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Austin Heath Nov 2015
Make everything around you like Jazz.
Some variation of jazz;
Cowboy Bebop, 3rd Strike,
Folk Music, Dress in Yellow,
Moon Knight or Doom [PhD]?,
Zero, Coffee or Water,
Late night chinese food for dinner.

Sleep on floral patterns.
Flannel.
Hang Christmas lights inside.
White T-shirts.
Hello Kitty.

Feminism + Nihilism,
Ethnicity? Are you half black,
or
half white
?

Make everything around you Jazz,
or some variation, write music,
write a poem, try to move on.
Stay autonomous.
Keep teaching yourself.

I don't know, I guess.
I was trying too hard to be brilliant,
however, **** it I'm a genius,
and brighter than a million suns,
and they might never look at me,
but at least I'd know why.

Stay autonomous. Teach yourself.
Make everything some variation of jazz.

It seemed like a good idea.
Amber Nov 2015
Hear my voice.
It starts from the lungs and propels through my throat
Rattles my trachea and obeys the manipulation of my oral cavity
Next on up through that of another vessel
Incessantly passing through the body
Behind furious fingers articulating words from a soulful dictionary
And out through the
Liberty
Bell.
Listen to my voice.
Its timbre is not that of natural beings, but
the content flows from my brain as a second nature
My instrument is my vessel,
My opportunity to voice that which cant be spoken.
Listen and be heard.
the saxophone produces such an immaculate quality of sound. i could only wish my actual voice had such resonance.
words ramble out
like notes through Mile's horn
or smooth strokes on the keys by Bill

poetry and jazz collide as a rhythm of sound and beats
echo through my heart and soul

love of music and words fuses inside of me
and comes out as cacophonous mix of sound
inspired by music of miles davis and bill evans
ryan Sep 2015
Every day our worries grow is
still a day I get with you, and I swear
to God that we must be the source of
all entropy because all the Love existing
in the Universe is in the way you hold
me on the sidewalk, and whatever
happens I'm falling asleep with
Ella Fitzgerald singing how
much she loves me.
Dreams of Sepia Sep 2015
some railway station food shops
are open now,
unlike when we first moved here
when everything would shut Saturday afternoon
the flea markets in the Tiergaten & at
the Mauerpark
are over-ridden with people
selling kitsch
it's early autumn and there
are still ferries on the Havel
& Spree rivers
& a juggling act & a couple of musicians
blend in with graffiti
in the evening we'll go to the B-flat
club & listen to Australian jazz
no need to worry
if the transport runs at night
or whether the stars will shine
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2015
.
Notes wash over
The no angled ear
Listener, journeyer
See trails leading
To a cloud of sun,
Break in the skies,
Soon to know again
What was creeping
In the eyes of restless
Thought, unrequited
Sense, the whirling
Ride in the globes
Of vertigo and touch.

Dismembered by mood,
The musician conjures
Lost jewels in thought,
Sparks to the mind,
Sorcery in the bland,
Wayout, man, you dig,
Tap the deep rythmns
Drowning under toes,
Shutters we have lined
Go ourselves together
In the blinds.  Turn on,

Off those penny eyes,
The horn careening
In its heights of low
Down blues and sheen,
Be bop and stirring
In a rush, unfinished
The player knows
Your got number,
Is offbeat, syncopated
With the pearly drums
Of the sheet, read heart.

Jazzman is charmer
To sleepy serpent
Kept, shot in only bars
That leech into night,
The looking glasses
Pouring over misery
Ride sweet nowhere
In the tempos of fix,
Youngling daddy-o,
Plenty is the brass horn
Of Jazz in the clears,
Cool fingers singing
What the mind hears.
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.
Braxton Reid Aug 2015
"Would you like to know my story?"
I sit across from a man far from boring
Like a noir film, the man was painted by his black silhouette
And tattooed on his arm was "Never Forget"

"I'm a bounty hunter, you see."
He said as the double bass bellowed
"There's not really a destination set out for me."
I could see that the nicotine had turned his nails yellow
And his face distorted as he remembered a past
A far off land where the moments would last

He told me about his life as a cop
And that sometimes he came to this jazz club to make the thoughts stop
He'd let the drums beat out his anger of a partner that left him for dead
And the piano would lift him back up instead

When all was said and done I told him "Good night."
Something felt different about my life
As I walked out the rain would start
It seems everybody can be a piece of art
See you space cowboy...
Braxton Reid Aug 2015
A soul uncrushed that once was
The moon rolled down our backs
I was so far from home and yet it felt comforting
To know you were the one to have what I lacked

A study of "Blue in Green"
A cigarette I hid from you when I left
The smoke trails flow with the piano
And settled when you took effect

I saw the blue in your green eyes when you said you must go
College only seemed to hold all my woes
I swore it off with the rising rage of a crescendo
But then again "Blue in Green" reminded me of home
Based on a summer with a girl, where I had just started getting into jazz
NF Aug 2015
Five monoliths stand,
Look down on the lost lady,
Scattered in leaf litter and memories,
Chased by the faint scream of a saxophone
It's funny
That she's alone.
After night after night on a darkened stage
In a seedy bar
Where it isn't wrong- it's jazz
And life,
And she can wear her skin like a crown
But now,
She is lying in the dirt,
And the only hoots she gets are from owls who dismiss her as no threat
And the only eyes that watch her are wide and glowing and waiting.
Her feet twitch to the muscle memory of a tap routine
Where she stamped her way to a high kick, slide, jazz hands, splits, arms up to take it in-
Now there is only one part of her that still sings.
It's a song of mourning.
Her heartbeat drags its feet along the floor it goes slow
Like the blues chord she never knew the notes to but she heard it in every song.
And she saw it in the smile of the piano player as he winked at her
And she flipped her hair and turned to her audience,
Safe in the knowledge he'd still be there
Until he wasn't.
Wedding bells never mastered the blues
And from the moment of his matrimony every note was too sharp to swallow,
You can't be light on your feet if your heart is heavy
She started looking for his smile in the bottom of bottles
And hugging empty pianos-
It wasn't that she needed him but without him her lungs were empty
And her songs became the warble of shot birds
She started to screech.
Now surrounded by decay
Even her body gives way to time,
Now he'd have to find beauty in between the lines that score her face
And her skin is a crust that is slowly contracting
And she is cooling.
She's half dressed in half heeled nudes
And a **** neglige
And her hair is only half curled cause the trees like it that way,
Her lips lost their red to the tint of blue,
And though she's lost her liner, her eyes are even darker.
She howls herself to sleep in shades of blues,
Writes her own chords across her bones and teaches them to the birds,
Takes their cackles for applause.
They think she sounds better that way,
Broken and drowned in a torn **** neglige.
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