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Thrown upon the tide of modernity:
An audience is about to witness A new jazz form: 'Hard Bop' raises some eyebrows amongst the old cats who are still on the scene. "Dis 'ere..." Cannonball announces, E flat sax of his all lit up In a smoke-filled club, "... is a jazz waltz." Brother Nat' s horn Plays a foreign fanfare, Proclaiming the second coming, Like a thousand tongues of Energetic Pentecostals. This here's a whole congregation, Of foot-tapping listeners who, In the Spirit, At once Are slain. Timmons plays Gospel harmonies Leads the crowd to Galilee As we pray for a life in 3/4. 3 counts; no rests. Jazz. Period. No clever etiquette No corny grace notes No artificial trills Nor clinical chord progressions Straight jackets are for slave-owners Hear this waltz Of American struggle And you'll be reborn You'll 'fil' the soil 'n Learn to till Landing deep in cotton fields A primeval urge to reinvent Set our ancestors Like driven jazz drummers, Hurtling towards This England: with it's thuggish, smug all-knowing un-' reality'. This double-edged sword Of 'knowledge' : Science and Faith. Which one's the gloopy black Murderous residue? Product of people's neuroses, and Their glib hypotheses? PAIN. An entire people, Destined for syncopation, Like a band on the brink of combustion, Yearns for perfect fifths And blues scales, Imperfect cadences And diminished sevenths Mirroring ANGUISH unanswered. Musical puritanity Reflects a so-called developed Fittest race's Stifled creativity and general Unsatisfaction. Yet the calculated cold Rhythm of scientific 'cures' mysterious 'vaccinations' Will never revive a knotted foetus. From the dead, only the chosen ones (Cannonball's audience) Are raised, each one of us a Lazarus, Energised by Art; Released from our condition. Celebrating survival like a brand new genre; Our clapping, hollering, joy... Acknowledged by a jazz quartet. Now we're safe Like the bayou being embraced by the steaming, tropical rain. See the clowns, all Devoid of elation? Blacked up in their white cake stick expressions, 'A jinglin' and janglin' to powerful Scarecrows of power-hungry idols? A hate's Only born out of human thinking. Definitions of races and colours of skin, Genders of some and the soggy fluidity of others, plus the Instagram influencers and transitioning sub-groups Lock us all down whilst Tying us all up with dandelion stalks; Failing to mend 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 and grammar over-complicate life like Hierarchy in the Catholic Church. The heart's a waltz. 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 self-serving need to amend. Just music, A soulful jazz waltz, Like a preacher's charisma, Ties up a life neatly To the right tense. A messy beginning can always come good in the end.
