Best Jazz Poems

JAZZ MAN

Lips of sweat,
Igniting catalyst tune as they burn, 
Crossed eyes, attention spreads
feeling the whiteness in the pure magic
Each memo confronts the other, 
Soul cord of depth, 
and for one short-lived moment.
Losing sight of reality in a stasis of oasis.
The passionate barb sticks note directly...

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His hand is strafing the castellation on his trumpet, the valves moving up down up down like deranged pistons under the random machine gun fire of his fingers. Each note is a projectile that concusses the air, chases the one before it, nudges it from...

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Lady Ella, Queen of Jazz:
      you brought so many songs to life.
   Forget the words? Just make up new ones
         like you did on 'Mack The Knife'.

Satchmo Armstrong, so unique:
...

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Jazz was born beneath a heap of rubble,
An abandoned stray, her life was a poem
The more she shivered, slunk and tried to hide
The more she appealed to my rescuing side.
It took lots of convincing to bring her home.
She was certainly worth all of the trouble....

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SHAZZ HAZZ JAZZ-

Come sup wit me, Come sup wit me
Come sit here under my tree
Come time wit me come dine wit me
Shhh! Smoken
Ahhh! Smoken waters , cooling brezze
flown, come here sir dance wit me
Come Tago in front of the ocean
Come fly away, in the skies...

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Rock
n' roll-
two-beat blues...

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In Africa you were born 
In deep serenity
To the sounds of mighty drums 
And rhythm’s authenticity.

Stole you from your righteous land
Cut it up like a birthday cake
Gave it back to Anglo hands
But your birth was no mistake.

Hot sun baked your deep skin
In their souls your...

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- a solo nijuin renku -

English version by Liviu Martinescu

entrance to an underground
crowds in winter's clouds
and an atomic clock to boot

          the first snowflakes on
          the punching...

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From bebop, swing to hip-hops thing
True poets had it best
For there is a rhythm in the soul, 
Which they all just had to express

Some could not control
This powerful thing 
 Was so often put to the test

It began to dawn coming on strong
Within the birth...

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Slow drawn, steeping tea bags, in an etched glass pitcher,
Lazily infuse its Oriental musk into the sun warmed brew.
 My ice crackles along with the thunder over the great Mississippi
As the ewers’ spout releases the torrents of Southern comfort 
Into the tall, foggy, frost laden...

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Jazz Horn

Now put your left foot forward.
Next put your right foot ahead.
See how that works?
See how the workings of these two appendages
Facilitates the outcome
Of one continuous forward motion
To where you’re going … in this world?
Welcome, my friend, 
To this deliciously dark dish of desperate cravings!
Look...

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December 14, 1965           

"Mr. Samuel Cooke. Sam Cooke??
You been in that casket for three days..
You a long way from Chicago, son?"

And Sam said, "What happened
Where am I?"

"This is the Judgement room.
In about ten minutes God...

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You spoke a new language
  of rarefied air
  guided nonchalantly 
  through curving channels of brass

Conduits of cool
  juries of jazz
  floating past soulful valves 
  harbingers of what will come

Slender fingers
  improvising storylines
  magistrates of melancholy
...

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What is that feelin'
Creepin' 'bout my heart,
I think its kind of blue
Breakin' me apart

Fallin' into pieces
How many a heart has,
Once throbbed with neon
And all that jazz

I'm feelin' kind of blue
Not deep enough to cry,
A solemn kind of blue
Don't need to wonder why

Revolving slowly into
This somber...

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Chips and Salsa (22 Feb 2019)

Life could be better, but easily worse.
Sometimes I feel blessed, other times cursed.
As I get older, I look back and see—
Life’s mostly better, when you are with me.

Sometimes we argue, but don’t really fight.
I know you love me, so it’s...

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