the Count of Red Bank.
I don’t want the same beat
as I gaze out at the Grand Canyon
or up at the Dogstar
in a tenement window
or at an eagle who owns the air.
I don’t want the same beat
as the buffoon on the turntable
selling his secondhand soul
to the organ-grinder’s monkey.
I don’t want the same beat
like a pitiful needle
stuck in a hyperbolic groove
at the end of The Causeway.
I don’t want the same beat
as only background
for the skullduggery
of Iceberg Slim on a bullhorn.
I don’t want the same beat
as the false witness,
because I know any man
with that much gold in his mouth
has already been bought & sold.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
I don’t want the
same beat.
TO BEAUTY
Just painting things black will get you nowhere. —Otto Dix
The jazz drummer’s
midnight skin
balances the whole
room, the American
flag dangling from his breast
pocket. An album
cover. “Everything
I have ever seen is
beautiful.” A decade
before a caricaturist
draws a Star of David
for a saxophonist’s lapel
on the poster of “Jonny
spielt auf,” his brush
played every note & shade
of incarnadine darkness.
Here’s his self-portrait
with telephone, as if
clutching a mike
like Frank Sinatra—
posed as an underworld
character, or poised
for a dance step.
Shimmy & Charleston.
Perfumed & cocksure,
you’d never know
he sat for hours
darning his trousers
with a silver needle,
stitching night shadows
to facade. The rosy lady’s
orange hair & corsage
alight the dancefloor,
all their faces stopped
with tempera & time.
The drummer’s shirt
the same hue & texture
as a woman’s dress,
balanced on the edge
of some anticipated
embrace. The yellow
feathers of a rare bird
quiver in a dancer’s hat,
past the drum skin tattooed
with an Indian chief.
IGNIS FATUUS
Something or someone. A feeling
among a swish of reeds. A swampy
glow haloes the Spanish moss,
& there’s a swaying at the edge
like a child’s memory of abuse
growing flesh, living on what
a screech owl recalls. Nothing
but a presence that fills up
the mind, a replenished body
singing its way into doubletalk.
In the city, “Will o’ the Wisp”
floats out of Miles’ trumpet,
leaning ghosts against nighttime’s
backdrop of neon. A foolish fire
can also start this way: before
you slide the key into the lock
& half-turn the knob, you know
someone has snuck into your life.
A high window, a corner of sky
spies on upturned drawers of underwear
& unanswered letters, on a tin box
of luminous buttons & subway tokens,
on books, magazines, & clothes
flung
