Playing the Train

               for Donald Byrd

Nights, noise out of time

drove him from the building

and into the subway where tracks

clicked like the good sidemen

he couldn’t afford.

He’d work the valves quietly

and ride them to the end of the line.

Dozens of trips and he’d know

the flip side of silence

is recorded alone,

and being there has nothing

to do with where you are.

                                                                                    printable

Listening to Eva Cassidy

Her, Live at Blues Alley, while

midnight rolls on and

Sagittarius leads the moon

and Capricornus

west across the swale

between the hills

above Nederlo Creek

and into the narrows

of Johnstown Valley,

I recall dialing

the coordinates

of Aquila

(there, hard above,

quite clearly)

into the sextant

as we flew

deliberately west

to the combat zone.

Even there, the

firmament

was constant,

nights,

as my friends

fell like Icarus

to the South

China Sea or

the land

we’d grown

up romanticizing

as Indochina.

Let me tell you

how it was, how

their familiar

voices would call,

“Mayday,” after “Mayday,”

into the

insignificance

offered them

by the McNamaras

and Westmorlands;

the cosseted

criminals we

still choose to shield

from guilt.

I recall the best,

will not forget

the shards of

Bill, Jim, Jay, Barney

and the rest,

that turn and turn

until they are smaller,

smaller still

in the shoals

and paddies

that looked so lovely

when the sun was right.

Eva has moved on

from Bridge Over

Troubled Water

had her lovely way

with Autumn Leaves

and would have us believe

It’s a Wonderful World.

It is going on late

in the CD, and

although she

has never flown

above the Mekong

choked with freighters

delivering nothingness

into oblivion,

I do not care.

Instead, I blessed her

for her delivery,

with spot on pitch,

soul perfect clarity,

these thirteen songs

the few of us

are left behind to hear.

                                                                         printable

Mulligan

When I can’t sleep

because I’m in NJ

and not the Wyeth,

winter fields

of Wisconsin I miss

to the point of

suicide,

I walk out

to the back of

the garage

and if I’m blessed

with clear sky

I look at the few strong stars

that survive there.

I stand in the cold,

small-hour quiet, and

think very hard

of the constant, solid

bedrock Bill Crow and

Gus Johnson put down for

Bob Brookmeyer and

Gerry,

and Gerry,

Sweet Jesus, and Gerry

to play their melodic tennis upon,

there in May ’62,

in Manhattan,

so Weill’s

Lost in the Stars

could spin into the universe

and sparkle back to us,

to hold,

now.

This firmly in mind

I look up

and up again at those

thin Jersey stars

to say

an inadequate thanks;

my thin reed

too small a tribute

to that celestial sax;

that baritone;

that long, slow pledge

that moan, that love played

absolutely,

and absolutely

never meant to go away.

                                                                              printable