IN THE EARLY A.M.

IN THE EARLY A,M,

Early in the a.m.
those nights when you can't sleep
you read or write
and fill your sound track with jazz.
its too dark out there
ride your bike.
Distant sirens speak of other's distress
and you wonder if they will survive the mess.
I sit warm in my seat
and surf the net
fishing for my mind.
The DJ at WWOZ
lists the players
and greets the sun
in New Orleans.
I wait patiently for the inspiration
that comes from a good coffee
and good music
this kid is nice but
I wish he would just shut up
and play the music.
There that's better.
I have my morning sneeze
and from the prison of my body
escape to the playground of my mind.
To all the prisoners everywhere
there is no there, there.
I lost my shooter glasses
seventy bucks
down the drain
and you know you'll never see them
again.
From pop to dixieland
and Bessie Smith
fronting up the band.
Long gone in human time
but its like I'm in the club
on someone else's dime
having a drink
and keeping time.
Bags died just last year
a couple of months before
Katrina's drive by
in New Orleans.
That master from MJQ
once sat at a table
with me and my second
at a long gone
Lucy's jazz workshop
down in tourist tickey tacky now
Gastown.
All genuine native artifacts
made in China
and dim witted tourists
cameras poised
waiting for the steam clock
to fart its jet of steam
and go Toooot!
The second was seventeen
on her second date with
much too old for her me.
She was much impressed
and bought an album the next day
for us to take down and have Bags
autograph it.
How much water under the bridge
in the intervening years.
Memory is tricky
and things were not that good
or that bad.
WWOZ is back to yap yap
with the play bills for the clubs
playing jazz in New Orleans
and then back to Louis
and a weather report
84`F and high humidity
showers and thunder storms.
Charlie Parker "Bird" plays
and as the graffiti
says
"Bird Lives"
bebop, to swing, to slide,
Dixieland,
back to the blues
and around we go again
here in the
the early a.m.

JWL

Copyright John-Ward Leighton
16 August 2006
All rights reserved