at a keyboard with
ten good beaks of the tips of your fingers...

again: how do the hands rest before
the keyboard?
the right hand:
index middle, pinky and thumb...
the ring finger is used for the: delete button...
a revision - the pinky does the enter -
and the cascade follows...
the left hand?

primarily the index and *******...
the thumb is always attached to space...
shared with the right hand's *******
to space,
i can't remember if i ever used my ring
or pinky finger of my left arm...

so much for inverted chiromancy...
the polacks will never give me the wings
to be an expatriate...
i will be forever: he who abandoned
that land running with milk and honey...
but... look at how they stand behind those
from england that decided to go "elsewhere"...
they are not immigrants...
they are... expatriates...
have nothing filthy them it comes to
the connotation...
it's not sad it's not funny it's: somewhere
"in between"...

because we know that the only russians
that ever make it out of russia
are the oligarchs... and by that standard
of "sentiment": they're always welcome...
who wouldn't welcome the pharaohs without
giza pyramid ambitions of construction?!
passing chalk as cheese -
and passing... ink for blood...
perhaps i haven't sweated enough to be allowed
to write but as little as this...

there's always this sense of alienation
among the germanic tribes of "israel":
europe... even if they are the scots or the welsh
suckling at the teats of romulus & remus' lupa...
as the old saying goes among the slavic people
when "integrating" into a germanic-esque society -
by the time you have integrated...
there's this dog-**** pile of Babylon left...
and the germans are: "nowhere"!

the saying goes via:
if you go among the crows...
you must croak their croak...

here's to flying high as an imitation seagull!
brazen: into this arable land...
that's being teased by the Thames estuary...

passing through a Warsaw train station
i noticed the immigrants / the expatriates
on the eastern front...
mostly mongols...
notably the ukrainians...
but now in england i'm starting to think
in concrete terms... better start learning
Romanians...
and on the street: you can't see a focus of
who's here and who isn't here...
back east the Roma people stood out
like a sore thumb or a voodoo plum and...
that didn't bother the locals since they were
meshed like glue...
but, here, in england?
everyone's a sore thumb a voodoo plum...
because the natives,
the blessed idiosyncratic professional
eccentrics have left and...
i'm not going to be the first chasing them down...

London the only and last bastion is
overrun with the whole lot of us...
well: the "us" vs. "them" mentality...
don't get me wrong... i'll still listen to the concerns
of the peripheries... in this cest pool
of immigrants, degenerates...
old people who "forgot" to move...
the lunatics the in-betweeners and the old guard
clinging on...
perhaps, after all... english was a very
accomodating language...
it wouldn't take a genius to learn it from scratch
being thrown into the deep end of the pool
aged 8...
who was mute aged 8 going to school
being moved from "east" europe to this island
with... no prior to linguistic connection?
moi...

and now look at me... i'm teasing myself
with... sordid welsh as if i were ever the posterboy
for welsh nationalism...
scottish nationalism? eh... if they were to retain
their gaellic roots...

expansion:
the longing for those who have left:
in the anglo-sphere - expatriate...
the abhoring sense of those who arrive -
immigrant...
otherwise... the english are always
and everywhere: welcome...
hence the expatriate status of those
who have left their native land...
even in h'america: a shared language:
to be an immigrant... while speaking
the same language?! how preposterous!

the difference between eastern style
comedy presentation and western style
comedy presentation: on stage...

the eastern folk prefer cabaret: theatre dialogue
montages...
the western folk prefer stand-up:
monologue samuel beckett esque
performances...
'woe i... stand alone in this infinite
space and... find others to laugh with...'

- perhaps we're not being less funny because
we're lowering our "i.q.": yes, the we are...
we are... lowering...
i find lee evans to be funny...
a laurel and hardy weren't exactly funny
by modern comedy standards that:
it's only funny if it's intelligent...
if there's a crossword puzzle at the end of "it"...

perhaps pride is the shackle...
and ham... what ever happened to self-depreciating
humor that managed to somehow
elevate you as also having a sense
of humor:
do intelligent men even laugh
at something that isn't a word-play or
a corset of wit?
perhaps we're experiencing a drying of wip...
perhaps the jokes are only supposed
to come: days after as a form of
reflection on the sigma canvas:
the joke has to exist outside the performer
and the stage... it needs to be: a live-experience...
it has to take on DASEIN qualities?
it has to be internalised?

that: oh yeah... that's funny...
perhaps the same thing has to be observed
and it can't be retold in an impromptu
fashion shackled to a stage?
the stage is the new camp-fire?
i thought so too... about the television...

as: here's to slagging off everything that's
being published online bypassing
the editorial process of selection...
well... if it weren't for all the seriousness
surrounding internet banking...
and internet shopping...
pen to paper...
******* clinching a ripped roll
of cushioning paper
and a pseudo-***** imitation
for a wipe while massaging my prostate
over the enlightened prospect
of dropping the blitzkrieg plump-dump-plum
into an echoing lake in the ceramic basin...
otherwise...

a seanse with that moment of realisation:
"something is happening to us
collectively"... it's as if: we're under a spell...
oh i was under a spell today...
watching alec guinness in the fall of the roman
empire...
and as coming from a people
that were never conquered by rome?
on this fine fine island that was...
well... my hopes were also high for
the conquests of the mongol empire...
and the remains of it in the form of the tatars
in crimea...

here are my tattoos... it's hard to break from them,
it's hard to wash them away...
but at least i can attest:
my brain might be all fat and sponge and
electricity... but there's some skull and skin
to be had of it...
otherwise... why would the year 1066
be important for me... why would the magna carta
be important for me?
i too have my years in tattoos on this big brian
of mine...

otherwise there's that copernico-darwinian
surge of: journalistic science...
i still find it staggering that darwinism continues
to capture the imagination of people...
"of people"... only in Wittgenstein was left
alone in finding that Copernicus did something
astounding... this surge of "awakening"
via darwinism: this statistical bombardment
like it was some tabloid journalism:
throwing a pebble at a mountain while
also ushering in a mantra: grow by
a poppy's seed added height! grow!

perhaps i'm just jealous...
among the polacks i will never be an expatriate...
what a jealous people...
an englishman who moves to france...
comes 20 year later...
he will have never experienced
the mark of cain: immigration "humphrey bogart"...
he or she moved to france...
perhaps to italy...
i remember being in greece and...
i was nothing when i said i was ******:
but with british citizenship! to add...
so what?
well... so what greece...
i latched onto some north africans
and went to **** away the night
in some strip-bar where i had
two strippers either head o' mine...
and it was constellations galore...
grandmother Etna said:
rest here, among the smooches poor child...

i borrowed Etna from when Aeneas
"left off"...
****'s sake... this is the Meditarrean
and not the Baltic? where is the amber
the whiskey and the leverage of gratations
of time?!

i will agree. Macedonia come night traffic
of quicksilver tinging?
if the metal is cheap and you douse it in some gold?
a mountain dripping fresh from some quicksilver
from the moon peering at it?
objectivity what?

the finite plateau of snow-riddled Serbia...
and perhaps that's because these people
speak their own language...
and have so... and i'm just the next
"english" tourist...
a jack kerouac americanism and:
oh sure! sure!
spectacular fly-over country tourism!
everything's so so different!
and yet all so oh so much the same!

darwinism was going to run the 5000 meter
race... it's currently running the 10000 meter
race... god help it in running the marathon
of still pretending: old news is new news...
i can't distinguish between darwinism
and copernican discovery...
only in the english-speaking world
would this discovery not escape a criticism
from ancient greece and some, some predecesor!

wouldn't anyone just bore of darwinism
if they were told: over and over again:
the copernican "reality"?
a scientific fact is... akin to a religious dogma...
until... it becomes regurgitated with
enough time, with enough journalism and...
tabloid wind... and after a while...
it's only worthwhile to be spoken to
amnesia peoples of the world: unite!
it's hardly "stupid" or "intelligent"...
more or less overlooked...
because a pebble thrown at a mountain:
is... no added mountain to behold...
conventional wisdom is the only wisdom
that there ever was made to be made:
available...

nonetheless, the circumstance stands...
unless from the slavic hemisphere
of europe...
unlike any other circumstance: other than
the one given, among islanders...
among continent builders akin
to australia and h'america...
the post-racial societies of post-colonial
spain in south america?
ever wonder why the brazillians don't
look for inspiration from the portugese
when it comes to football?
you'd think: those yanks better have
the best football team in the world...
they haven't exactly looked back...
back at "us": oh god... tea afternoon and cricket...
baseball wha'?
basketball? "football"?
why are "we" looking forward and "they're"
looking back?
perhaps i should learn some spanish and
get some insinuation about:
the argentinian sense of lack when looking
back into spain...

or what else is there to be had?
move to Greenland... admire Denmark...
**** it: do the whole stretch and find
some locals on the Faroe Islands...
perhaps i too will find a tomorrow...
but tomorrow i will find: sobering up
and having to deal with: everything beside jazz...

mmm... "delayed gratification" prospects...
seven kings: canon palmer catholic school...
when boys are educated alongside girls...
what if i went to Ilford County High?
what if i were born to immigrant parents
and wasn't an 8 year old immigrant?
what if i went to the Ilford Ursulines?
the all-girls school... the former, Ilford County High?
what chances of me being an intellectual
******?

what, oh the chances!
perhaps praying: segregated... is a tad extreme?
but perhaps ******-exclusion policies:
teaching boys throughout their puberty
as segregated from girls in the same hormonal
development "range" is...
well! how else! you take a boy and girl
and you put them into the hormonal cocktail!
just because it's in a shared educational
environment... why these teenage pregnacies
you ask?
i wouldn't ask such blunt questions...
not since the genius of Copernicus
couldn't attract these...
psychological left-over intelligenstia clingers...
that darwinism has allowed...
what it darwinism and journalism?
everything! the ant as the ego
inside the mind of an ape...
the dormant tapeworm embryo
inside the mind of an ant:
with siesmic consequence of a disturbance
of the collective hive network...

borrow too much from an ape...
borrowing from an ape is one thing...
it's the borrowing from all other
animals: with the ape as the backdrop
that's truly bothersome!
at least religious spew the same facts
over and over again...
scientific dogma? who keeps track?
tomorrow might be the next:
butter vs. margarine controversy!
what sort of "religion" is science
(it's not a religion... if it's not...
why does it have to cohabit a bed
with journalism then, to spew "new",
"improved" facts, then?!)
when... it's so ******* finicky!

look via the ape long enough:
it won't matter whether it's a geocentric
of a heliocentric system that
reigns above your head, no torso,
a pickled spine...
legs and arms floating about like:
an octopus experiencing spasms
pickled in brine...

perhaps these are the zenith years of
darwinistic popularity...
perhaps like the copernican popularity...
there will come a time of:
fatalism... that somehow all of this
is... inevitable...

i see one answer: this cage of grammar
this cage of whatever this god made human
pressures me into complying to...
to the last typo! i will stand against it!
without caging me into a use of emoji or
some other hieroglyphic purse of:
shortened "thinking"...

the "seven silences" might have passed
around my presence that i dare not
call it: in concrete - figure...
and still my eigth silence to unmask
nothing more than a mask...

who are these immigrants, these tight brewed
broods, these furrow brows
representing the native pensive "squint":
of anything beside the eyes and a thought
of h. p. lovecraft?
perhaps inside of europe:
but as ever... without a russian passport...
without a russophobia that's
a tickling hard-on... the "in-between-land"...
perhaps the balkans...
who are we... to these germans and quasi-germans?

we use their tongue, their zunge...
their everything they will otherwise allow themselves
to deny: perhaps this is not Dublin,
this is not Glasgow this is not Cardiff...
perhaps this is not Italy,
this is not France...
perhaps this is "europe" as long as
Scandinavia is involved...

woe a we unto us: the viking Rus...
or some lent word of lost vogue...
last time i heard:
these northern ******* are in no favour
of treating the Spaniards or the Greeks
as their equals...
as long as they have rich arab pimps
race their lamborghini brute ******
down... knightsbridge...

then! and only then! iz ist europa "reconquista"!
"reconquista"... i'll defend these poor polacks
that didn't think it...
"necessary" to only learn english in order
to comply to the global dictum of neu-communist
internationalism...
- what, they didn't teach you you stupid
**** that it only took to learn from english?!
- last time i heard... not teachings polish
to a canape of anything beside the french,
the spanish... also worked!

english as a language is oh so accomodating...
the people will react like antibiotics,
naturally... enough of darwinism and you'll
be found, bound, to having to reference it...
past a de facto menu:
and more like a subjectivity...
there's only so much truth that can be stated...
before fiction has to reply...
because... how many regurgitated facts
can be regurgitated...
before the desert of fiction and...
there's only the fact of a bottle of water...
that remains...
and there's not impetus to walk toward
an oasis...
a fata morgana is hardly a scientific experience...
when experienced...
it's something associated with
a desert and within the desert must either:
live... or die...

what if etymology was to become the new
standard for journalism...
what if one were to escape this contant
bombardment of darwinism...
like it wasn't the next new vogue akin
to the copernican "revolution"?

is that even possible?
whenever i return to Poland...
esp. in Warsaw... i'm a deserter...
i'm not an expatriate...
the native english call those who left
with a sense of longing...
somehow: or at least that's the leftover...
the expatriates from the inside-out
perspective... never the immigrants...

i'm an immigrant and...
a paper citizenship is: no citizenship at all...
a passport is only worth a passport
at a border crossing...
in between the everyday daily affairs?
'where are you from?'
****... 'Bristol?!'...
i'm hardly going to speak
the cockney cockers or an essex schlang...
am i? ***!
all but ******* plumbers and church pulpit
mongers... and some over-ripe
riddle fruits: if not simply left
bottles of wine for the bears...

the first part though, bothers me...

someone once said: only the natives can be designated
free speech...
the immigrants can have their dog
and let it bark, along with whatever thinking comes
their way... in mere thinking...
and a dog barking...

the natives will only have a freedom of speech...
what if an immigrant becomes a citizen?
just asking...
what if an immigrant is granted a citizen
status?
well then... i am your humble example
of a civic nationalist...
such a confusing term...
it must be: for the natives...

oh ****... what language am i using?
the language of the... natives!
rubric civitas!
civic nationalism is reserved for:
those that came from abroad...
i guess the ethno-nationalists never made
this distinction clear:
watching their contemporaries leave their
native pit of woe...
and they would never call them:
deserters... only... only... expatriates...
after all... aren't we in the postmortem of ancient Rome?!
isn't this the time when the remnant
english come out and glorify being
the conquered people of this: lettering?

what is civic nationalism?
what is learnt, integrated nationalism...
this is civic nationalism...
how about the english forget about something,
like solving crosswords...
esp. among the middle-classes...
and let's envision their globalist dream!
let them learn a second language
and let us all become bilingual!
oh no... not polyglots... just bilingual!

i can't be an ethno-nationalist...
em... because (a) (b) and (c)?
aren't the post-colonial commonwealth
remnants of the empire the sort
civic-nationalists there's talk of?
what language am i writing in?
hebrew?! mandarin?!

ethno-natioanlism and its tribalism...
civic-nationalism and its state...
where does the church fit into all of this?
it's like not being an amuptee but
nonetheless being prescribed a "missing limb"...
the **** would i need a third arm for?
wilt the third leg allow me to run faster?!

i guess the term ethno-nationalist is
conflated with civic-nationalist in the ethno-nationalist
realm of "debate"...
a civic-nationalist is your casual parlance
h'american patriot...
patriotism in h'america: nationalism (still)...
in europe...
if we have to: hello, my name is: bob
do it all over again with the squares
and dictum assertions and what not attached...
between the ethno-nationalists and
the civic-nationalists...
the inter-nationalists...

i'm a civic-nationalist because:
i fear people need concrete examples...
i will not move back to Poland...
except on the holidays...
to visit my grandparents...
which is why i have retained the labour
of a native tongue... and "identity"...
i will remain in England...
until England becomes: Alle-Land...
and even when all these
ethno-nationalists ******* to Australia...
and become civic-nationalists over there...
well: over there good luck!

why would anyone ask an ethno-nationalist
the question: are you a civic-nationalist or?
civic- implies:
i'm a Brit from a grand "beyond":
circa 3000km away...
civic is a bewildering prefix for the nationalist
of a ethno- persuasion...
it really is... esp. when this ethno-nationalist
doesn't believe in the existence of
expatriates... that he would remain... "stuck"...
and that somehow... ethno-kin could come
and replace... those kin that left: "in good faith"...

savvy?!
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i can't believe i came across this today,
but i am certain did...
   an experience so vague i couldn't believe,
i actually experienced dyslexia,
call it quasi call it pseduo... but it was very
much akin... from the book's narrative...
but not from the footnotes, i read the footnotes
at perfect cognitive speed, but perhaps
returning to the narrative i did experience
a slack of the + (add) of how words are
dissected and quickly put back together...
  yes, that other arithmetic with very little
breathing room, yes, that thing without
a soul... the word... or god...
    i turned custard brain, fudge...
     i felt like watching the gymnastics at
the para-olympics... and if i was going for a cheap
joke / english black humor i'd probably
laugh at that... but since this is the most
perfect ideal, i can't only make that comparison.

and so it was, i sat there doing nothing productive,
nothing... counting sheep to encourage
day-dreaming...
       so i said: 'i'll read a book', like i might do
on the whim in my grandparent's house
(one of the many reasons i decided to be "canadian" -
and establish a firm belief in bilingualism -
since if i didn't speak the tribal tongue
i wouldn't be rummaging in my grandfather's
library... and stealing books from him...
  well, exporting them to england, where he said
on my last visit: your library is bigger than
mine, isn't? well... it can fill a double-bed
   and be stacked at about 300cm up...)
    maybe the fact that being immersed in the tribe:
polish on the radio, on the television,
the fact that i can be without the internet for
weeks on end and have no quick-canvas outlet for
my earned tongue is the reason i could read
Kraszewski's* Dei Ira / bozy gniew / god's wrath...
    (there is too much subtle differences between
capital iota and little-town lambda -
   or why iota had to have the dot above it, anyway) -
so dei ira looks better... which is why i'm
not orthodox about using capital instances all the time...
   what a whirlwind...
         but prior to that i was watching
a david jacoby film - love is the devil: study for
a portrait by francis bacon...
                                         and all i could think of:
what marvel, to have a **** shoved up your ***
and speak so beautifully...
  have such a vast array of narratives...
     i can only assume that experiencing **** ***
gives you the other man's **** shoved into
your mouth that acts like a tongue and speaks
      so many truths as could be possible,
as in Freudian dream: when a woman wears a hat...
a talking ****** on her head from slurping
at the vaginal grotto of another woman...
     such a marvel though, homosexuality, esp.
the type of homosexuality that has art to express
rather than a civil partnership, civil rights...
  i mean, i could watch this stuff for days and never
yawn or need to watch protests and marches...
  just the image of what is best described
   john william waterhouse's
   painting hypnos and thanatos...
      i can't help but see it like that...
         francis plays the female role, his model the evident
dominant male... and sure, francis having his
**** punctured for what could be best described
as diarhhea either side of the equator does so...
it's as if he is eloquent enough / intelligent to allow
this to happen, for another man to speak through
him somehow... the model's phallus in francis' ****
becomes the model's tongue in francis' mouth...
    which becomes the stage for hypnos and thanatos...
in that francis' tongue becomes a phallus in
the mind of the model: and it whispers him nightmares
in his sleep... a vicious cycle indeed...
           that's the homosexuality that's highly regarded
by me, not the confetti functional type that
    exploits science and social norms and can no longer
lend itself to art, to transcending the taboo...
      with homosexuality divorced from art...
i can't see anything profound by gays from now on...
i really can't... if there is no art in this deviant
love, no art is worth being expressed by this
once glorious realm that has grovelled into the gutter...
so let's start once more: with Onan!

and everyday i awake wake with only one identifiable
fear: will i not write a single verse as of today?
it's not a case of a single day encapsulating my
fear, but that that crux day: furthered into a silence
that can't compensate the act of writing with
anything, other than sleep... i just can't seem
to smarten up concerning this very rational phobia...
    and having said that: here is the incision mark
denoting an interlude, and how: what are originally
intended to be of enso quality, cannot
   stand up to the biological tick-tock of needing
the loo...
     and do i think o'keefe's music foundation
by children is so much better than the original
done by tool concerning the song forty six & two?
yes, yes i do... just look at the kid on the bass guitar,
the fact that bass guitar is allowed to state a layer
of cake just above drums to set the rhythm
means the rhythm guitar doesn't have to solipsistic
******* and scale the everest of solo...
   it can remain in the rhythm section,
actually be worth a rhythm,
   the guitar doesn't need to overload into a solo...
the vocals belong to that domain...
   as long as the bass guitar is allowed to be heard
(unlike in metallica) - then i must be tone deaf!
revise me!
                    jazz knew the importance of every instrument,
and the need to be spontaneous, but also
the need to be anti-synchronisation,
  and therefore anti-muddle tsunami of:
all together now!
            n'ah, **** that **** (yes, the Vulgate is
coming along, i like the pooch, i don't care what things
i might say, the rude growl-bark is coming along:
so we can admire him licking his *****, and for no
other reason he's coming):
as in the birth of sexes... which the animals don't
seem to comprehend that much intently...
                 i can't like my ******* or **** one off...
but i know i can abstract a woman into
a hand and just pretend it's me doing the ****
crap with her... than myself included,
   or as i might add: never drink or *******
before the mirror... soon enough your reflection
becomes a bit odd, not because of what you do,
but because you hide so much perplexity before
you in Lucifer's daylight with which
  the moon Narcissus governs the moods...
that you start to look at your actual shadow
   with more clarity and fact...
  looking in the mirror is the reverse of looking
at your shadow under a street-lamp at night...
the mirror sort of becomes a shadow...
             the form becomes a bit (ha ha, what
an exagerration) vague... i look into
a mirror and i am but looking into shadow...
                   and i can't exactly recognise the eyes,
or make our geometric approximations
of a skull...
                      it's not even a case of a poor Yorrick
blah blah.
    or as the new governing body put it:
there are to be no mirrors contained within
the gates of Pandemonium...
        each to his own shadow, each to his own abstract...
   for the shadow will be deemed the new mirror...
   the new found glacier of, yes:
when salt water freezes, comes pure white floating
on the oceans... but must you freeze fresh water
and there's this matrix...
as in icecubes...
       dropping from a vendor machine...
and i knew i shouldn't have digressed so much,
but then again, if there was no ****** tick-tock
       rebellion, i probably wouldn't have revealed this much...
with ancient lore...
    who'd use the word Pandemonium these days,
if you're merely trying to call it: the Houses of Westminster...
well sure, accusation due: i prefer
a bunch of kids feeding me a nostalgia over a song
i heard aged 14... such is the power of the song 46 & 2
done to a... wait wait...
  i was talking about bass guitars and jazz...
(i could never get to like rap...
            i liked when the blacks deconstructed classical
music, but they did after: i'll never like,
mainly people of blackies and that general fanfare
of rap feeding tribalism) -
          the greatest aspect of jazz:
that on some recordings there's a chance to hear all
the instruments having a solo moment...
you'll hear a quintent solo:
  the piano, the drum, the saxophone, the horn,
the double-bass solo... each doing a solo...
not some erectile dysfunction of rock music from the 1980s...
i mean: each one will do a solo...
  and **** me, that's grand... and given there's no vocals
makes it all the better... but where, the ****, can i hear
jazz music being kept with such high regard as i
might find mozart pickled and even mummified
     to suddenly rise again and compose like i might hear
it on classical.fm... maybe acid jazz killed it...
   i can't seem to hear of one place where i can hear
the range of jazz music i have in my collection...
which probably mean's i'm lazy and don't fiddle about
with the radio fm and am channels... to "look" for jazz...
  i'm all applause though: jazz allowed for
deconstruction of classical music and paved the way
for the current state of polyphony in plateau...
    meaning: too much drum, too much ump-pst-ump-pst...
   jazz paved the wsay from orchestra,
   and yes, maybe because it was too impromptu
as it was necessary, that there was no jazz composer...
  there could have been no jazz script... no pre
           to what was otherwise alway and only: uno...
a once...
    sure Thelonious Monk did use an orchestra at some time...
  but if only someone decided to do a solipsism
and write out jazz like mozart wrote out
      concerto... but no... jazz descending from on high
and invoking african villages could never do to
its practitioners the deadly fate of breeding a jazz
composer...
                   it was the communal idea, the musketeer
unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno:
   you could never allow a silent dictator like
a mozart dictating to a throng of people contained
within an orchestra... which later made the once
silent dictators very very vocal... speeches in Munich
alike...
           the fact that jazz has no script,
and the fact that if someone tries to play a Miles Davis
from script... is completely an ***...
     put him on a donkey (backwards)
                     donning a sanbenito and lynch him
to the nearest traffic junction to **** louder than
a car klaxon... that will do the trick...
       they did bother to script led zeppelin though...
    maybe it was the stiff competition that did it:
jazz. airy... breezy... but what a quick moment it was...
i'm almost jealous of the beat poets experimenting
with jazz musicians... but then i'm not:
i like to think of them as parasites...
   you know... those things feeding of spontaneity...
parasites... or dare i say: plagiarising leeches...
plagiarisng what? well, not the content, the context:
feeding of jazz spontaneity... not working from
old composers like Milton or Dante...
thank god for Ezra Pound and Sylvia Plath.

seems i have a ****** for a larynx...

perhaps i just seem to mean: i am a firm believer
in bilingualism... perhaps that's based on
some sort of religiosity,
    and let me tell you: it's born with
a schismatic nature, siamese, but not like a
siamese twin, in that it really needs a surgeon...
  it's a nucleus that's inherently schismatic...
i can't blame the english nation being
so lazy in its multicultural ethos,
i quiet like it: i don't live in a ghetto...
but forgetting my native tongue just so i could
sing a national anthem with conviction?
na'ah, that's not me...
            we'll come to Kraszewski's rex piast
in a minute, and it really was a genuine
experience of placebo dyslexia,
the one on the other side: should i have written
zilch...
      i believe in something quiet Canadian...
i don't believe in isolated communities,
   or ghetto tactic... i am a firm disciple of the advent
of bilingualism: forget the *** for just one day,
your genitals won't suddenly drop off with
gangrene scabs... you don't need a doctor
to say that...
                i mean: bilingualism as a concern
for incorporated culture, and the culture you were
born in... why can't these people just care to juggle
three testicles?
                   oh, elaphantisis got in the way...
sure, two oranges and a watermelon: makes sense...
no!
      have mutual respect, you come to me sprechen
Piast i'll speak Piast to you...
   well: given that polish and polish aren't that far apart,
i'd feel inclined to utilise
           idiosyncratic lingo...
   lingua genesis...
                children are so much easier to utilise than
angels: they have yet to experience anything at all
on the Socratic basis...
            so if i talk Piast to me, you will know what
i'm talking about?
     it doesn't matter if you do... i chose to be
a library, rather than an encyclopoedia of immigrants...
    there's not need to test me on general knowledge:
the stuff i "know" already gives me membrane...
     i respect both the culture of my birth and the skin
i am sometimes told to make sure is called tattoo,
and what i see before me, and quiet frankly:
i see nothing before me... a turban here,
    a sausage & mash there, a pint of guinness there,
noodles elsewhere... all in all: globalisation
and the elements: earthquakes... torandos...
   there isn't much to see in a poly-ethnic society...
there are too many major changes taking place
in a pyramid of non-ethnic ascriptive
         non-this-and-that pawns...
  it's not even painful: just a bit disgusting to watch...
  and yes i have access to a voult of monochromatic
society:
   you know how many ethnic minorities i spotted
in a train station in Warsaw? three...
two asians and one black woman...
              i haven't experienced the cold winters in Poland:
but i knew there was a limit...
         only about three apaches in a crowd of
albinos... which doesn't translate as:
    i was somehow content, it just meant
that most signs in Warsaw are written with a bilingual
bridge of Polish... and Ukranian Cyrillic...
plenty of Ukranian Mecca-bandits, for sure,
     but that's the end of the line with what
western Europe is doing to itself...
        every time i come back from Poland
i'm smeared with a rainbow of variety,
   it's either: i want to **** all these girlies
or i want to **** them... mostly the former,
  but you get the picture of experiencing the alternative
of the western experiment: since marxist economy
was "doomed" or simply expected to fail...
the economy finally seems reasonable with safety
for the old and the pension plans...
that marxist-culturalism had to emerge... if we are not
on the same dough plan of being content with a table and
a chair: might as well say we're all prone to don
a ******* afro.
                ***** are naturally curly, no?
going back "home" is always a weird experience, i tend
to read books there... like Kraszewski (who,
even the locals **** as being an unbearable bore
and joke that Joyce is easier read)... with his dei ire...
my grandfather just dropped it into my hands
as an experiment, thinking i wouldn't read it...
    well, in terms of translation Kraszewski is a myth-broker...
no one would read him,
  meaning: i'm kind of grateful that poles
seem to sorta: not exist, when it comes to citing examples
that include modernity and the history being
formed... i could sorta believe it if i were Estonian
or Lithuanian, or from Liechtenstein...
          but we're talking about a place with a large
enough population to be a major player in some
wordly conflict... Poland isn't that small...
    but yet it appears like it appeared from
the 18th century onwards... a state partitioned...
    and what i love about remaining tactifully bilingual?
i can talk about my native in a "colonial" tongue...
hence the " " definition: self-acquired...
             that's why i became spastic-fantastic reading
Kraszewski's rex piast - nothing came in,
i lost all trace of syllable construction, i read the books
so slowly i had one page done in about 10 minutes:
prolonging my musing of world powers, thrones
and crowns on a toilet...
        *******... another interlude.

can anyone see the, dodo project? i really just see a dodo project, yes: eine dodo projekt... i'm white, i'm male: can i be allowed to express these nouns in a pronoun, or am i schizophrenic prone? it seems i c
Monk tinks tonight
fine glasses clink
convivial banter
bubble pop blink

in breathing rooms
bit woofed and stirred
the smoke mint sound
we dare exhale

Monk swings about
a bell do ding
the huey blues
bird bops on wings

hips juicy moves
rubby mounds wet ****
slow drum rolls blow
dance steady bump

Monk rocks the house
the clock do tick
me feets be tappin
gonna busta trick

key ******* bounce
mouths all agape
we gettin down
like crazy apes

Monk’s muzik rides
a sonorous beam
levitatin hipsters
to places unseen

gosh groovy tunes
a **** good gig
we all stoked up
Monk we do dig  

Monk played alright
some swingin tunes
Happy B Day Monk
you over the moon

Thelonious Monk
(October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982)

Thelonious Monk
with John Coltrane
Trinkle ******


10/9/13
Suffern
jbm
monk jumps
trinkle ****** trane
criss crossin time
aboard idiocentric planes

whacky Hackensack moods
near my mysterioso home
round bout midnight gleaning
brilliant corner poems

hummin blue monk blues
i surrender dear
Bemsha swing cast away
Friday the 13th fears

melancholy ruby swigs
straight no chaser shots
just let's cool one
at the red hot 5 Spot

rollins and griffin jammin
hudson riverside house
Weehawken royalty bows
to a spiffy charlie rouse

we remember mintons
a vast creative flood
monk be boppin on stage
when in walked bud

red rooster clucksters
raising town hall roofs
consecrating spaces playing
Monk's hallowed tunes

"pianos don't play no wrong notes"
we heard Thelonious once say
his utterances on the upright keys
ingenious music maestro on display


Music Selection:
Thelonious Monk:
In Walked Bud

Marking Thelonious Sphere Monks Centennial
10/10/17 - 10/10/17
Orlando
9/28/17
jbm
The centennial of the birth of  Thelonious Sphere Monk, master musician and composer, creative giant in the creation of modern music is 10/10/17
Pauper of Prose Jul 2018
If I’ve ever known truth it just chaffed at the neck
I’ve been suffering all the symptoms of a lack of respect
So I must reflect then deflect all the gloomy flecks I see
Then reflect again on the lifestyle,
Of the wild life inside the childish side of me
All in effort to be free
Not free falling
Not roaming from a new ideal, to new ideal like a new calling
I 'd rather have a grand New Deal like Mr. Roosevelt's
And swim easily in this sea of changes like Michael Phelps
Another straggler striding through society's slopes, in search of serenity
sincurlyxbaki Jan 2014
I asked myself over a warm cup of tea, "what kind of beauty is there in finding mystery in yourself?"
I took a little sip, and had more thoughts.
And so I scribbled, a few words on a piece of paper.
a fine day indeed to be playing Thelonious Monk,
one of my favorite Jazz pianists.
y'know, his music has a certain type of soul to it, something inviting about it. I dunno.

with that cup of tea still in hand, I listened to the ocean dance while Monk rushed over the piano keys.

that cup of tea smelled like years of fear and peace to come.
that cup of tea reminded me of the first time I burnt my finger with a candle when I was still a kid.
that cup of tea reminded me of my first love.

it reminded me that I'm still 17, it also tasted like conversations I had with friends about girls we'd never have.
"that girl. she's the one, you'd probably have a chance with her. say something, you shy mo'fo."
but then again it wasn't about probability.

it tasted like 5AM in the morning after your first breakup.
it tasted like 4PM when you wrote your first poem.
it tasted like bitterness.

the tea tasted like my love for things that have aged.
'65 Mustangs and inked pages.
ripped jeans and new faces.
jazz music and new places.

its funny what tea can do one's mind once it burns your tongue and runs down your oesophagus to warm your lungs.

Monk's music in the background, I still scribbled words on a piece of paper.
if only this moment could linger.

cup of tea, cup of tea, what type of flavor did you leave in me?

see, when i stare at this cup, it seems as if it holds unneccessary emptiness.
but can still hold my deepest desires in liquid form - a warm cup of tea.

I probably wrote all of this after I burnt my tongue with tea.
but then again, this isn't about probability.

this is from the deep of things, with love.

sincurlyxbaki
Mateuš Conrad  May 2016
jazz
Mateuš Conrad May 2016
i don't why, but it just happens sometimes,
one minute you're listening to Ryan Adams'
self-titled album with that pillar of
rock stay with me reading the Sunday Times
style magazine after having digested
the culture magazine and the Sunday Times
magazine, bobbing along to an article about
the singer Ariana Grande, seeing her almost
kissing a pooch on a skyscraper (*****,
that tongue's been up my ***, so said the pooch)
and you don't get Ryan Adams,
****'s a gridlock, a traffic jam, it doesn't
have a care for Pearl Jam and the wilderness of
Canada... so you switch listening material
to Herbie Hancock's cantaloupe island,
and suddenly you're in Philip Larkin territory...
it's funny to say that slavery of the africans
by the english to colonise the American continent
gave us fewer princes bored by Mozart
stating 'too many notes' - well jazz has enough
too many, notes, because there's this whole impromptu
going on; in my collection of the genre?
a decent list: sonny clark's complete works,
sonny clark's cool struttin',
cannonball aderley's somethin' else,
cedric 'im' brooks united africa,
booker t & the m.g.'s green onions (~jazz),
thelonious monk's monk's blues,
thelonious monk's criss-cross,
egberto gismonti's solo, eric dolphy's out to lunch,
donald byrd's royal flush, duke ellington's soul call,
terry callier's occasional rain, guru's jazzmatazz vol. 1,
miles davis' ******* brew / sketches of spain /
kind of blue / porgy and bess / the complete birth of the cool,
hurbie hancock's takin' off / my point of view,
steve kuhn trio's wisteria, joshua redman's back east,
freddie hubbard's hub-tones, john coltraine's blue train /
a love supreme, nina simone's nina simone at the village gate,
bobby mcferrin's spontaneous innovations,
chet baker's my funny valentine, dexter gordon's go!,
us3's hand on the torch, sonny rollins' ballads,
freddie hubbard's ready for freddie,
art blakey's moanin', kenny burrell's midnight blue,
chick corea's now he sings now he sobs,
mccoy tyner's the real mccoy, dianne reeve's i remember,
duke ellington's money jungle, horace silver's song
for my father, jimmy smith's back at the chicken shack,
wayne shorter's ju lu...
so with this mind, from bukowski the baton was
passed, don't get me wrong, i appreciate classical
music, but jazz is too much poetry,
not really the makings of coupling the two like
the Beats... just that they originate with a sentiment
best stated: 'what the **** was that?'
reverse aerodynamics: actually, no, proper
aerodynamics: you see the plane and then get the score
sheet... those European composers must have
been literally mad, so many instruments encoded,
pitches, larks, stresses of a violin's specific accenting
that wouldn't never sound like a nail scratching
blackboard... i know it's horrid to compliment
slavery... but hell... without it no jazz,
just stuck in a rut with classical whitey boys...
and no jazz no blues... no future rock or pop...
if there's anything to redeem the trade it's this music,
and, let me tell you, jazz is urbanity a soul of
frank o'hara's new york, it's amplified in
a suburban environment, never did suburbia
bordering on countryside feel so cosmopolitan,
but i'm adding this amplification to have been
aided by the number of birds i can spot, lazily
from my window...
and god, i love the fact that in jazz you can
have a specific bloom for each instrument used,
you can have a horn, a sax, a drum a bass solo
all in one go, so it's not as monochromatic as in
rock music (primarily occupied with
lead guitar solos, in the 1970s the drum solos
of john bonham) - all in one go i.e.
the tactful representation of each instrument,
the sort of football match analogy where every
player gets a touch of the ball / limelight.
Duke said,
“People pray in many different languages
and God hears them all.”

I’m equally a Jew and Muslim,
both living in perfect peace within me.

I’m a little bit Baptist and a little bit Episcopal.
I yearn to swim in the living waters,
and hunger for the cup and bread.

I’m more of a Quaker then a Buddhist.
Only because I’m American and I can’t speak good Chinese yet.
But Buddha’s Lamp is my constant companion,
illumining my every step in this dark world.

I’m also equally composed of east and west Indies
and sometimes even druid.
The Great Spirit and Tantric arts
remain mysteries to me.
I only know them by feeling.

And yes our Afro Heritage.
The drums, the whistle, the dance,
synchronizes our heart beat
to The Beneficent One’s finger taps.
Yes we celebrate The Holy Spirit
with cymbal, voice and drum.

I am a full dues paying member
to the 2nd Hoboken Chapter
of the Unitarian Universal Catholic Church Respectively.
We meet down the block from Sinatra’s Synagogue.
We are all apostles and responsible
for our small spaces that we rent here on earth.

I know I’m 100% Zoroastrian.
I am mesmerized by the fire.
My heart aches for the light.
I tend tiny candles
and listen for the lonely fire
of Coltrane’s sax.

I’m a nun and
a Thelonious Monk.
We run an inn for weary and lost travelers.
We build hospitals to cure the infirm;
and schools to teach the golden rule of love.
We try to do things differently.

Dizzy practiced the Behai faith.

“OOM BOP SHE BAM” I pray.

Music Selection:
Dizzy Gillespie,
Swing Low Sweet Cadillac

jbm
Oakland
12/26/98
JJ Hutton  Oct 2010
pure things
JJ Hutton Oct 2010
I lap a bit of the water out of my cupped hands,
then splash the rest on my battered face.
Evan looked at me like I was obscene,
left the room, slammed the door, burning,
Tyler was still nauseous, buried in the couch,
talked light about being surprised at his survival.
I made him some toast,
we tried to piece together the night,
but we only remembered that
he concocted some White Russian rip-off and called
it a Grey Romanian,
I talked to Rachel about *** and respect,
Evan wasn't very appreciative of the cake I baked,
nor was he kind to Shawna or Kara when
they gave him kickass gifts,
Bobby kept Tyler from drowning in his *****,
Lauren brought me a blanket when I was freezing,
I passed out in the bathroom,
and the general consensus was we need to slow down.

Tyler told me he felt like he needed to go to church.

I felt ***** too,
but it was more from the things I have seen,
I have touched, and God never could make me unsee, unfeel.

Tyler and I sat and talked like ancient men,
men who had far outlived their time,
and were just waiting for death's hour
to claim its ****.

Pure things come and find us,
we won't find you,
not down the road we've been taking.
Pure things,
the world should hang its head in shame
at all its ***** things.
Give us a revival.

The Grey Romanians, the depths,
and the *** aren't giving the answers
we expect.

I told Tyler I loved him,
walked out the door,
the sun was too bright,
I walked past an Asian lady,
her smile was insane,
I climbed in my car,
put on some Thelonious
and mended myself with each erased mile.
Copyright 2010 by J.J. Hutton
Messy, 'specially on Sundays.
Feet a'shamble from stumblin' drunkhappy.
"It's all good, baby," Blakey yells over the drums.

Bourbon flavored women hard to swallow
with their jagged softness. Smoking section (whites) stares
down dance floor (everyone else) with guilt induced jealousy.

Coltrane's back in Philly studyin.'
Pinstriped chuckle from the Rosenbergs;
kinetic energy giving birth to the cool.

The trumpeter's high turns his tool into a weapon.
The sound briefly stealing him from his demons.
"I'll find a guy when I finish my set."

Black and white televisions: blacks in white suites
Smiling china white for an all white audience.
The movers, to this point, have only been black.

Little hero Harry thinks
  blacks and whites should die on the battlefield together.
Everyone's starting to get it.

"That guitar sweeter than my old lady."
Charlie and Miles holding each other's needles
while Thelonious and his hard candy go bad.

Leanin' on bricks in a back alley.
The circle passes the joint around like the good times.
"Just keep em rollin."

The skirts expand and deflate wildly to the rhythm.
Pure sweat melting into the floors like drops of water on roots.
A melody never heard before.
Dan Sep 2015
I often write my poems too fast
And the emotion gets passed by
In a rush to be finished
I gotta remember
I'm not Jack
I can't write on a continuous scroll
In a Benzedrine blur

I wish I could read my poems
With a jazz backing band
I keep a terrible rhythm alone
And when I'm in my car
Listening to Thelonious Monk,
The Jazz King of my heart,
My voice has this growl of feeling
But when I'm on that stage
With the mic staring back at me
I hesitate
It doesn't come out right
It doesn't sound like I rehearsed it
In my bed late at night
Or on those countless car trips

Oh I wish I could take that car
Gun it down an empty highway
Windows down
Air rushing in
And the Miles Davis trumpet
Screaming for me to go
Go
Go

I want to write about more
Than just how I'm feeling
My hero Woody Guthrie said
"All you can write
Is what you see"
But I've spent too much time
Looking in the mirror
When I should be looking out the window
But the window reveals my reflection all the same
I can never truly escape my self
But still I write

I know they are in me
The true holy poems
And maybe they won't be howling
And maybe they will never have been to Chicago
And maybe they don't know any Rimbaud or Garcia Lorca
And maybe they can't sing the blues
But when it is all said and done
No matter what they are
They're all I've got
And you can never hate something like that
This was good to write and I hope you like my honesty. Honesty is the true backbone of art
Jeff Stier  Jun 2016
Monk
Jeff Stier Jun 2016
The melodious thunk
of Thelonious Monk.
Nobody ever played
the piano that way
before or since
nobody ever imagined music
that way
before or since.

It took a while
for the audience to get it.
Longer for the critics.

And the Poor Man -
all he wanted was a
hit record.

His wayward mind
took him in difficult directions.
Left him with flint on his tongue
a fever on his brain.
No matter to the music, though.

So take it any way you like -
straight, no chaser.
Or after midnight.
Doesn't matter
the time and place
the drinks they're serving.

Not in this smoky little club  
practically sitting with the band.
Know what I mean?
Music like this
might once have been heard
on a planet
spinning in some wild ellipse around
Alpha Centauri.
But never here.
Never now.

So sit back and enjoy!
That's what I'm doing -
swinging slowly.
Join me, friends.

Book your flight to
my home town.
Bring your seven-cornered syncopation hat,
your saxophone or any other
musical instruments you possess.
You can sleep in a tent
beneath the fir trees
in my backyard
once the guest room is full.

And together
we can search for
the mystic connections
between interstellar music
poetry
truth
and love.

— The End —