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"Dis 'ere..." Cannonball announces, E flat sax of his all lit up,
In this smoke-filled club, "... is a jazz waltz." Brother Nat' s horn Plays a foreign fanfare,
Proclaiming a second coming,
Like a thousand tongues of
Prostrated Pentecostals.
This here's a whole congregation,
Of foot-tapping listeners who at once, in the Spirit,
Are slain. Let us pray for a life in 3/4.
Time.
3 counts. No rests. Jazz. Period.
No manicured motifs.
No mannered sterile trills
Knee-trembling ditties
For the dribbling proles.
A primeval urge to survive
Popelled our ancestors
Like driven jazz drummers,
Hurtling towards this existence:
A thuggish, smug all-knowing 'un-reality'.
This double-edged sword Of knowledge: Science or Faith?Which one's the gloopy black
Murderous residue?
Product of our righteous neuroses,
Our glib hypotheses?
PAIN.
An entire people, Destined for syncopation,
Like a band on the brink of combustion,
Yearns for open fifths
And blues scales,
Imperfect cadences like
Suffering unanswered.
Divine seventh as diminished as unsatisfaction.
Yet the calculated cold
Rhythm of scientific 'cures'
Will never revive our human race.
From the dead we're raised, each one of us a Lazarus, Energised by Art;
A reflection of our exquisite condition.
Celebrating survival like a genre; Our clapping, hollering, hurting...
Is acknowledged by a jazz quartet.
Now we're finally seen
As the bayou is by the southern rain.
See the clowns, all devoid of elation?
Blacked up in their white cake stick all
'A jinglin' 'n a janglin' to these all powerful
Scarecrows of ancient idols?
A hate's Only born out of thinking.
All races and colours of skin with the
Genderisations and their fluids
Indecisive sub-groups
Lock us down
Tying us up with a dandelion stalk
All wishy-washy
Wasteman cyant mend man like humankind!
This was not our agenda. To flail. To wail.
We yearn For the simplest of pasts.
Past simple; one verb and it's done.
Auxiliary verbs over-complicate life like
A priest's imperious handling of
all of the nuns.
The heart's a waltz. HEAR?
With no fourth beat.
No coda. No movements.
No tweaking.
No FACTIONS.
No BOMBINGS.
No blunders.
No blame.
No political quest for revenge
And no need to amend.
Just music,
A soulful jazz waltz, Like a preacher's charisma,
Ties life to its right tense.
A Beginning finally finding its promised End.
